Five Things Districts Can Do to Support High-Quality Kindergarten

In my last two posts, I looked at what states and principals can do to support high-quality kindergarten. Districts sit in between, and they hold many important levers. A principal who wants a play-rich kindergarten can only go so far if the district’s pacing guide, assessment calendar, and supply budget point the other way.

Superintendents balance many priorities and answer to an elected school board, so it is a big deal when district leaders put kindergarten and the early grades near the top of the list. The district leaders I write about in Rediscovering Kindergarten made that choice because they value prevention over remediation. Here are five things districts can do to make high-quality, play-rich kindergarten the norm rather than the exception.

1. Choose high-quality instructional curriculum and materials built for how young children learn.

In 2015, Boston’s superintendent gave the district’s Department of Early Childhood, led by Jason Sachs, authority over pre-K through second grade curriculum. The team built Focus on K2, then Focus on First and Second, carrying pre-K practices into the elementary years: center time, teacher-led small groups, read-alouds, and theme-based units that integrate literacy with science and social studies. A single research-based curriculum meant children received similar instruction regardless of which school they attended or the socioeconomic or racial makeup of their classrooms. Districts don’t have to write their own. Focus, for example, is free to download and adapt, as Maine and others have done. 

Materials matter too. Ferndale School District, in implementing its play-based work time, bought new furniture and materials for every kindergarten classroom: wooden kitchen sets, blocks, books, puzzles, and sensory tables. When districts leave materials to PTA fundraising and teachers (on their own dime), children in schools with fewer resources go without.

2. Invest in coaching for teachers and learning for principals.

A new curriculum without support rarely changes practice. Boston paired Focus with coaching and professional development. It also pursued NAEYC accreditation for pre-K and kindergarten classrooms, which gave early childhood coaches a path to work with principals, many of whom had little early childhood background, on how to support teachers. Ferndale is training principals alongside teachers on playful learning and student choice. Shawnee and Anadarko Public Schools, in partnership with the Oklahoma State Department of Education and the Southwest Regional Educational Laboratory, also provided professional learning on play-based learning for school leaders to support the implementation of Oklahoma’s play-based learning law. Early childhood development and pedagogy are not typically part of principal preparation, so districts must fill the gap or principals must seek out opportunities on their own.

3. Protect time for play, and rethink what you measure.

Ferndale started with “children’s work time,” an uninterrupted hour to play, create, and choose. Dominguez insisted it happen during the school day, not at the end, where it can get shortened or cut. Scheduled alongside literacy, math, and science, play becomes a priority rather than a reward. This is the same in districts that are part of the Massachusetts Playful Learning Institute, where teachers select two playful learning practices and embed them into their instructional day.

Districts also set the assessment calendar. Many K–2 assessments measure only the narrow reading and math skills easiest to test in young children, and when assessments are narrow, learning becomes narrow too. Districts can add observational assessments that capture language, social and emotional development, and content learning alongside foundational skills. Play and explicit instruction in foundational skills are not competing priorities. Young students need both.

4. Connect pre-K through third grade, and plan to sustain it.

In Bellingham School District, teachers designed a kindergarten year that eases transitions: the first nine weeks look similar to pre-K, the middle 18 weeks are high-quality kindergarten, and the last nine weeks shift toward the beginning of first grade. In Boston, researchers found that children with more aligned experiences from pre-K through first grade showed larger gains in literacy and math. They also found the district still had work to do to ensure the children who could benefit most were getting those experiences.

But alignment alone isn’t enough; districts also need a plan to sustain improvements over time. When Massachusetts ended its Kindergarten Development Grant, several districts raised class sizes, cut paraeducators, and ended quality initiatives. Districts that launch initiatives with grant dollars should plan from day one to move the work into their base budget.

5. Put a trained second adult in every kindergarten classroom.

Even when principals and teachers agree on what kindergarten should be, it works best with more than one adult in the room. In Neptune, New Jersey, I watched a kindergarten teacher and her assistant teacher each lead a small group during math and literacy centers while keeping an eye on the children working independently. Both could ask probing questions and notice who understood and who didn’t. Boston, Neptune, and Washington, DC, put a paraeducator in every kindergarten classroom. In most districts, that isn’t the norm, even when classes are big.

Training matters as much as headcount. Every summer, Boston’s kindergarten teachers and paraeducators train together so that the adults share goals and a common understanding of the children they teach. A 2021 study of North Carolina schools found that teaching assistants had a positive effect on elementary students’ reading and math scores.

None of these districts transformed kindergarten quickly. But each made deliberate decisions that reached every kindergarten classroom rather than leaving quality to individual teachers or principals. That matters most for children whose families can’t fill the gaps. When my daughter was in kindergarten, my husband and I could make up for the limited science instruction she received at school. Not every family can, and they shouldn’t have to.