The Brief

Marguerita Elementary School teacher Claudia Ralston spends most of her day on the floor, guiding her transitional kindergarten students through play. She said if it weren’t for TK, the Alhambra educator would be considering retirement.

“Yes, I am exhausted,” Ralston said. “But just being here for the children and doing all the different activities … their curiosity, them wanting to learn just gives you that extra energy.”

This school year is the first where every 4-year-old in the state can enroll in the universal preschool program, also called TK, at their local public school. Schools need to hire an estimated 12,000 teachers to staff the program. Some may come from child care settings and preschool programs, but others are veteran educators who’ve gone back to school to get the credential required to teach TK.

And once they get into the TK classroom, many educators told us, they’ve found new joy in the work.

Lauren Bush started teaching transitional kindergarten three years ago after more than two decades coaching other educators and teaching every grade from kindergarten through sixth.

Her classroom at Lucille J. Smith Elementary in Lawndale is broken into different “centers,” where students can play with colorful magnetic tiles, practice painting their name or construct a ramp to roll a ball from one end of the room to the other.

“It was just so joyful to be with the kids again,” Bush said. “That's when I just, like, got back to myself as an educator, and now I'm gonna die here. That's my plan. I love it here.”

Education research shows that teachers who like their jobs are more likely to stay, and that stability can be good for long-term learning outcomes.

So we wanted to understand what makes TK so joyful for educators and how that can shape how and what students learn.

Lauren Bush and her students practice saying the sounds associated with the letter 'A' at Lucille J. Smith Elementary in Lawndale.

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Welcoming students with joy

Broadly, the goal of transitional kindergarten is to prepare students for kindergarten and beyond.

“I wanna make sure that their first experience in a public school setting is one that is joyful, where they feel loved, where they feel welcomed, where they get to really transition nicely into like the rigor of the school,” Bush said.

California’s learning foundations for preschool and transitional kindergarten include academic concepts, like the alphabet and writing, but also learning about emotions and developing kids’ muscles.

“The progress in academics in the lower grades is so satisfying because it's such a huge, huge jump,” Bush said. “You don't necessarily see that in the upper grades. It's so gradual… They come into me not knowing how to hold a pencil, and they leave writing their name and drawing.”

That’s why Bush has her students tear paper, to hone the fine motor skills that will be useful to one day using a pencil.

“Yes, they're playing all day, but it's very intentional play,” Bush said.

Teachers also told us without the pressure of standardized testing, there was flexibility to tailor their instruction to students’ interests.

“I can take something that they're curious about and go from there and do little mini lessons with that,” said Alhambra TK teacher Claudia Ralston.

For example, when she noticed a group of students was ready to practice writing, she set up the materials for them to make signs. The subject of the signs, pumpkin pies and pumpkin drinks, was a topic they’d previously expressed interest in.

And while every school is different, she said in her experience, there are also fewer worksheets used in TK than other grades.

“Before, we used to have to run off a lot of copies,” Ralston said. “We're not doing that. It's all hands on.”

Samantha Elliott, a first-year TK teacher at Price Elementary School in Downey, said she starts the year focused on friendship and manners.  "If [the students] don't feel safe or welcome, then there's really no learning going on there," Elliott said.

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Pacific Oaks College professor Jorge Ramirez said this approach is a key part of effective early childhood education.

“ We're not dictating what they should learn, how they should learn in or in the manner that they should learn it,” Ramirez said. “It's more of us really understanding what the child wants and what they need.”

At Price Elementary in Downey, Samantha Elliot’s TK classroom features “wiggle breaks” between lessons, and students learn a physical action with each letter of the alphabet.

“It's incorporating instruction and kind of the movement to help bridge the gap a little bit and get them moving, but also still learning,” Elliot said.

And classes are also smaller. Kindergarten classes can have up to 33 students, but California requires that a school’s average TK class have no more than 24 students, and there must be one adult for every 10, which means teachers also have help from aides.

In Bush’s class, teacher assistant Maria Estrada often sets up activities and works 1-on-1 with students, including those learning English.

“ My goal is to help those students that need that extra support, so they can catch up at the end of the day,” Estrada said.

