Transitional kindergarten instructional assistant Nancy Espino reads a book about crickets to children at Silverwood Elementary School in the Mt. Diablo Unified School District in Concord on Aug. 11, 2025.
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Laure Andrillon
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CalMatters
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Topline:
California has fully rolled out universal transitional kindergarten (TK), making every 4-year-old in the state eligible for free early education. With over 200,000 children expected to enroll this fall, TK is now the largest early education program in the U.S.
Why it matters: The expansion of TK aims to better prepare children for kindergarten, offering inclusive access to early education that boosts academic and social outcomes while easing financial burdens on families.
Big demand, big challenges: While demand is high, school districts face hurdles including a significant teacher shortage and the need for upgraded facilities to accommodate the new wave of young learners.
Read on... for the 15-year rollout of TK
Break out the crayons and finger paint: Every 4-year-old in California is now eligible for transitional kindergarten.
Fifteen years after a handful of school districts opened the first TK classrooms, California now has the largest — and fastest growing — early education program in the country. At least 200,000 youngsters will attend TK this fall, enjoying low teacher-student ratios, age-appropriate curriculum and plenty of music, art and circle time.
“This really is something to celebrate,” said Carolyne Crolotte, policy director for Early Edge California, an advocacy group. “Now, there’s no question about who’s eligible and who isn’t. Everyone is eligible.”
TK is meant to be a bridge between preschool and kindergarten, preparing 4-year-olds for the routine and expectations of elementary school while honing their social skills and self-confidence. In TK, children learn how to make friends, write their names and do basic math. Mostly, they’re supposed to fall in love with learning.
Holding frogs and counting marshmallows
That was the case at Silverwood Elementary in Concord last week as a dozen bright-eyed 4-year-olds hovered around their teacher, Elizabeth Swanson, as she gingerly held out a tree frog for their inspection.
Several got a chance to hold the docile, turquoise amphibian.
“What does the frog feel like? What do you wonder about the frog?” said Swanson, who was recently named Mt. Diablo Unified’s Teacher of the Year. “How does he use his hands? How do you use your hands?”
But the tree frog — one of several critters in her classroom — was not the most popular attraction that afternoon. That honor belonged to the “home living” station, a corner of the classroom dedicated to costumes, dollhouses, a mini kitchen and everything else an imaginative youngster would need to play house.
Transitional kindergarten teacher Elizabeth Swanson shows a frog to children at Silverwood Elementary School in the Mt. Diablo Unified School District in Concord on Aug. 11, 2025.
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Laure Andrillon
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CalMatters
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Last year, an enterprising group of students, inspired by the opening of a Dutch Bros. near the school, used the home living station to open their own coffee shop. They ordered lattes and made coffee and collected money. Swanson turned it into a math lesson by asking them to count marshmallows and decide how many should go into each cup of hot chocolate.
“One child would be the barista and one would be the customer, so they learned how to share and take turns,” Swanson said. “They were getting so much practice with social language and communication. And everything was integrated into play.”
Importance of fun
Judy Krause, executive director of early childhood programs at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, said that’s exactly what a TK classroom should be like. The focus should be on experimentation and hands-on activities, based on students’ interests. TK, she said, is not a version of kindergarten; 4-year-olds have unique developmental needs. The main one, she said, is having fun.
If children are enjoying themselves, they’ll learn naturally, she said. If they feel overly pressured or bored, they’ll lose interest and miss out on valuable skills they’ll need for kindergarten and beyond.
“It’s a really big deal that we have this opportunity for all 4-year-olds,” Krause said. “But we have to make sure we’re doing it right.”
15-year rollout of TK
California introduced TK in 2010, and a decade later began expanding it to all districts. This year is the culmination of that effort, with all 4-year-olds now eligible and 91% of districts offering the program. The only districts that are exempt are those that don’t receive money through the state’s funding formula because they receive more money through their local property taxes.
