Beverly Hills School District Participates In Early Education Program

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — The Beverly Hills Unified School District on April 26 became part of a 15-school partnership to get ahead of an anticipated labor shortage prompted by Gov. Gavin Newsom's decision to make transitional kindergarten universally available to young learners.

The BHUSD board of education on April 26 unanimously voted to join a regional Early Childhood Education permit program, which is led by the Las Virgenes Unified School District.

The program will help already-credentialed teachers obtain the additional permit necessary to teach transitional kindergarten, according to Ryan Gleason, LVUSD's assistant superintendent of administrative services.

The first cohort will begin in June 2022. Once permitted, teachers can teach anywhere in California. Five to six BHUSD teachers will participate in the program right away, BHUSD superintendent Michael Bregy said at the April 26 board meeting.

The goal of the program is to get ahead of an anticipated workforce shortage with the incoming transitional kindergarten demand, Gleason said.

Newsom's decision will necessitate 11,000 additional teachers and 25,000 additional teacher assistants across the state — a change that has left school districts scrambling, according to CalMatters. Districts will vie for state grant funding opportunities to provide teacher training similar to LVUSD's permit program.

"If we don't find creative and innovative solutions that create broader access [to training] with high quality, we are going to be a victim of that workforce shortage that is looming. We developed these programs, the [Early Childhood Education] permit being one of them, to always be on the leading edge of a trend that is several years away," Gleason said.

Having such a broad range of schools represented in the program will also produce more well-rounded teachers and a more robust program, he said.

"When every district in the state is working towards the same goal, which is quality early childhood education, a partnership of multiple districts provides a more diverse experience for anyone being developed to teach in that setting," Gleason said. "When we work together and not in silos, everyone benefits and ultimately kids benefit."

Partnering districts include Redondo Beach; Glendale; Lawndale Elementary; Twin Rivers; Conejo Valley; Moorpark; Simi Valley; Wiseburn; Imperial County; Beverly Hills; La Canada; El Segundo; Palos Verdes Peninsula; El Segundo; and Manhattan Beach.

The Beverly Hills district already offered transitional kindergarten programs at Horace Mann and Hawthorne elementary schools with two teachers. The adoption of the statewide universal program required the district only to change the birthdate requirement for the 2022-2023 transitional kindergarten year and again for the 2025-2026 year.

The board voted in February to accept students whose 5th birthdays fall between Dec. 31 and June 30. The district previously enrolled students whose 5th birthdays fell between Aug. 1 and Dec. 31.

Under the new requirement, the district will potentially need to add three or four sections of transitional kindergarten for the 2022-2023 school year, according to Dustin Seemann, assistant superintendent of education service for BHUSD.

"There's such a need in our school district. ... We're not like other school districts. We're very fortunate. We have students that are ready to learn at an earlier age. [If we can't] provide them with that experience when they are ready to learn, we lose some students," Superintendent Michael Bregy said at a board meeting in February.