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All four-year-olds in the state of California now have access to a free preschool program in their local school district. So what does transitional kindergarten offer kids and what are the challenges in its implementation? In this episode of Imperfect Paradise, we break it down with the LAist education team.

California's new public preschool program for 4-year-olds: Exploring transitional kindergarten

All four-year-olds in the state of California now have access to a free preschool program in their local school district. So what does transitional kindergarten offer kids and what are the challenges in its implementation? In this episode of Imperfect Paradise, we break it down with the LAist education team.

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Does the joy of TK last?

Susan Moore Johnson has studied teaching for decades and leads the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Project on the Next Generation of Teachers.

One frequently cited study she led found that teachers’ satisfaction with their working conditions predicted how long they’d stay in the classroom and their students’ performance on standardized tests.

Three main factors teachers mentioned were the opportunity to collaborate with skilled colleagues, a safe and orderly school and a supportive principal who understands teaching.

“ The idea of working with kids who really need good teachers is very attractive to people,” Johnson said. “But they can't do it in a place that's disjointed and chaotic and doesn't have curriculum materials.”

Marissa Mateo started teaching TK in the 2010s in the San Fernando Valley. Early on, her principal supported her participation in an L.A. County program where a substitute covered her class about once a month so that she could attend in-person training, meetings and observe educators in other districts.

 ”I still talk to several of the teachers that were in my group,” Mateo said.

Lucille J. Smith Elementary School Principal Cristal Moore said it's not uncommon for her to end a stressful day in one of the school's TK classrooms. "It's a very joyful place to be," she said. "It almost grounds you. Restores you in a very positive way."

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Students learn how to balance and run during their second recess at Marguerita Elementary School in Alhambra.

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She’s continued to refine her craft. This year, for example, she’s incorporating more “loose parts” into her classroom. The idea is to let students create with random odds-and-ends like corks, gems and wooden shapes rather than instructing them to build a specific object.

While Mateo’s instruction at Noble Avenue Elementary may evolve, she says her students’ enthusiasm is a constant.

“For the most part, nobody's coming in with a negative experience in school because they're just starting,” Mateo said.  “They may be having a negative feeling like crying because they miss their parents. But other than that, they haven't developed any kind of bad feelings about school.”

That’s why every year, she has the same message on her classroom bulletin board: “Welcome to TK, the happiest place to learn.”

Federal immigration enforcement authorities are facing scrutiny and widespread criticism over their tactics, including the lack of body-worn cameras, following the killing of two U.S. citizens by immigration officers in Minneapolis.

Several factors have led to this: Federal law does not mandate the use of body cameras by the two agencies tasked with leading the efforts to arrest and detain illegal immigrants — Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Additionally, there is a shortage of cameras and a de-prioritization of body-camera programs in the second Trump administration.

This month, immigration officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis — Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti – in separate incidents, and have since been confronted by large crowds of protesters and legal observers. The administration has defended the actions of the two officers involved in the shootings.

After Pretti's killing Saturday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the VA nurse was committing an "act of terrorism" by "attacking" officers and "brandishing" a weapon. The video evidence and eyewitness accounts that have surfaced so far refute that assertion. There has been no evidence that NPR has verified of Pretti brandishing his handgun at any time during the encounter with federal agents.

"There is body camera footage from multiple angles which investigators are currently reviewing," a DHS official told NPR in a statement Monday. The investigation is being led by Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE, and supported by the Federal Bureau of Investigations. CBP will also do an internal investigation.

There are about 2,000 immigration officers rotating through Minneapolis for what the administration dubs "Operation Metro Surge." Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates have criticized the rapid deployment of ICE officers and Border Patrol agents, as well as the officers' tactics to control crowds and conduct arrests. Minnesota officials are suing the administration over these tactics. Criticism has also centered on whether officers are or should be using body-worn cameras that can document these incidents.

A shortage of body cams

ICE is struggling in Minneapolis to use body-worn cameras: first, there are none available in the area; second, officers deployed are not properly trained in their use.
In written testimony, Samuel Olson, field office director in St. Paul for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, said that body-worn cameras had not been implemented for ICE officers out of his office.

