By 2025–26, California will be poised to realize Universal Transitional Kindergarten (UTK). Read key takeaways from our researcher and practitioner panelists in our March 22, 2023 webinar about UTK implementation.
Researcher: Dr. Tolani Britton, Assistant Professor, Berkeley School of Education Facilitator/Researcher: Dr. Jabari Mahiri, Professor, Berkeley School of Education; Chair, 21CSLA Leadership Board Practitioner: Dr. David Diehl, Coordinator of Student Support Services at Monterey Peninsula Unified School District Practitioner: Dr. Jennifer Izant Gonzales, Director of Alternative Education at Santa Cruz County Office of Education
In the fall of 2021, most California public schools returned to in-person learning after months of remote learning. This brought about additional challenges for our leaders, as their roles and responsibilities continued to evolve and expand over the course of the pandemic (Clifford & Coggshall, 2021). For example, principals found themselves in the position of bearing additional duties such as navigating public health mandates and implementing pandemic-related policies, exacerbating the job-related stress that they experience. In addition, recent research from The National Association...
The COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to the ongoing social and political movements in the United States,has dramatically impacted the work of school leaders. Over the past year and a half, school leaders have navigated unprecedented challenges of crisis leadership while finding ways to lead schools for equity (Grissom & Condon, 2021). Such immense pressures have put school leaders in jeopardy of burnout and work-related fatigue, which may further escalate the already high turnover of principals. The 21st Century California School Leadership Academy (21CSLA) and the University of...
Recent news highlights the implications of a nationwide teacher shortage in public schools. Yet the teacher shortage and high turnover in K–12 have been long-standing challenges. Additionally, public education was highly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, causing widespread staff, teacher, and administrator attrition. This particular pandemic-related challenge is layered on top of low pay and high stress, which are two primary reasons for teacher and staff shortages overall. In response, some states have implemented strategies to help with teacher and staff shortages while attempting to...
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented an unprecedented challenge to the world’s educational systems since March 2020. As schools adapted to distance learning, new challenges and concerns emerged for students who are historically marginalized and underserved. Students with multiple and intersecting marginalized identities are disproportionately more likely to be impacted negatively by the pandemic not only academically but also psychologically.
However, in the face of adversity, many educators have responded by devising innovative approaches to support students and...
In summer 2021, California’s legislature approved a significant expansion of Transitional Kindergarten (TK). TK is a school-based early-education program serving four-year-old students who turn five after September 1 to access a robust learning experience before kindergarten. California’s effort, namely Universal Transitional Kindergarten (UTK), attempts to make TK available to every four-year-old over the next three years (by 2025–26). According to the California Department of Education (CDE), Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) is a mixed-delivery system that includes CDE-operated California...
While the demographics of students in public education in California shift toward a majority of Students of Color, the diversification of the education workforce lags. In fact, diversifying the teacher workforce has failed to be a priority throughout U.S. history. This was especially the case in light of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling and school integration efforts in which Black/African American teachers were deemed unqualified to teach White children. As a result, close to 40,000 Black teachers became unemployed in southern and border states. In the years between 1963 and...
