Transitioning to Kindergarten: Lessons from Nevada Communities

Nevada, as portrayed in the media, is long stretches of desert, the Strip, ghost towns, and mines. But even though Nevada soars above 100 degrees in sweltering desert summers, it remains an undiscovered iceberg to most. Hidden below that sandy, rocky iceberg is what's left out of the tabloids: a story of community.

The Preschool Development Grant our state received in 2015 put the transition to kindergarten on our radar, but it wasn’t until 2020 that we really began to dig into this work. Like many other states, our early learning ecosystem took a particularly hard hit at the onset of the pandemic and it seemed that our community was eager to learn how to better support our youngest learners and their families during this new wave of reality.

In partnership with EducationCounsel, the Nevada Department of Education (NDE) hosted an informational webinar with various early childhood community members to learn about transitions in October 2020. From there, we hosted focus groups with district teams to gain insight on the work already happening on the ground level as well as the areas of opportunity to strengthen local transitions. This information helped us develop our Nevada Kindergarten Transition Guide, full of resources and best practices to guide transition work at the district and school level. Although this was a great first step, we knew we’d have to dig a little deeper to authentically support implementation of recommendations from our guide in Nevada communities.

At the beginning of school year 2021-2022, we began working with teams in Lyon County School District and Washoe County School District – one rural, one urban, both invested in transforming their approach to supporting kindergarten transitions. Both districts conducted a self-assessment, uncovering strengths and gaps that existed within their current approaches. Throughout the year, they have been connecting with stakeholders and leaders to learn more about the reality of transitions for educators and families, with a resounding message emerging that people are committed to strengthening the transition experience.

The action planning and strategies that have come out of this self-assessment process cover the essential components of quality transition work: increased communication and coordination between programs/schools and community agencies, professional development and alignment between pre-K and kindergarten, partnering with families, and promoting a culture of continuous improvement through data and information sharing. While similar in theme, what’s beautiful about these two districts’ plans is how they differ in order to meet the unique needs of the vastly different communities they serve. Witnessing this approach of individualization has been eye opening. While being a local-control state can present its own challenges, these two districts have proven that giving autonomy to people on the ground, who do the day-to-day work, enables them to do what’s best for their community in a way that prescribing may not always allow for.

Although great strides have been made, one lesson learned is navigating how to combat urgency with intentionality and doing things the right way. We found ourselves moving at a rapid pace because of the critical nature of the work. However, now that a lot of the groundwork has been laid, we’ve had the opportunity to pause, step back, and reflect on what adjustments are necessary to best pursue our goals. An area we need to strengthen is partnering with families in a more inclusive way to support equitable transition experiences and opportunities. We still have room for learning in this area, but I am confident in the direction we are headed.

The story of community has expanded beyond the two districts who took up the opportunity to invest in their transition work. A kindergarten teacher and her colleagues in Elko, Nevada, one of our rural districts, had already been devising a plan to strengthen their transitions to kindergarten. Through discussions at the local Early Childhood Advisory Council (ECAC) level, this passionate team of the willing made a plan to convene early childhood community members for a half-day transition summit last month. This systems-wide professional development set the goal of building relationships and setting action steps for making their transition goals come true. This group caught wind of the partnership between EducationCounsel and New America, NDE, and Lyon and Washoe County School Districts and reached out to us to see what support we might be able to offer their already established momentum.

The work in Elko County exemplifies this untold story of community and the commitment to coming together to enact change. Elko has established intentional connections between district and community-based early childhood providers as an important lever for their work⁠—a great place for other communities to start strengthening their own transitions. Local teams should be encouraged by the organic nature of forming these connections, as it doesn't necessarily require additional funding; it can be done through relationship building and communication. If we had more resources to dedicate to transition work, my wish would be to compensate people for their time, or create a district/state role for transitions, as a big part of our current transition work happens outside of traditional school hours. We’ve learned that our community members are invested in this work, but it can be challenging to balance competing priorities throughout the day without the funding to support the work.

In addition to our transition work, our state is starting to build a larger support network for kindergarten, a grade often caught between the pressures of standardized testing and best practices rooted in child development. As part of this approach, NDE is using federal dollars to fund Developmentally Appropriate (DAP) Kindergarten Cohorts with professional learning on best practices in early childhood, more aligned to the developmentally appropriate curriculum, instruction, and assessment we see in high-quality pre-K programs. This vertical alignment piece is key since the transition period includes support throughout the kindergarten year, not just in the beginning.

Stepping outside of the classroom, we also funded our first ever Nevada P-3 Leadership Academy cohort this year, enrolling a group of elementary school leaders and administrators across the state in a fully online program offered by the University of Colorado Denver. While completing this course, our participants are working through Nevada-specific issues and planning ways to apply learnings to their roles as leaders of Pre-K through 3rd grade initiatives. We will continue funding these two projects for the upcoming school year and look to connect this expertise to strengthen our district-level transition work.

A grassroots approach can make big ripples. Our Nevada communities are excited to continue what our transition teams have put together based on our organic efforts this year, and build on our mutually-established need for continuous improvement. We look forward to combining the leadership from our P-3 Leadership Academy and DAP Kindergarten Cohort participants with the learnings from our district technical assistance projects to share the message statewide of what’s possible. To other leaders out there hoping to dive into this work, my best advice is that it is okay to start small.

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