Like kindergarten, TK is optional. But many districts, including Mt. Diablo Unified, have seen strong interest from families. A recent report from the Public Policy Institute of California predicted that about 70% of 4-year-olds will enroll in TK this fall, with waiting lists in some districts. Black, Latino and Native American students have been slightly underrepresented so far, although those not enrolled might be enrolled in other programs. The state doesn’t track that data.
Nearly everyone agrees TK is a good idea. Children who’ve attended TK tend to do better in reading and math, and those with disabilities can be identified early and receive services, research shows.
TK, which is free, can be a financial boon for families. Because of California’s high cost of living, child care and preschool costs are among the highest in the country, with families paying up to $20,000 annually — more than the cost of in-state tuition at the University of California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has long championed TK, setting aside more than $2.7 billion in the years when the state had a budget surplus. The money is to help school districts pay teachers, keep class sizes small and provide other services to the new learners. Ongoing funds will come from the state’s Local Control Funding Formula.
“California is making a big commitment to making transitional kindergarten free and accessible to all 4-year-olds,” Newsom said in a 2023 video. “When we’re finished, California will have the largest free preschool program in the country, where every 4-year-old can start their schooling on the right track, setting them up for success further down the road.”
Teacher shortage and other challenges
But the TK rollout has had some hiccups. The chief one is finding enough qualified teachers. Because of the small class sizes and the extra qualifications required to teach 4-year-olds, there’s a shortfall of at least 12,000 TK teachers, according to Early Edge California. Last year the state introduced a new TK-through-third-grade credential and more districts are partnering with local colleges to recruit and train future teachers, which has eased the shortage somewhat.
Another obstacle has been finding classroom space. Like kindergarten classrooms, TK classrooms must contain bathrooms, which means that districts had to find money to remodel existing classrooms, or build new ones altogether. Last year’s $10 billion school construction bond has funding available for TK projects.
TK has also had an impact on preschools. Families in California have several early education options: state-funded preschools for low-income families, federal Head Start preschool for very low-income families, and private preschools. Now that 4-year-olds have a free option, existing preschools have seen an enrollment decline that, in some cases, has led schools to raise prices or even close. A recent report from UC Berkeley showed that TK expansion has led to “pre-K deserts” in some parts of the state.
Lauren Ashton plays with a child during a transitional kindergarten class at Silverwood Elementary School.
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Laure Andrillon
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CalMatters
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Children walk out after a transitional kindergarten class at Silverwood Elementary School in the Mt. Diablo Unified School District in Concord on Aug. 11, 2025.
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Laure Andrillon
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CalMatters
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Bruce Fuller, an education professor at UC Berkeley who’s researched TK, said it’s too early to tell who’s benefitting from the program.
“We’re seeing a shift away from preschool and toward TK, but we don’t know if TK is actually reaching new families,” Fuller said. “We might just be seeing families who would have enrolled anyway.”
Dual-language programs
A handful of districts offer dual-language TK classes, which have been popular with parents. Karina Galustians, a parent in the Tujunga neighborhood of Los Angeles, enrolled her daughter Julianna last fall in an Armenian-English TK class in Los Angeles Unified’s Pinewood Early Education Center.
Galustians’ husband speaks fluent Armenian, and the couple was eager for Julianna to be able to communicate with the extended family and learn more about the culture.
“The more languages you know, the better off you are,” said Galustians, whose first language is Spanish. “To find a school where she can get those academic skills and practice her Armenian — me and my husband were beyond grateful. We hit the jackpot.”
Julianna starts kindergarten this fall at another Los Angeles Unified school, where she’ll be part of the Armenian dual language program. “We feel like she’s very well prepared,” Galustians said.
‘Everyone feels included’
Meanwhile, at Silverwood Elementary in Concord, Swanson ended the day by having students put away the blocks and plastic bugs and Eric Carle books. Then she sat with them in a circle and praised each child’s efforts and told them how excited she was to see them again tomorrow.
“David, you were super responsible today,” Swanson told an awed 4-year-old as she handed him a personalized certificate. “Lindsay, you were a good friend. Zaire, you were so respectful.”
Then it was time for the children to go meet their parents, who were waiting at the side of the playground. Swanson chatted with nearly every parent, telling them how much she enjoys their children.
