California Governor Gavin Newsom’s budget provides $2.4 billion in ongoing Proposition 98 funding to permanently expand Transitional Kindergarten, or TK, which has been gaining steam in Capital area communities like Roseville. California students who turn four on or before September 1st of the upcoming 2025 academic school year should be able to enroll in a transitional kindergarten program.  Transitional Kindergarten is designed to emphasize early literacy and math skills while developing social development, emotional development, and fine motor skills. In the Roseville City School District, TK enrollment has grown from 403 enrolled students in 2019-2020 to 520 students enrolled in 2023-2024. Roseville’s district now offers a 5-hour per day TK program that is meant to give its students a head start if needed or to help them before they go to traditional kindergarten. In Sacramento County, TK enrollment has grown from 2302 students enrolled in 2019-2020 to 5,047 students enrolled in 2023-2024. H. Alix Gallagher, the director of Strategic Partnerships for Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) based out of Stanford University, said that children up to four years old can be added to TK.  However, enrolling your child into TK is not enforced. “While every district is required to offer TK, California does not require students to enroll in school until first grade,” said Gallagher. “Kindergarten and TK are both optional.” TK, which will be universal throughout California, has existed in many forms around the United States. Local education agencies in California had 46% TK stand-alone classes since 2022-2023. These ranged from the California State Preschool Program, Head Start, and others like this.