Transition to Kindergarten: Lessons from North Carolina’s Statewide Efforts

In recent years, North Carolina has engaged in efforts to improve the transition to kindergarten process for children, families, and teachers across the state. These efforts include the launch of North Carolina’s Transition to Kindergarten Pilot project in 2018 and activities funded by the state’s Preschool Development Grant Birth to Age 5 (NC’s PDG B-5). As part of the evaluation of North Carolina’s PDG B-5 work, Child Trends conducted a two-phased deep dive evaluation to learn more about transition to kindergarten efforts in counties across the state. The evaluation team gathered data from counties’ transition leadership teams, pre-K teachers, pre-K administrators, kindergarten teachers, local education agency (LEA) administrators, and families. This document briefly describes North Carolina’s recent efforts to support transition to kindergarten, followed by key evaluation findings and recommendations on how the state can continue to support counties’ transition work.