School Board Adopts Transitional Kindergarten Plan, Interim Budget

Los Gatos Union School District trustees voted unanimously Tuesday evening to accept a transitional kindergarten program that will allow the new age requirement for kindergarten students to be phased-in over the next three years.

The Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010, also known as California Senate Bill 1381, amended the state Education Code so that the cut-off date for kindergartners will change from December to September.

The bill established a transitional kindergarten program that begins during the 2012-13 school year.

Through the program, children would have to turn 5 years old by Nov. 1 in 2012, by Oct. 1 in 2013 and by Sept. 1 in 2014 when the cut-off date will stay in place until amended sometime in the future.

Los Gatos Union School District Superintendent Diana Abbati and Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Bitsey Stark presented a program that would put children who turn 5 after Nov. 1 next year into a district-wide kindergarten class on one of the district’s four elementary school campuses.

According to Abbati, the district will begin outreach to parents in January, and will have enrollment registration packets in the class available one month later.

Abbati expects a class of about 30 students. She said that district officials have not decided whether the 180-minute class will be in the morning or afternoon or at which school site.

“We anticipate that this will be a popular program in our district,” she said.

According to Stark, district officials presented the program to the board in a Nov. 15 meeting as well as conducted a two-hour strategy meeting with kindergarten teachers and principals in the district on Dec. 1.

Abbati said it will cost the district an additional $100,000 to run the program for a teacher’s salary and benefits, classroom space and furniture.

In the coming months, the district will continue to do community outreach and develop the program it's calling “TK.”

District leaders will visit a transitional kindergarten site that is already operating in the Gilroy Unified School District to learn more about the program, they said.

In other news, the board voted unanimously to accept the district’s first interim budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year.

District Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Leslie Paulides and Budget Analyst Tom Gray presented the report, which outlines an adopted $17 million budget. They cited the biggest changes in the district's budget are projections of property tax increases for residents of only .37 percent—far off from the district's projection of 1.5 percent.

The district's budget will also have increases of only 2 percent in property taxes during the next two years, instead of 3 percent, they explained.

Paulides said that the dip in property tax revenue has not drastically changed the budget outcome.

“We don’t re-do a budget during the first and second interim report,” Paulides said. “The first interim budget is the easiest to talk about because there aren’t too many changes.”

Paulides did point out that the district will see a big change in the 2014-15 school year when its current six-year parcel tax expires and the board could look at another ballot initiative to extend the revenue source.

“There might be a landscape where tough decisions will be made,” she said. “Another election for the parcel tax is something on the horizon that we would have to look at.”

To the district’s surprise, enrollment is increasing, but slower than anticipated. As of Nov. 11, LGUSD had 3,078 students, and has budget allotment for an additional 50 students by the end of the school year.

Paulides said that the reason for the slowed increase is because the district calculated that the proposed Albright Way development would bring additional children into the district. However, the development will now only include senior housing as stipulated by the Los Gatos Town Council.

District officials also mentioned that Santa Clara County property tax roll corrections are at the highest in history. As of Nov. 21, the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office had $80 million in property appeals and adjustments, which would make the district lose out on hundreds of thousands of revenue.