March 29, 2022 | CalMatters
Our Executive Director Patricia Lozano joins CalMatters to discuss Universal Transitional Kindergarten (UTK) and teacher shortages in California.
In summary: California needs tens of thousands of teachers and assistants to expand public school to all 4-year-olds. Private and nonprofit preschools worry they’ll lose their staff.
Access to free transitional kindergarten will benefit children who qualified for subsidized child care but could not find a slot, and those who do not qualify for help but whose families can’t afford to pay for child care or preschool, said Patricia Lozano, executive director of Early Edge, a nonprofit advocacy group that supported the new law.