The Guadalupe Union School District received an $8 million state facilities grant and $2 million in federal appropriations to build an eight-classroom early learning center for the city’s 3- and 4-year-olds, Superintendent Emilio Handall said.
“Right now the state is in the process of expanding its transitional-kinder program and thus we need more facilities to house essentially a brand new grade,” Handall said. “California is making funding available for schools to make more classrooms available for students.”
The state dollars can only go toward facilities construction, and the federal dollars will help build a new administrative building for teachers and site staff. The learning facility is set to open up in fall 2025 near Guadalupe’s Pasadera housing development, providing four classrooms for preschool and four for transitional kindergarten (TK), he said.
“When you’re able to provide an opportunity for students to get a jump on their education, the investment returns on such an investment are usually three- to fourfold,” Handall said. “It will give us as a district and a community an opportunity to provide students a learning experience they need in order to be successful throughout their entire educational journey.”
These dollars follow the community’s own investments after the residents approved two new property tax measures to help with the construction of a brand new junior high school and to help make general updates to existing classrooms.
“Guadalupe is a growing and modernizing, diverse, and persevering community, and we’re super excited to be able to bring what I see as an incredible opportunity for families and the entire community,” Handall said.
In its current TK and preschool programs, the district found that students who were enrolled in the TK program had stronger outcomes in annual literacy skills assessments than their non-TK counterparts, said Mari Ortega-Garcia, the director of early education and support.
According to fall 2022 early literacy results data, 78 percent of students who experienced TK met or exceeded the benchmarks for where they should be at with reading and language skills, whereas only 30 percent of non-TK students met those same benchmarks.
The district also looked at student readiness when kids enter kindergarten by measuring social-emotional knowledge within the first few weeks of school. In a sample of 137 kindergartners—48 experienced TK and 86 did not—Guadalupe found that 67 percent of TK students were ready or almost ready for kindergarten and only 27 percent of non-TK students were considered ready, with more than 72 percent needing immediate follow-up and monthly monitoring for progress, according to district data.
“[TK and preschool] are both options, but giving them the advantage of having the opportunities to develop the skill set early on will send them on that trajectory for kindergarten readiness,” Ortega-Garcia said.
The preschool and TK expansion in Guadalupe also addresses the child care shortage by providing a free option in the community, Superintendent Handall added. There will be before- and after-care programs set up, giving parents pickup and drop-off times that work with their schedule.
“A lot of parents have to take their kids to Santa Maria, Lompoc, or San Luis Obispo to get child care, and we will now have a significant increase in the capacity to do that in our hometown,” Handall said. “We’ll have [an] extended day where we’ll be offering programs that go until 5:30. Their child will have received breakfast, lunch, and some type of snack to hold them over before dinner.”
Preschool will be for 3-year-olds, and then parents can either take them to a different preschool program for 4-year-olds or enroll them into TK, he said. There will be at least one adult (either a teacher or a classroom aide) for every eight preschoolers, and one adult for every 10 TK students. Programming will depend on age, but Handall said he anticipates it will be more play-based and socialization-focused to help students develop and be ready for school.
“The acclimation to play, school, and curiosity is going to want to be cultivated so when it becomes academic centric, our students will have all the bases in terms of emotional awareness, all of the different practices and procedures of being in school, and having a foundation—whether it’s language, math, science, colors and letters—they come to kindergarten ready,” Handall said.
