process. we will have information waiting for paris. -- for parents. we will move to program execution. we want to take this year as a learning opportunity and see how we can better integrate this as something that enhances our program. if any of you have questions, we are happy to answer them. >> thanks for the presentation. i have a couple of questions.

first, can parents' shoes to be in of program even if their children are born after the window, because a lot of parents' shoes to enroll a year later if they think their kids cannot sit still. i am wondering if parents have the option to do that. >> we know they can enroll based on age. students who qualify will enroll into the program. once they are in our schools, we have a process where they can choose to accelerate or detain them based on individual needs. that is a difficult thing.

to retain a child is different, so i think the message is different, so i am wondering if we are able to expand that. it looks like there has been not an off -- not enough to fill questions. i know a lot of people do a pre- k at their preschool because they know their children are not ready for the rigor of a kindergarten class, so i would like that to be explored a little bit. kindergarten is compulsory in california?

they did not really have to go to kindergarten. i am wondering how we do with that issue that we know if a child had some previous introduction before they go to first grade about protocols in school that they probably do better academically, but a lot of people choose for the children not to go to kindergarten, so this is all about options. we are talking about whether or not parents -- correct me if i am wrong. call saying about kindergarten is an option about whether to send your children or not.

i have a question about what is our statement and what is our policy, but we would tell parents about a program when parents come in to address that issue. and we did go to that program mainly because of costs and? by costas was really one of the drivers, but it was clear it worked. good the classes work, and they worked because what you had was a curriculum, and the cost of the developmental and training

the teachers received turned into a good model, so if you think about it, the 36 classes they started with, 36 turned out to be tk, and those children and teachers and did very well, so the ones but were combined, they worked. it was $1.5 million to do the first model. they did not have the money, so that is one of the reasons, but the other part was, this works. >> l.a. unified had 13 days for professional development, so when we look at our schedule, i

think that is huge. i think that is going to be the breaking point about whether or not that is going to be successful. i would say if cost is a factor, to make in tht a tkk program, i think they are telling us they attribute much of the success to 13 days of solid development, so this recommended for days i have an issue with, because i think if we are going to roll something out to be very successful -- this is not just another program that is not a profound. this is the foundation under which your children will be successful, so i think putting a little more money into professional development could be well worth it.

also, do we have a need that done on how this affects overall academic success? how does this program? what are the stats around behavior? we are talking about disciplined issues. was it helpful to have this program combined? today's see a benefit around student behavior, -- do they see a benefit around student behavior, what about rgi? l.a. unified has stunned the lot of money into -- sunk a lot of money into rgi, and we are

looking at new curriculum, and we are looking to maybe adopt a new curriculum, so how is this going to be introduced when we are also switching of our core curriculum. we do not want to confuse the kid, so would be in san francisco, would we encourage more parents to go from our early education programs to this program? and what is our policy? what would our state mindy. -- what would our statements the. would we say we encourage you to do it? i think they brought up a good question about the placement of

the program, so if you are enrolled in a program in school a, and you want your kids to go to school b, are they able to transition to another school? what does that look like bond? i am assuming you are only offering id at some schools. is that correct? >> every school. >> every school. >> they are already there, so these children are already sitting in a school, so all we are doing is saying individuals born in these terms, we are going to highlight you are younger than the typical child

in your classroom. we have already had children at this time. >> you are not looking -- we are looking at all classrooms. gooi am thinking when the septer 2 state kicks in, that is the 90 day kind of sustained -- thing, so what you're looking at is that every classroom has the potential to be a tkk, because we will have some kids in the classroom. is that correct? >> every classroom has the potential. i think most kids would

determine whether or not all those kids would be in one class. if it is a situation where there are three or four or five kids, that looks different from a fair are -- if there are 20 kids. >> when we do enrollment, do we differentiate when we set up the seats? what is the balance? that is a question i have. i guess i cannot visualize, and maybe we have not figured that out. how would that not process look? i do not want to add another level of confusion. i am already confused. >> because we are starting

another enrollment deal, and we keep changing a little, so may be at a later date we can hear how this will smoothly transition and be easy for parents to comprehend, because that is where i do not get its, how we are going to do enrollment, and i am not thinking of this first phase, but really, later on when we looked at that. the most important thing i would like to find out is what is the date on academic outcomes further on it? we have the districts that isn't hopefully going to -- that is hopefully going to invest districtwide, so how does that affect academic achievement overall bowman -- overall?

did we hear back about further teachers? did they do any kind of survey or questionnaire on teachers to assess whether or not they felt this was a successful program? did they get any feedback from parents who felt this was beneficial for their children? >> i am going to try to tease out the questions. >> i know i have a lot of them. if you want to respond in an you know, i am happy to do that, because i know i rattled off a lot of questions. it track>> it might be helpful r

everyone's questions, and then you can get information out to us. we are still on the development phase. >> i want to make sure i captured them. i will tell you the one thing we learned from everyone. you have to be flexible, and the reason is they are learning. they are finding what they needed to tweak along the way, and one of the major learning's is they did not know who would often to this process, the judge who would opt -- they did not know who would opt nil in this process. there were three kids who qualified. if you are asking how many kids

