The Brief

When Humberto Estratalán’s daughter started transitional kindergarten last fall in the Coachella Valley city of La Quinta, he was surprised to hear she’d be in a combination class with kindergartners — with only one teacher.

He said the classroom held about 30 kids, but no dedicated aide to help the teacher manage them. His daughter would come home, deflated.

“She was struggling emotionally. We could tell she was just a little, not herself, not as happy to be at school,” Estratalán said. “She said, ‘Who do I go to when [the teacher] is busy?’”

The most upsetting moment was when he picked her up from school one day and noticed her sweatpants were inside out. He said when he asked the school about it, he was told his daughter had an accident and was sent to an office to change by herself.

“Here we have a 4-year-old in the office restroom, sitting on the floor, naked, changing herself,” he said. “That was the last straw.”

Estratalán, who is an education policy advocate for the nonprofit UNITE-LA, said he knew state rules require an adult for every 12 transitional kindergarten students. He complained to the Desert Sands Unified School District, and within two months the school reassigned teachers from other grades and hired more staff to open up a new transitional kindergarten class with a teacher and aide where he said his daughter is thriving.

The rough start of the year, however, highlights the staffing challenges some school districts face as they try to keep up with California’s rapid expansion of transitional kindergarten. The state needs a lot more teachers and aides to fill TK classrooms, but advocates say early childhood educators who have the experience and desire to step into those jobs are being deterred by the state’s credentialing system.

What is the teacher labor market for transitional kindergarten?

Starting this fall, any child who turns 4 by Sept. 1 can enroll in TK, marking the final phase of California’s four-year rollout of the new grade. There’s a lot riding on the success of universal TK: supporters hope that a year of learning through play will help give a boost to young kids who may not otherwise have access to preschool. Districts facing declining enrollment hope that a surge of new students will improve their financial outlook.

Angelica Cardenas of Hayward poses for a portrait on the Cal State University East Bay campus in Hayward. Cardenas received her master's degree in early childhood education from Cal State East Bay.

(

David M. Barreda

/

KQED

)

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who made universal TK a focus of his education policy, is proposing to spend $3.9 billion in the 2025-26 budget to fully implement the program. Part of that money would go toward lowering the student to teacher staffing ratio from from 12-to-1 to 10-to-1. School districts that don’t comply could face a fine or risk losing funding.

Researchers estimate that California schools will need 11,900 teachers and at least 16,000 aides to keep TK expansion on track. But amid a shortage of teachers at all levels of public education, some school districts struggle to hire or retain those who have the skills to support the physical, social-emotional and cognitive development of 4-year-olds, said Naj Alikhan, a spokesman for the Association of California School Administrators.

Rural or smaller school districts have a hard time finding a qualified teacher from their local pool of candidates.

Desert Sands Unified, where Estratalán’s daughter is enrolled, has hosted job fairs and offered financial incentives to entice teachers.

“We don't have, you know, five universities like the Bay Area right around all these school districts, and it's difficult,” said Dennis Zink, senior director of certificated personnel at the district.

Why aren't teachers getting the needed credentials?

To grow the workforce, the state introduced a new credential for teachers who want to specialize in TK through third grade.

But Alikhan says he’s hearing anecdotally that not enough people are pursuing the credential, and one reason may be its stringent requirements.

“Teachers may want to do it, but it’s the investment of time and investment of money that’s preventing some from moving forward with it,” he said. 

Assistant professor Yoonjin Esther Nam-Huh teaches early literacy and language trainings at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

(

Julie Leopo

/

LAist

)

Candidates must hold a bachelor’s degree, complete coursework in child development or early childhood education, pass the state’s teacher performance assessment and undergo up to 600 hours of training in classrooms — typically without pay.

Critics say those are tough barriers for at least 17,000 early educators who already teach young kids and have a bachelor’s degree, but aren’t part of the state’s K-12 school system.

Angelica Cardenas, who has a master’s degree in early childhood education and 13 years of experience teaching 2- to 5-year-olds in Head Start and state preschool programs in the Bay Area, would still need a credential to teach TK.

“People tell me ‘I think you'd be a really good TK teacher,’ and I would love to, but right now I don't know if I have the energy to go back to school,” Cardenas said.

What if you're already a K-12 teacher?

The state’s credentialing program would also require her to jump through more hoops than a K-12 teacher at a private or public school with no experience teaching 4-year-olds.