“I think TK should be the same as what we want for society generally,” Swanson said. “It should be a place where everyone feels included and valued. We want everyone to be curious and non-judgmental and happy to be here.”
Farmworkers drink water in the shade of a tent as they weed a bell pepper field in Southern California during a heat wave. A new study shows that rules designed to give the state's outdoor workers access to shade, water and rest on hot days has saved lives.
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Etienne Laurent
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Getty Images
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Topline:
It's long been understood that working outside in hot weather can be dangerous: Even ancient Egyptians worried about dehydration for workers building the pyramids. Now, a growing body of research is quantifying that danger — and suggesting ways to better protect workers.
Why it matters: A suite of new analyses has found that regulations that provide basic safeguards like water, shade and rest for workers in hot conditions can help lower the numbers of heat-driven injuries, workers' compensation claims and even deaths.
How have regulations helped? The most recent study, published in December in the journal Health Affairs, looked at California's rule protecting outdoor workers from heat, the oldest such rule in the country. Researchers found the regulations led to at least a 33% drop in heat-related deaths among workers after 2010 — an estimate of several dozen lives saved each year.
Read on ... to learn more about the ways the government can protect workers.
It's long been understood that working outside in hot weather can be dangerous: Even ancient Egyptians worried about dehydration for workers building the pyramids.
Now, a growing body of research is quantifying that danger — and suggesting ways to better protect workers.
The risks extend beyond obvious concerns like dehydration and heatstroke.
"Heat makes people slower to react and worse at making decisions," says Adam Dean, a labor economist at George Washington University. "That means farmworkers driving a tractor or a construction worker operating equipment are more likely to have a fatal accident on a hot day."
But a suite of new analyses has found that regulations that provide basic safeguards like water, shade and rest for workers in hot conditions can help lower the numbers of heat-driven injuries, workers' compensation claims and even deaths.
The studies all use different datasets and methods but come to a similar conclusion, says Barrak Alahmad, an environmental health scientist at Harvard University and an expert on occupational health risks.
"States with heat standards have lower risk of heat injuries, of heat fatalities and other outcomes compared to states that don't have these heat standards," Alahmad says.
The most recent study, published in December in the journal Health Affairs, looked at California's rule protecting outdoor workers from heat, the oldest such rule in the country. Researchers found the regulations led to at least a 33% drop in heat-related deaths among workers after 2010 — an estimate of several dozen lives saved each year.
The outcome "delivers a clear message," says Dean, the study's lead author. "Heat standards, if they're adopted and effectively enforced, can significantly reduce worker deaths."
The federal rules, first proposed under Biden, are now under review by the Trump administration. Their future is uncertain.
While the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has recognized for decades that heat poses risks to workers, there is active debate among worker advocates and business groups about how best to provide protections: via stringent, highly specific regulations, or with broader guidelines that allow employers to take the lead in crafting efforts specific to their own industries.
The new studies could help inform any new rules, says Jordan Barab, who was deputy assistant secretary of labor at OSHA under the Obama administration. Though the basic measures to protect workers have been well-known for decades, it's invaluable, he says, to "show that when a state actually implements these requirements that they actually have saved lives."
The California example
Federal regulators first noted that heat could put American workers at risk in the 1970s and '80s. But for years, OSHA prioritized regulating other workplace hazards. Heat issues were managed under the agency's more generalized rules, such as the "general duty clause," which required employers to maintain workplaces "free from recognized hazards."
But some states, like California, decided to go further. In 2005, after the highly publicized deaths of several farmworkers due to heat exposure, California passed the nation's first state-level regulations to protect outdoor workers from excessive heat. Requirements kicked off when temperatures exceeded 85 degrees Fahrenheit (the threshold has since been lowered further).
The rules set out to provide some simple protections: access to water, shade and rest on hot days.
For many years, California was the only state with such heat rules, setting up a natural experiment: Would heat-related worker deaths fall in California, compared to neighboring states with similar weather conditions but no such protections?