"To equip every ICE law enforcement personnel operating out of Minnesota with a BWC [body worn camera] device will require approximately 2,000 devices," Olson said, adding that ICE would also need 180 days to ship, install, and test the necessary equipment and train hundreds of law enforcement personnel on proper usage, maintenance, and storage.

Furthermore, there are no body-worn cameras "physically located" at the St. Paul field office and that the agency would have to ship in additional devices, potentially needing more than ICE nationally has.

"At this time, the ERO St. Paul Office is not scheduled or funded for BWC deployment. ICE law enforcement personnel out of the ERO St. Paul Offices are not properly prepared, trained, or equipped for an immediate deployment of BWC use," Olson said.

Customs and Border Protection has a slightly different situation.

According to court filings, body cameras "will be used to record official law enforcement encounters, except when doing so may jeopardize agents and officers or public safety."

"For purposes of Operation Metro Surge, CBP personnel who are equipped with and trained in [body cameras], have been instructed to have their body-worn camera on their person for use in operations," said Kyle Harvick, deputy incident commander with Border Patrol overseeing border patrol operation in Minneapolis during "Operation Metro Surge."

Changing policy on body cameras

In 2021 Congress mandated ICE work with the Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to design a pilot program for body-worn cameras. A 2024 report says the agency expected body cameras to be implemented agency wide by September 2025.

This was a part of a broader Biden administration executive order to expand the use of body cameras to federal law enforcement.

When President Donald Trump began his second term in 2025, he rescinded Biden's executive order related to body camera use by federal law enforcement. The office tasked with helping to oversee the ICE pilot program was also depleted.

The use of body cameras has surfaced several times during the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. In Chicago, District Judge Sara Ellis issued a temporary restraining order in October ordering federal agents conducting immigration enforcement in her district to activate their body cameras if they have them and unless exempted by agency policy. An appeals panel in the seventh circuit later overturned Ellis' order, which also included broader limits on use of force.

In order to address concerns about the lack of body cameras, lawmakers in the House recently passed a spending bill that would provide DHS with $20 million for cameras for ICE and CBP. But the bill only mandates the money be spent -- it does not mandate the use of the cameras.

After the latest deadly shooting, the broader package is in limbo. Senate Democrats are seemingly more resistant to passing the package, which would fund the entire federal government.
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SoCal is going to get slightly warmer this week, and there's a chance that it's going to be windy come Wednesday.

In Orange County, coastal areas will see highs around 61 degrees. Meanwhile, in L.A. County, the beaches will be a bit warmer with highs from 69 to 75 degrees.

More inland, the valleys and the Inland Empire will see highs from 69 to 75 degrees. We can expect similar temperatures in Coachella Valley, but in the Antelope Valley, it will be chilly, with highs from 55 to 63 degrees.

Children’s Hospital of Orange County is now the latest Southern California medical provider to stop offering gender-affirming care, blaming investigations and escalating actions from the federal government.

The hospital, as well as other hospitals in San Diego and Riverside counties under the Rady Children’s umbrella organization, has said that it will stop offering gender-affirming care to patients under 19 effective Feb. 6.

The decision has forced patients to scramble to find healthcare in a span of two weeks or risk complications from a forced withdrawal from hormone therapy.

The backlash from community members has been swift after dozens of protesters recently hit the streets outside CHOC’s hospital in Orange to rally against the decision.

CHOC said it’s making the decision under duress to preserve funding for all its patients amid proposed federal rules that would pull all Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements for hospitals that offer gender-affirming care to people under 19.

“This was a very difficult decision, made to ensure we can continue serving all children and families across the communities we serve,” a CHOC spokesperson said in a statement to LAist.

But parents of CHOC patients who attended a rally Saturday opposing the move said that they were not consulted by hospital leadership for the decision. Some said they would have advocated for CHOC to preserve its gender-affirming care clinic if they were.

Security guards stood watch over the rally from the roof of an adjacent CHOC-owned building.

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Haley Horton, a mother who carpools with trans youth CHOC patients, said the clinic’s planned closure was a “business decision.”