For example, a preschool teacher with a bachelor’s degree and five years of work experience would still have to undergo classroom training to earn the credential. Those 600 hours amount to at least $10,000 in lost wages, according to researchers at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) at UC Berkeley and at the California Budget and Policy Center.

By comparison, private school teachers, who are not required to hold a state-issued credential, can shift to TK without additional training or any experience teaching 4-year-olds. State law only requires them and K-12 public school teachers to complete six to eight classes of early childhood education or development.

Lea Austin, executive director of the CSCCE, argues that the separate pathways are inequitable for early educators, the majority of whom are women of color. A preschool teacher earns on average $17.66 per hour, which is less than half the salary of an elementary school teacher, according to an analysis of the most recent labor data for California workers.

“You can't use your existing experience and education as evidence that you are a qualified teacher in the same way that anybody teaching kindergarten or older has the opportunity to do that,” Austin said.

Students in the early education credential program make mini-lesson plans during their lecture at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

(

Julie Leopo

/

LAist

)

Austin and other advocates have called on the state’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing to offer early educators the same pathway to teaching TK as private school teachers. She said if the state doesn’t improve access, it risks losing a valuable workforce.

“It just feels sad and wrong to be losing such experienced educators when there's a clear need for them and when there should be opportunities for them,” Austin said.

Mary Vixie Sandy, director of the commission, said that policy for private school teachers existed long before the PK-3 credential came along. She urged patience as teacher preparation programs train the first cohorts of PK-3 credential candidates to figure out what worked, what didn’t and consider changes in the future.

“We're not trying to keep a workforce out, not at all. We most certainly want the workforce in,” she said.

What can teacher education programs do?

The CTC allows teacher training programs to waive up to 400 hours of training depending on a person’s preschool classroom experience, but requires 200 hours to prepare candidates to teach all the way up to third grade.

“The knowledge of someone whose complete experience has been with 3- and 4-year-olds may not be sufficient to be assigned to a third-grade classroom,” she said. “And if they have a credential that authorizes them to serve in those places, we have a fundamental obligation to the public to make sure the people we credential are prepared to do so.”

Cardenas, 38, considers herself a lifelong learner and said she would be willing to undergo more professional training, but she can’t afford to take time off work to pursue a credential, at least not without a scholarship or grant.

It takes one to two years to complete a teacher preparation program, and the CTC is giving these programs some leeway to waive prior coursework in child development or early childhood education.

The state has awarded millions of dollars in grants to support aspiring TK teachers willing to work in classrooms as they earn their credential. California State University, Dominguez Hills is offering up to $15,000 grants to students pursuing the credential as part of an effort to increase the early childhood education workforce. It’s also trying to make returning to school easier for preschool teachers who have an associate’s degree by giving them three years to complete their bachelor’s degree and PK-3 credential if they attend full-time.

San Jose State University offered to cover the full cost of tuition for up to 28 early educators who enrolled in its PK-3 credentialing program by April 1st, according to Maria Fusaro, a child and adolescent development professor at the university.

Fusaro said going through the program takes “a big commitment,” but it’s up to early educators to decide whether the effort is worth the reward of working in a K-12 setting.

A single mom of two boys, Cardenas said she’s attracted to the good salary, benefits and summer breaks that come with teaching in public schools. She also said she was excited by the prospect of teaching TK when the state began expanding the grade.

She knows she has what it takes to teach 4-year-olds — the patience to see them through the potty training and other foundational skills so they’re ready for the next stage of learning.

“It saddens me that after all the years of education that I have, all the years of experience, I wouldn't be able to teach TK even though that's my jam,” she said.

A California Senate committee just gutted one of the state’s most substantial DUI reform bills in years, despite widespread support from other lawmakers and families of drunk driving victims.

The bill would have required in-car breathalyzers for anyone convicted of a DUI, bringing California in line with most states. State law currently only requires the devices, called ignition interlock devices, after repeat offenses or injury crashes.

Sabrina Cervantes, a Democrat from the Inland Empire and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, provided a hint of changes last week when she said there were amendments to the bill that had been approved unanimously by the committee. This week, an updated version of the legislation emerged, and it effectively killed a key provision to start requiring the devices for thousands of first-time offenders. Such changes are commonly referred to as “hostile amendments” because they are made without the involvement or support of the bill’s author.