The new study suggests that, at first, the rules didn't make much of a difference. During the first few years, researchers did not find a decrease in heat-related death rates in California compared to neighboring states.
"When California first adopted a standard in 2005, it was ineffective," Dean says.
But that would soon change.
In 2010, the state strengthened the rule and deaths began to drop, the study found — eventually falling by more than 30%, with even more dramatic reductions in recent years.
The changes to the rule, Dean says, were critical. Though the initial rules required employers to provide water and shade, in practice, inspectors sometimes found problems — like undrinkable water.
So, the state clarified. Water had to be drinkable and free. And there needed to be enough shade for all workers during breaks. California also ramped up workplace inspections and launched an educational campaign to train the state's many outdoor workers about their rights.
"A critical lesson is that merely passing a heat standard is not enough," Dean says. "It was only after the state launched a statewide enforcement campaign that we started to see deaths decrease relative to the surrounding states."
The rules could have been even more effective with more consistent enforcement, says Garrett Brown, who until 2014 worked for Cal/OSHA, the state agency tasked with enforcing the rule. Even though the number of inspections increased, he says, limited staffing caused ongoing enforcement challenges.
It could have been "even more health protective for workers if there was an even more robust enforcement program," Brown says.
A growing body of evidence
The California study joins two other analyses with similar findings published in the past year.
Together, they provide important insights that could help in the design of future rules, says Alahmad. He led an analysis of heat-influenced worker injuries, published earlier this year, which found that states with heat rules had lower injury rates than those without.
Another recent study found workers' compensation claims were lower in states with heat standards compared to those without.
The next step for researchers is to suss out the most important parts of those regulations, Alahmad says: "What elements are actually most effective?"
That will be key information for regulators across the country. More than a dozen states and cities proposed new heat protection rules in 2025.
What movies are nominated? Sinners leads the way with a record-breaking 16 nominations, while Leonardo DiCaprio-led One Battle After Another has a hefty 13 nods. Both are also nominated for best picture.
Read on ... to see where you can watch the nominated movies and learn more about many of them.
Below, you can find details and coverage of the 14 films nominated in six major categories: best picture, best actor and actress, best supporting actor and actress, and best director. Dive in!
Sinners
The gist: Ryan Coogler's movie stars Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers who open a 1930s juke joint. And opening night does not go as planned when a bloodthirsty menace appears outside. (Vampires — we're talking about vampires.)
16 nominations: actor in a leading role, actor in a supporting role, actress in a supporting role, casting, cinematography, costume design, directing, film editing, makeup and hairstyling, original score, original song, best picture, production design, sound, visual effects, original screenplay
The gist: Paul Thomas Anderson's action thriller stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a washed up ex-revolutionary whose past comes to haunt him. DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and Teyana Taylor are all nominated for their performances.
13 nominations: actor in a leading role, actor in a supporting role, another actor in a supporting role, actress in a supporting role, casting, cinematography, directing, film editing, original score, best picture, production design, sound, adapted screenplay
The gist: Guillermo del Toro's take on the Mary Shelley classic. Jacob Elordi plays the creature and Oscar Isaac is the scientist.
9 nominations: actor in a supporting role, cinematography, costume design, makeup and hairstyling, original score, best picture, production design, sound, adapted screenplay
The gist: Timothée Chalamet plays a working-class heel aiming to become a table tennis champion in the 1950s.
9 nominations: actor in a leading role, casting, cinematography, costume design, directing, film editing, best picture, production design, original screenplay
The gist: Stellan Skarsgård is a filmmaker attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughters, proving that at the very least, the tension between art and parenthood is complicated. Skarsgård, Renate Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Elle Fanning are all nominated for their performances.
9 nominations: actor in a supporting role, actress in a leading role, actress in a supporting role, actress in a supporting role, directing, film editing, best international feature film, best picture, original screenplay
Where to see it:In theaters. Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.
The gist: A young English couple meets, falls in love, has children and suffers an unspeakable tragedy. One of them happens to be William Shakespeare, who goes on to write Hamlet. Jessie Buckley plays his wife.
