This story is part of Young Brains, Huge Stakes, a new series from KVPR. Read more stories here.
CLOVIS, Calif. — During a fall morning in a rowdy Clovis transitional kindergarten classroom, a small group of students picked up paintbrushes and answered questions from Yer Yang, their student teacher.
Yang’s questions ranged from what kind of skin color they were painting, to why the princess they created wore a hoodie. They were simple questions, but Yang said they were intentional to get the students to express themselves.
“They can incorporate that into their creativity of painting,” Yang said.
This is just one strategy Yang learned during her preK-3 Early Childhood Education Specialist Instruction Credential program at Fresno State.
The program is one of just 17 in California to offer a new early childhood education teaching credential that includes the transitional kindergarten grade level. The new program last summer came just as Gov. Gavin Newsom launched the state’s “Universal TK” program this school year after a multi-year rollout. Universal TK requires all public schools statewide to offer the new grade level to all 4-year-olds.
While most Valley districts reported having enough qualified teachers for their TK classrooms in 2024, there’s no universal definition of “qualified.”
Currently, teachers with a multiple subject credential can take 24 units in early childhood education or receive a Child Development Teacher permit from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Current college students can also obtain a prekindergarten-3 early childhood specialist credential, which is what Yang is working toward at Fresno State. School districts may also determine teachers are qualified if teachers have enough classroom experience with preschool-aged children.
Additionally, the state has taken an interest in how teachers run their transitional kindergarten classrooms. Just recently, Newsom shifted focus to a play-based learning approach in an education trailer bill that state policy said should provide “joyful, engaged learning.”
Experts such as Pei-Ying Wu, the coordinator for the Fresno State preK-3 credential program, say more training is required to teach with that approach and to make sure school districts are using the right teachers.
To that end, Valley universities and school districts are working to offer specialized teacher training, but some are struggling to get the greenlight for their programs.
“The issue is not simply a lack of teachers or even good teachers,” Wu said. “We have teachers. We have good teachers, and it's the need for greater specialization [and] preparation.”
A classroom for growing brains, not worksheets
A day in a TK classroom looks a lot different than a third grade or even kindergarten classroom.
In Melinda Miller’s transitional kindergarten classroom at Tarpey Elementary School in Clovis, where Yang was doing her student-teaching, students rotated between different stations for most of the day. There were stations with sand, action figures and building blocks, pencils with paper, and even easels and paints.
“They get to choose wherever they want,” Miller said. “If I see a center that no one is doing anymore, then we'll kind of revamp it and make it more interesting.”
Kelly Twibell, a researcher at University of California Davis, said stations and play may seem confusing to some parents, but a healthy TK classroom should have a “hum” to it. If a teacher were to assign quiet sitting time and worksheets instead, she explained, it could end up harming students more than helping.
She compared 4-year-olds to a car and their brains to the car’s engine. TK teachers don’t want to tire out the engine with memorization or repetition.
“What happens in a TK day that's not developmentally appropriate is you expend a lot of gas on things that aren't necessarily going to have a large long-term impact,” Twibell said.
With that in mind, Twibell said a play-based curriculum connects to a child’s health, resources and their future moving forward.
“It's kind of these nested systems that we can't just forget about,” she said. “When children come to TK, they bring their own selves each day, and they bring their lived experiences each day, and it's all the more reason that we need an open-ended, play-based curriculum.”
State delays on establishing teacher prep programs
To be ready for universal TK, county offices of education are looking to train teachers with the early childhood education they need. But some, such as the Merced County Office of Education, are struggling to actually get programs off the ground.
“There's a long list of programs that are in that phase where they submitted their final, final, and they're still waiting to get approved,” said Cristal Flores, the coordinator of the teacher internship program at Merced County Office of Education (MCOE).
Delays in getting approval are a result of a bottleneck at the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, Flores said, where many other educational institutions have also submitted proposals awaiting approval. Once an institution submits a proposal, staff in the state office respond with what they want changed, and it often involves a series of exchanges.
“That whole back-and-forth process can take months,” Flores said. “It can take over a year, and that's typical.”
Beyond that, the county recently updated all of its programs to align with a new state law on how to teach literacy. Now, they’re running up against an audit for accreditation to those same programs.
MCOE likely won’t begin offering the PK-3 credential for another two school years, she said.
But over 30 districts depend on the county office — many from rural areas such as Jamestown and Dos Palos. Those districts need internships to produce qualified TK teachers.
“It's so disruptive for us when these things are changing at the state level,” said David Childers, the assistant superintendent of human resources at the Dos Palos Oro-Loma Joint Unified School District. “It's just something that works its way down to the level of the small districts because we rely so heavily on the county.”
Some TK teachers and paraprofessionals at Childers’ district are currently enrolled in online programs with Biola University, he said, but he hopes the local institutions in closer proximity, such as CSU Stanislaus, Fresno State and UC Merced, will expand options.
UC Merced spokesperson Alyssa Johansen said in an email that nine students have participated in their TK teacher residency program, and according to the CTC, the program recently received accreditation to offer the credential. Fresno State has 24 students in its current cohort, and Stanislaus State offers a program too.
“Obviously, anything those three large institutions can offer only helps us improve the landscape and provide more options for our potential candidates,” Childers said.
Yang’s plans: Stay and teach in the Valley
Soon-to-be graduate Yer Yang understands how valuable her credential and future job will be to the Valley. It’s what’s on her mind when she points to a picture and asks one student how to say “horse.”
Yang’s family emigrated from Thailand when she was 2 years old. TK wasn’t around for her then, but she knows the power of early childhood education. Attending kindergarten is one reason she was the first in her family to go to college, she said.
“I came from a very big family of 14 children,” Yang said. “A lot of my siblings who were older than me, they would come and they wouldn't even get to go to elementary school…Me and my older sister, we [were] the first ones in kindergarten.”
She hopes her own success will lead to a ripple effect. Today, TK students are sounding out different words. By tomorrow, Yang said, she thinks they’ll be starting their own careers.
“They might want to increase that number of college students or increase that job diversity,” she said.
This article was produced as a project for the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2025 Data Fellowship.