Cervantes was arrested for a DUI in a high-profile incident in Sacramento in May 2025. The District Attorney’s Office did not prosecute her after a blood test showed no drugs or alcohol in her system. Cervantes then sued the city of Sacramento and several of its police officers, alleging that that police fabricated evidence and falsely arrested her. Cervantes’s sister, state Assembly candidate Clarissa Cervantes, has herself been convicted of two DUIs in Southern California, according to media reports.

Sabrina Cervantes did not respond to our request for comment for this story. We will update it if she does.

As news of the bill’s gutting spread this week, Kellie Montalvo was left wondering if there’d been some sort of horrible mistake. Montalvo, whose 21-year-old son Benjamin was killed by an impaired driver in Cervantes’s district in 2020, said she was just in Sacramento two weeks ago lobbying lawmakers – including Cervantes – on a slate of dangerous driving bills. Many of those bills have already failed.

“It’s heartbreaking, and I try to tell myself not to lose hope,” Montalvo said. “I mean, California has got to do something. Our numbers are horrific.”

Alcohol-related roadway deaths in California spiked more than 50% in a decade — an increase more than twice as steep as the rest of the country, federal data shows. More than 1,300 people die each year statewide in drunken collisions.

Over the last two years, a CalMatters investigation has shown how state officials have allowed dangerous drivers to stay on the road and kill, and how elected leaders have looked away even as the death toll skyrocketed.

For years, lawmakers have tried and failed to require in-car breathalyzers for all DUI offenders. Progressive justice reform groups and the DMV have opposed similar bills in the past, citing fears about unfairly penalizing poor DUI offenders, high costs and the DMV’s aging technology.

Montalvo and other advocates thought this year might be different. The DMV has actively participated in state hearings and, she and others said, provided technical advice to make sure the bill was realistic. Gov. Gavin Newsom also instructed lawmakers last year to continue to work on the state’s breathalyzer laws and develop “a lasting program that strengthens public safety.”

It’s unclear why this year’s bill was gutted at the 11th hour. Public records show that Senate Appropriations committee staff recently expressed concern about costs.

The amendment process is opaque even to Sacramento insiders.

“Honestly it’s sometimes a bit of a black box even for us as legislators,” said the bill’s author, Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, an Orange County Democrat. “I am still trying myself to get to the bottom of it.”

Petrie-Norris, who has spent the past three years trying to pass a version of this bill, said she does not believe Cervantes’ personal experience played a role in the decision to amend the bill. She added that she is still working to re-amend the measure after “unintended consequences” that she says would make the policy unworkable for the DMV and hurt California’s eligibility for federal funding.

Asked for an interview to explain the changes to the bill, Senate President Pro Tem Monique Límon’s office referred questions to Cervantes. Diana Crofts-Pelayo, Newsom’s chief deputy director of communications, also declined to answer questions about the breathalyzer bill, saying the office does not typically comment on pending legislation.

While the bill heads into the final days of negotiations, Montalvo and other victims’ families are grappling with deja vu. It was just about a year ago that they were standing in the Capitol with photos of their loved ones and told the bill was doomed.

She stays busy checking in with the parole officer for the Riverside County driver who killed her son. Last she heard, the driver was trying to get her license back after being released early from prison.

Long Beach streets got deadlier last year than they’ve been in a decade. Now the city wants to build a whole new division bent on reversing that, powered by the $5 million it expects to get annually by ticketing people with new speed cameras.

As part of Long Beach’s budget, city leaders are proposing a new traffic safety division, which consolidates two Public Works teams and adds more than a dozen staff who will administer a state pilot program for 18 automated speed cameras around the city.

A proposed traffic safety division

It comes after the city saw a record number of fatal traffic collisions in 2025 — 53 last year, the most in more than 10 years — that includes 32 pedestrians, cyclists and e-scooter riders killed. That eclipsed the number of people murdered in the city that year.

High rates of traffic deaths and collisions coincide with a record number of public requests to overhaul dangerous arterial streets, calibrate traffic lights and add traffic calming measures to neighborhoods known for dangerous driving. Long Beach currently sits on a backlog of more than 1,400 open traffic requests.

Many delays are tied to the 4% completion rate of traffic investigations. Officials explained many of those unresolved cases involve arterial streets the city already knows need expensive, yearslong overhauls. Neighborhood traffic calming requests have also spiked, from about 35 in the second half of last fiscal year to 306 in the first half of this one.

Councilmember Joni Ricks-Oddie said the shift reflects years of pressure from residents.