8 nominations: actress in a leading role, casting, costume design, directing, original score, best picture, production design, adapted screenplay
The gist: Directed by Richard Linklater,Ethan Hawke plays lyricist Lorenz Hart on the worst night of his life — the opening of Oklahoma! on Broadway — after his long-term collaborator Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) has forged a new partnership with Oscar Hammerstein II.
2 nominations: actor in a leading role, original screenplay
The gist: Rose Byrne plays a therapist shouldering all the responsibility of caring for her ill daughter while her emotionally absent husband is away for work.
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Countless VHS tapes line the walls inside Whammy Analog Media in Echo Park.
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Whammy Analog Media
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Courtesy Erik Varho
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Topline:
Physical media has been making a comeback. Whammy Analog Media, an Echo Park storefront specializing in VHS tapes, has been providing a place for enthusiasts and newcomers to embrace the antiquated format.
Why now: Whammy hosts their first quarterly VHS swap meet of the year this weekend. Peruse VHS classics and rarities at this event in Echo Park.
The backstory: Whammy owner Erik Varho never stopped collecting VHS tapes. With an abundance of tapes in his possession he started selling them online in 2020, and in 2022 he opened a storefront to cater to the needs of all VHS enthusiasts.
Physical media has been making a comeback. Whammy Analog Media, an Echo Park storefront specializing in VHS tapes, has been providing a place for enthusiasts and newcomers to embrace the antiquated format.
From tape collector to curator
Whammy founder Erik Varho always wanted to open his own store — he just didn’t have a clue as what it would be. A die-hard videotape lover, Varho never stopped collecting them, even after major releases ceased printing in 2006.
Shelves full of VHS tapes inside Whammy Analog Media.
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Whammy Analog Media
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Courtesy Erik Varho
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In 2020, fresh out of work and with VHS tapes lining the walls of his studio apartment, he started selling his tapes via Instagram.
“I was pleasantly surprised that people were actually out there buying them,” Varho said.
With the success of his online sales, Varho was able to open a brick-and-mortar store in 2022. Varho intended it to just be a retail store, but the space, he thought, was perfect for an indoor screen.
“I just kind of dove headfirst into the microcinema aspect of it,” Varho said.
Whammy’s been hosting events celebrating that grainy quality of the Video Home System — or VHS — ever since.
A crowd watching a projected VHS film inside Whammy Analog Media.
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Whammy Analog Media
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Courtesy Erik Varho
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A small crowd gathers to watch a film inside Whammy Analog Media.
One regular event is the WhammyVHS Swap Meet. The quarterly meet-up brings together video vendors from across Southern California to showcase their wares.
Bad Taste specializes in lowbrow horror and cult films, whileCinefile Liquidations sells vintage posters, records and other film ephemera.
“It's just kind of a place for people to display their craziest, weirdest, rarest finds and just have a place to talk about them and hang out,” Varho said.
Those rare finds include Image of the Beast from 1981, the third installment in a Christian apocalyptic thriller series about the rise of the antichrist and an evil A.I.
Whammy recently projected the film as part of its “Stuck on VHS”series, which showcases works that were only released direct to video.
A rewinding renewal
Shoppers look through various stacks of tape inside Whammy Analog Media.
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Whammy Analog Media
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Courtesy Erik Varho
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Besides an entire store, Varho also owns a storage unit filled to the brim with VHS tapes. Those who RSVP to Sunday's swap meet get a free mystery VHS tape upon entry.
He says the most frequent question he gets is if they sell VCRs. They do, but they run out pretty quickly.
Varho takes it as a good sign and says lately customers have been skewing younger and younger.
"People who didn't even grow up with VHS who are just interested in exploring movies in that way. It's a fun time to be into VHS for sure,” Varho said.
Sunday's event includes a screening of a mystery VHS.
“I can’t reveal what we’re playing, but it’s always stuff that is going to be attention-grabbing and usually pretty silly,” Varho said.
Details
Whammy! VHS Swap Meet Location: 2514 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles (in the back) When: Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. Free admission, RSVP here
How it works: The annual competition invites filmmakers from around the world to reimagine often long-forgotten literary classics, films, cartoons, music, and visual art that are now in the public domain.