“ I know my son's nurse who's at this hospital doesn't want that happening,” Horton said. “I know the doctors at this hospital don't want this to happen.”

The background behind the decision

An ongoing concern for hospitals is the potential that their Medicaid and Medicare funding will be revoked if they offer gender-affirming care to minors.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are currently in the middle of a public comment period for two proposed rule changes that would defund gender-affirming care for youth, and restrict all Medicare and Medicaid funding for hospitals that provide the care.

Those rules have not taken effect and are expected to be challenged by LGBTQ+ legal rights organizations.

A CHOC spokesperson also confirmed to LAist that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general’s office had launched an investigation into the hospital. Legal experts interviewed by LAist have referred to subpoenas and investigations launched by the federal government as “scare tactics,” and say that it’s possible they won’t hold up in court.

According to TransFamily Support Services, a San Diego-based organization that also protested the closure of Rady Children’s Hospital’s clinic in San Diego, the hospital system will continue to offer services like hormone replacement therapy to people 19 and older even though the clinics are closing.

The hospital did not respond to a direct question from LAist asking the hospital what provisions were being made for families who now have two weeks to find another health care provider in an extremely precarious market. When Children’s Hospital Los Angeles closed its gender-affirming care clinic last July, administrators gave families a six-week off-ramp to find another provider, and many doctors wrote out prescriptions to tide people over for months.

What families are saying

Horton has been in touch with the families she knows with trans teenagers who are patients at CHOC. She told LAist that those families did not attend the weekend rally in order to protect their mental health as they “scramble” to find alternate care.

The rally also drew turnout from elected officials and public figures, like Tustin School Board Trustee Allyson Muñiz Damikolas.

Muñiz Damikolas said she came out on behalf of her kids, who are also patients at CHOC due to a complex medical condition, and to support trans youth nationwide.

Chris Kluwe, a former NFL player turned political advocate who’s running to represent Huntington Beach in the state assembly, said CHOC’s leaders were “cowardly bureaucrats who aren't willing to stand up and do the right thing” in the face of a “tyrannical federal government."

Chris Kluwe, who's running to represent Huntington Beach in the state assembly, showed up to rally against the CHOC clinic's closure.

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OC LGBTQ+  groups denounce the move

“ I'm a transgender woman and I'm here to tell you that denying people this gender affirming care doesn't make gender dysphoria go away,” said Stephanie Wade, chair of Lavender Dems of Orange County. “All it does is make it metastasize into suicidal depression. And I've been there. I dealt with this as a child. We can't take this away from kids.”

Wade pointed to studies that show that trans youth who are denied access to gender-affirming care are more likely to attempt suicide.

Stephanie Wade of Lavender Democrats was one of many local LGBTQ political leaders attending Saturday's rally.

Felicity Figueroa, the chair of the Orange County Equality Coalition, called on hospital leadership to consult with the families and doctors, especially given that the proposed federal rules have not yet taken effect.

 “They're saying it's gonna affect the other kids who aren't LGBTQ,” Figueroa said. “But are they asking the parents of the other kids if they're willing to throw their neighbor's kids under the bus just because of a [possibility]? That's the thing. They aren't listening.”

Lasting concerns 

Brit Cervantes of OCGAPNet, an advocacy organization for gender-affirming providers in Orange County, said the closure of CHOC’s clinic would likely have ripple effects that could reverberate for years.

“ There's going to be a time where we exist beyond this administration, and we will have to work to rebuild this trust with our patients after we abandon them.  That is a very long lasting impact,” Cervantes said.

Cervantes, a medical professional, said that discontinuing hormone therapy can lead to major complications akin to what menopausal women experience.

In addition to the effects on local adolescents, the rally’s organizers also pointed to what they saw as a wider-scale erosion of rights and norms under the second Trump administration. It took place on the same day that ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by immigration agents on the streets of Minneapolis.

Speakers at the rally outside CHOC blasted the hospital leadership for capitulating to the Trump administration.

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Kanan Durham, executive director of the Huntington Beach-based nonprofit Pride at the Pier, linked the closure to “blackmail, intimidation and state violence” happening at other levels of the federal government, including the actions of immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis.