and who would show up, that was the one thing they were very clear about. they thought it would work certain ways, but they decided to keep it in preschools. you know who decided to do that? the ones who thought they could pay for it. there were a lot of learnings they had to be flexible about. we said, let's learn from our partners, but we will not have all the answers. >> one thing, how does this work with full inclusion? >> commissioner norton. >> i have a lot of the same questions, so i am not going to go over that again, but i think the thing that is still bothering me is the idea of a kid said is essentially in a

kindergarten classroom for two years, because most teachers i know have away they do kindergarten every year, and they have a lot of great stuff they do, but they do not necessarily change year to year, so that seems like a big expectation that teachers are going to do something different. it does not seem to be educationally sound to have kids do the same thing next year, and i am not a kindergarten teacher, but if i were, i would feel that would feel like a big undertaking to me. that concerns me. smith i am still not clear on the student assignments. it may not even be that

different, because we are going to take who comes and assign them. am i right that you are going to take who comes, assign them according to tiebreakers, and they land where they try to land? we will adjust based on who lands where. good >> we have even played around with if we assign them, we will hold slots, and parents are opting out of it. it adds another layer, so we want to see what is going to happen when this becomes a two- year program, and you are right. parents can opt in, opt out, and we do not know how the different

communities are going to see this process. they have the same concerns as you do, but you are saying, we have a model. are we saying we have concerns about preschool? we are looking at this as an opportunity to do some deep training with staff. we are looking at 13 days of training versus four. we have already been doing a core curriculum of work, and we are two years into for curriculum. now last year-and-a-half -- last year the teachers spent a year aligning illiteracies, so this

is not new work. we are saying, let's recognize there is work already. were those children left out of the mix? did we not consider them chairman and what we have to do this -- did we not consider them we need to go deeper. it's 13 days in addition to other training that we need to be very thoughtful with, making sure we are aligning with the work we are doing. it is the same concern you have.

good if you create a separate process, can you sustain it? you have to work within your current systems. this is how we are looking at how we can leverage this. commissioner maufas: i just think i have a couple of questions, and one is i want to support a question around what are the results of working with the labor partners? i am interested in that component, but i am also interested in what we are doing in partnership with our labor partners, and the other question i haven'd -- let me ask.

are we looking towards the los angeles -- how long have these been doing that? >> in los angeles is in their second year. san diego is in the second year. the program that has been doing it the longest was preschool. it was a preschool process. it was not a process in the district. >> it seems like for our purposes l.a. may have a more realistic model to look at in regards to getting information that would maybe match. we are getting that component.

it said net income families are least likely to participate -- new low income families are least likely to participate. did they express that they did a lot of professional development? what did they do with how to reach -- outreach? did you get a sense that maybe they were not as committed or maybe did a lot of assumptions around with the public would do? maybe this is for every one of these districts that maybe they did not do as much out reach, because i think we need to do a lot more of that.

this is from the ground up. we are starting from the ground up, not someone who knows our protocols, and this is just another way to work, but for parents this will be completely new, and it will be added to how do i understand the public- school system i will put my kids in? i am curious about how they outreach to folks and trying to explain from the ground upo, ths is complicated to us, but how do i explain to you? >> i think you are asking two huge questions. the first has to do with no apparent out reach -- with parent outreach.

they found that people had a different perception, so they learned along the way, and if you think about what everyone has said, there are parents who have opted into giving them more time to develop. that was a certain group of parents. it was a particular community. we need to make sure we are talking about this as truly a two-year program. is an opportunity for your child to have more time to develop some skills, and that is something they needed to do more work in. i would not say they are necessarily using l.a. as a model. i would say they are also talking to oakland and san

diego, but all of us are in the same group having the same conversations, so after a while you know. it is the same influence going on, but l.a. actually did something we are going to do, which is they created a study group, and they looked at how do they look at what they are doing in general. you start a conversation with what is it superior -- what is it. create a group with multiple stakeholders, and we are in the middle of trying to figure out how to peformed the study group where we can have multiple conversations. most of their workers with specific teachers.

gooremember that l.a. has 30,000 kids. people volunteered to go to this. these were teachers who normally had a background in preschool, so they were the ones who would be most successful, and they are using those 36 teachers to facilitate the conversation with new teachers, so it is almost like they created a trainer of trainers, but they were clear than most of their work was with the 36. goocommissioner wynns: i wantedo make a few comments.

there are reasons to do this. for decades we have been talking about changing kindergarten age, but most people who are experts in early childhood believe we should, that most kids in day age we now have in california, a quarter of them are too young for kindergarten, so this was put in place as a compromise so school districts would not lose money. one of the things that is most challenging about it is whatever the political motivation, this is an enormously complex challenge, and this is not the time to engage in that because

it costs money of. they are making this an even more difficult for us, so i have one practical question that comes to mind. if you look of the number of kids, i am presuming that next year there would be one classroom in the school. if that is true congress it seems like the only practical way to do this. we are going to have parents complaining about schools. they are going to say i want the

same access as before this was in place. go i want you to tell us what teachers are saying about that. it certainly is true. given the challenges, a different curriculum, it is not a good idea to have two kids in this classroom, three kids in that classroom when you could have a more reasonable program. there does not seem to be any other way to do it, so i am interested in those kinds of practical impacts. it is what comes to mind, and every parent will have to think about that,