About the winner: Titled Rhapsody, Reimagined, the roughly two-minute video captures the King of Jazz's surreal quality: Cookie-cutter rows of musicians, showgirls, office workers and random furniture cascade across the screen as influential bandleader Paul Whiteman's winking face looks on.
One of the most unusual of the creative treasures to enter the public domain this month is King of Jazz. The plotless, experimental 1930 musical film shot in early Technicolor centers on influential bandleader Paul Whiteman, nicknamed "The King of Jazz."
In one memorable scene, the portly, mustachioed Whiteman opens a small bag and winks at the camera as miniature musicians file out one after another like a colony of ants and take their places on an ornate, table-top bandstand.
A new video based on clips from King of Jazz has won this year's Public Domain Film Remix Contest — an annual competition that invites filmmakers from around the world to reimagine often long-forgotten literary classics, films, cartoons, music, and visual art that are now in the public domain. This means creators can use these materials freely, without copyright restrictions. In 2026, works created in 1930 entered the public domain.
Titled Rhapsody, Reimagined, the roughly two-minute video captures the King of Jazz's surreal quality: Cookie-cutter rows of musicians, showgirls, office workers and random furniture cascade across the screen as Whiteman's winking face looks on.
"I wanted to transform the figures and bodies into more dream-like shapes through collage and looping and repetition," said Seattle-based filmmaker Andrea Hale, who created the piece in collaboration with composer Greg Hardgrave. For video artists, Hale said discovering what's new in the public domain each January is a thrill. "We're always looking for things to draw from," Hale said. "Opening that up to a bigger spread of materials is amazing. That's the dream."
A massive repository of content
The Internet Archive, the San Francisco-based nonprofit library behind the contest, digitizes and provides public access to a massive repository of content, including many materials used by contest participants. "These materials have often just been in film canisters for decades," said digital librarian Brewster Kahle, who founded the Internet Archive in 1996.
This year's submissions range from a reworking of the 1930 film The Blue Angel starring Betty Boop — another public domain entrant this year — instead of Marlene Dietrich, to an AI-generated take on the 1930 Nancy Drew book The Mystery at Lilac Inn.
Kahle said the Internet Archive received nearly 280 entries this time around, the highest number since the competition launched six years ago. "Things are not just musty, old archival documentation of the past," Kahle said. "People are bringing them to life in new and different ways, without fear of being sued."
The public domain in the era of AI
Lawsuits have become a growing concern for artists and copyright holders, especially with the rise of generative AI. Recent years have seen a surge in online video takedowns and copyright infringement disputes.
Media companies are trying to address the problem through deals with tech firms, such as Disney and OpenAI's plan, announced late last year, to introduce a service allowing users to create short videos based on copyrighted characters, including Cinderella and Darth Vader.
"On the one hand, these licensing agreements seem quite a clean solution to thorny legal questions," said Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School. "But what's exciting about the public domain is that material, after a long, robust 95-year copyright term, is just simply free for anyone — without a team of lawyers, without a licensing agreement, without having to work for Disney or OpenAI — to just put online," Jenkins said.
Jenkins also pointed out an interesting twist for people who create new works using materials from the public domain. "You actually get a copyright in your remix," she said. "Just like Disney has copyrights in all of its remakes of wonderful public domain works like Snow White or Cinderella." (The Brothers Grimm popularized these two characters in their 19th century collection Grimm's Fairy Tales. But their roots are much deeper, going back to European folklore collections of the 1600s and beyond.)
However, this only applies to works created by humans — U.S. copyright law currently doesn't recognize works authored by AI. And Jenkins further cautioned that creators only get a copyright in their new creative contributions to the remix, and not the underlying material.
This year's Public Domain Film Remix Contest winner Andrea Hale said she's using a Creative Commons license for Rhapsody, Reimagined. This means the filmmaker retains the copyright to her work but grants permissions that allow other people to freely use, share, and build upon it. "I'm keeping with the spirit of the public domain," Hale said.