She added that the old system wasn’t built for the volume of requests coming in now.

“I think we all recognize that the old ways of managing these requests simply just wasn’t working for the volume that we are seeing come into Public Works,” she said.

Public Works Director Josh Hickman put it more bluntly: “We’re barely keeping up,” citing data that requests have risen swiftly this year compared to late last year.

He explained the current model only adds unnecessary delays, even on simple fixes.

“In order to do street sweeping and in order to enforce parking control, you need to have signs,” he said as an example. “Those require our engineers to review and approve the signs, which are in a different bureau. Once it gets approved, well, then it requires another bureau to go and install those signs.”

The new division could streamline the city's traffic system

This division would alleviate that, he said, by folding the city’s existing traffic engineering and traffic operations divisions into one unit under the Transportation Services Bureau.

The new division will be powered by citation revenue generated from the city’s automated speed enforcement program, a state pilot that will bring 18 cameras to handpicked streets and intersections later this fall, with warnings starting in October and citations beginning in December.

Officials say the cameras will rake in about $5 million a year, half of which will go toward operating costs with the other half restricted to funding traffic-calming projects.

Hickman called that estimate “quite conservative,” in hopes that the cameras will discourage drivers afraid of paying for tickets — which start at $50 for those driving 11 mph over the limit.

New speed cameras

It’s a program that has seen success in other California cities.

In San Francisco, the program’s 56 cameras led to 163,906 citations and brought in $7.2 million in its first year, according to the city’s transit agency. About 65% of drivers who got a warning or ticket didn’t reoffend, and 82% were cited no more than once or twice over the year.

Madhu Unnikrishnan, a spokesman for SFMTA, said that has led to $3 million in street improvements across San Francisco, while the rate of drivers going 10 mph or more over the limit has fallen by 80% in the enforcement areas.

By state law, that money has to cover operating costs first, and anything left over must go toward traffic calming — such as crosswalk upgrades, no-turn-on-red signs, speed humps — within three years. It can’t be spent on anything else, even to help close a city’s budget gap.

Jonathon Bolin, a Public Works bureau manager, emphasized that the point of the cameras is to change driver behavior and discourage speeding, not “bankroll revenue.”

Long Beach’s 2027 budget would add seven new traffic and five new customer service positions to the division. Hickman said the department plans to fill the new positions “as quickly as possible.”

Seperately, the city is also proposing $37.3 million for roadway improvements, curb and sidewalk improvements and traffic safety projects funded by the Measure A sales tax.

An additional effort by state Sen. Lena Gonzalez is looking to place more speed cameras along Pacific Coast Highway.

Reading, writing, and drilling down on the craft — that’s the focus this weekend at the 2nd Annual Los Feliz Writers Festival. Various free workshops are happening at multiple venues across the neighborhood such as Barnsdall Art Park, Fred 62, and the Vermont Triangle.

A tradition of writers

Festival founder Sammy Ginsberg has a passion for small literary festivals. She fell in love with them while studying abroad in the United Kingdom, and once she moved back to Los Angeles, her love continued.

Sammy Ginsberg (right) poses for a picture at a Los Feliz Writers with L.A. Poet Laureate Brian-Sonia Wallace (left).

(

Sammy Ginsberg

/

Sammy Ginsberg

)

Last year she set about hosting one in her own neighborhood, Los Feliz.

“There's a tradition of writers and artists being in Los Feliz. Joan Didion lived in Los Feliz for a bit. Charles Bukowski went to Jumbo's [Clown Room],” Ginsberg said.

Last year’s inaugural festival had six events and about 100 people. This year, there are 1,000 RSVPs for its 13 events.

Local Feliz

Writers living in Los Feliz are leading all of the workshops. Like William J. Meyer, who’s published his fantasy and sci-fi writing as podcasts. His workshop is at the diner Fred 62 this afternoon, focused on how to write with audio in mind.

Attendees at a Los Feliz Writers Festival event.

(

Sammy Ginsberg

/

Sammy Ginsberg

)

“It's about taking that writing and making it fun for an audio recording. Tone, voice, and things like that,” said Ginsberg.

Willa Lane is a writer and tarot reader. She’ll perform tarot readings today at her workshop in Barnsdall Art Park, using the cards and their symbolism as writing prompts.

Willa Lane sits in front of a table with her tarot cards.