“ Suggesting that evidenced-based health care that is supported by every major institution in the Western world is medical fraud is to set a foundation where the government can decide who is allowed to have health care and who is not,” Durham said. “They are making decisions based on their own moral judgements. And if that's where they're coming from, then any American, anybody living in this country has their health care under risk.”

The backstory

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, which was the largest provider of pediatric gender-affirming care in the country, closed its Center for Transyouth Health and Development last July, affecting even patients over 19.

That was followed by other providers who said they’d stop or pause certain types of health care for trans youth, including Kaiser Permanente’s ongoing pause of gender-affirming surgeries and certain implants for people under 19.

Advocates say these closures are making it harder and harder for trans youth in Southern California to find the care that they need.

Pride at the Pier, OCGAPNet and TransFamily Support Services are also soliciting signatures for an open letter to CHOC and Rady’s leadership asking them to reverse their decision.

To weigh in on the CMS rule changes, visit this website.

Palisades Charter High School is reopening Tuesday a little more than a year after fire tore through campus and the surrounding community.

The Palisades Fire destroyed 30% of the campus, including classrooms, the track and field. Now there is a wide grassy expanse where the “J” building once stood. Bulldozers cleared the baseball diamond to make way for three dozen portable classrooms. Many of the campus’ trees are still standing with blackened trunks.

A few of the 2,400 students expected to return in-person toured the campus Monday, including junior Jackson Richmond. He said despite the changes, the campus still feels familiar.

“Nothing just beats like the look of Pali,” Richmond said. “Like it's in movies for a reason.”

But other Palisades families are more cautious about returning. Some parents have raised concerns about whether the remediation efforts went far enough and how the test results were communicated to families.

“ I have mixed feelings,” said Victoria Kotlyar, parent of two sophomores. “I'm happy that they're gonna have a school to go to, but I am concerned about just the environment and if there's any pollution.”

The process to reopen the school included debris removal, cleaning, and multiple rounds of soil, water, air and surface testing in the new and remaining buildings.

Temporary classrooms at Palisades Charter High School.

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“At the moment, I'm 100% convinced that we are in a very safe environment,” said Principal Pamela Magee on Monday. “We've got folks watching out to make sure that that continues into the future.”

Environmental testing continues

Pali High was once part of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The school converted to an independently run charter school in 1993, but continues to lease its campus from the district.

LAUSD coordinated and paid for the post-fire clean-up.

The district also hired outside contractors to test, clean and retest the soil, water, air and surfaces in the remaining and new structures for toxins related to the wildfire.  

 ”As we cleared spaces, we tested them immediately afterwards to make sure…the cleaning was effective,” said Jennifer Flores, LAUSD’s deputy director of the Office of Environmental Health and Safety, in a virtual community meeting on January 21.

Flores said the district re-tested in November and December 2025 to ensure the campus was not harmed by the demolition and construction in the surrounding neighborhoods.

“This is not that we're doing one large environmental test and we're done now,” Flores said. “We will be doing periodic sampling and analysis at this school and all the schools that were directly impacted by the fire.”

For example, the district has installed air sensors at the school that can detect two types of particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide, which are associated with pollution.

District officials and contractors said testing cleared the vast majority of the school for occupancy. The areas that remain closed include the “stadium by the sea,” pool and related buildings, which are still under construction and anticipated to reopen by the end of February, according to Palisades High Director of Operations Rafael Negroe.

Friday, the school district asked a group of researchers studying the health impacts of the fires to review a summary of the clean-up efforts and test results.

A grassy field at Palisades Charter High School where a building once stood.

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The study co-leads, including UCLA environmental health sciences professor Yifang Zhu, concluded they would be comfortable sending their own children back to Pali High. (Zhu said she and her colleagues were not compensated for their evaluation.)

“There's always chemicals you can detect, but I think we should really think through the lens…what is the additional level of risk?” Zhu said.

Zhu, whose daughter is a recent graduate of the school, said the decision is ultimately up to each family.

“There's no such thing as zero risk,” Zhu said. “Risk is very personal. Every family is…different.”