(

Willa Lane

/

Willa Lane

)

“Sylvia Plath had a deck of tarot cards that she used. So a lot of artists and creatives have been using tarot to inform their work at some level,” Lane said.

Today’s events culminate in a live reading of a zine put together by Los Feliz Writers for the festival. The Barnsdall Art Park event will feature a mix of short stories, a screenplay, an audio play, and more.

“ I wanted to represent different voices in the neighborhood and different backgrounds and I really think that this does,” Ginsberg said.

A literary event for every neighborhood

The festival continues through tomorrow with an open mic at the Vermont Triangle, a panel and performances from writers of color, and a mixer for activists and writers.

Ginsberg wants to continue the literary tradition in Los Feliz — for all kinds of writers, emerging or established.

“Live, work, or play. It's L.A., that's the energy. Like, we want you to be part of this,” Ginsberg said.

She said the wider vision is to help and inspire other neighborhoods to build their own literary events.

"There’s 99 neighborhood councils in Los Angeles. That’s like 99 writers' festivals and 99 poet laureates," Ginsberg said. "That is magical."

Bellflower isn’t exactly known for its stand-up comedy culture. But that may be changing.

Since 2021, comedians like Tisha Campbell, Frankie Quiñones and Jo Koy have taken the stage at The Stand Up Comedy Club in downtown Bellflower.

“We knew that the Downeys, the Cerritos, the Lakewoods, the Long Beaches, the Norwalks, and Compton and Paramount would come,” said general manager and co-owner John Giries. “That was our bet, and it's been working.”

Jo Koy (left) and Finesse Mitchell (right) take the stage at The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

(

Courtesy The Stand Up Comedy Club

)

From a comedy magazine to a comedy club

Giries, a former stand-up comedian himself, grew up in Bellflower. He co-created and helped run The Stand Up Comedy Magazine in the mid-aughts, along with his late friend and fellow comedian Julian Vazquez. Names such as Maz Jobrani, Sebastian Maniscalco and Rachel Feinstein all graced its cover.

After Vazquez’s passing in 2020, Giries decided to put the magazine on hold indefinitely and launch a comedy club.

The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Giries’ family was an investor in Hambone’s BBQ Smokehouse on Belmont Street, next door to the Bellflower Theatre, downtown. He recalled seeing that theater for the first time and how it felt like something out of a movie…

“It was one of those moments like "Field of Dreams" where Kevin Costner saw the baseball diamond being built in the cornfield,” Giries said. “And I kind of looked at it and said, ‘you know, I can see it.’”

Tisha Campbell takes the stage at The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

(

Courtesy The Stand Up Comedy Club

)

After doing gut renovations and waiting through the first year of the pandemic, Giries and his wife and co-owner, Scarlett, opened the club in June 2021.

The roughly 2,400-square-foot space space seats 140 and has a full bar with a steakhouse feel. Photos and memorabilia of Robin Williams, Richard Pryor and Phyllis Diller pay tribute to some of comedy’s legends.

Why Bellflower, not Hollywood

Giries had always planned to have famous comedians perform here. He chose Bellflower because it didn’t have the competition of legacy clubs such as the Improv, The Comedy Store or the Laugh Factory. It was also a closer alternative for locals who didn’t want to brave Hollywood traffic and pay for valet parking.

Interior of The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Interior and stage of The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

“[Bellflower] fit the criteria of what we wanted to do. It's not in the desert. You're not by the beach and it's easy to get to if you live in a five to 10 mile radius,” Giries said.

“So never L.A. Never thought about it once.”

Landing the headliners

For the first three years of opening the club, Giries focused on getting big-name acts. He had already made connections with notable performers through his magazine, and was able to enlist help from talent bookers including Richard Barrett, who was the entertainment director for The Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. Giries credits Barrett as “one of the best bookers in L.A.”

Since then, Deon Cole, Sheryl Underwood, Paul Reiser, Billy Gardell, Chaunté Wayans and others have taken the stage.

That list is growing.

Stormy Daniels visited the club in July on her "Unicorns in the Kitchen" storytelling and comedy tour. Last week, Jamie Foxx produced and hosted a comedy special featuring Donald Ray “Speedy” Caldwell. All four shows were sold out.

Giries recognizes that the club is still young, but is proud of what they’ve accomplished since opening five years ago.

“No one remembers, ‘Hey, they've been here for 30 years,'" Giries said. “They just remember, ‘Man, that club was kind of cool. They really took care of us. That was really funny stuff there.’”