Category: News in the Field

PA Kindergarten Entry Inventory 2025-2026 School Year Invitation to Participate (February 10, 2025)

All elementary schools are encouraged to implement Pennsylvania’s Kindergarten Entry Inventory (PA KEI) in the 2025-2026 school year to assist in meeting federal requirements.

PA KEI is a reliable reporting tool that offers teachers an instructional strategy for understanding and tracking a student’s proficiency at kindergarten entry. The PA KEI is available to all local education agencies (LEAs) at no cost.

The PA KEI collects information on a consistent set of standards-based indicators across the Commonwealth. The PA KEI is based on Pennsylvania’s Learning Standards for Early Childhood and the Pennsylvania Core Standards. PA KEI includes 30 indicators and provides a comprehensive profile that includes the domains of: Social and Emotional Development; English Language Arts; Mathematics; Approaches to Learning; and Health, Wellness and Physical Development. PA KEI is intended to be used by kindergarten teachers to record a student’s demonstration of skills within the first 45 calendar days of the kindergarten year. More information is available at www.kei-pa.org.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides opportunities to strengthen the contribution of high-quality early childhood education in school reform and improvement efforts. The law recognizes that school success starts before a student enters the K-12 setting and calls on states to describe how they will assist LEAs and elementary schools to collaborate with early childhood education programs, and to invest in evidence-based practices. ESSA supports early learning and LEA collaboration in three main ways: (1) expanding access to high-quality early learning; (2) encouraging alignment and collaboration from birth through third grade; and (3) supporting educators. The PA KEI is a tangible tool to assist LEAs in understanding the comprehensive learning strengths and needs of students entering the K-12 setting, establishing common expectations and language for beginning and extending collaborative conversations with pre-kindergarten programs and families, and planning and implementing joint professional development opportunities that focus on strengthening evidence-based practices for young learners.

Implementing the PA KEI requires a Point of Contact (POC) who will serve as the liaison between LEA administrative staff, implementing kindergarten teachers, the Office of Child Development and Learning (OCDEL), and data systems staff. A dedicated POC ensures effective communication and implementation throughout the PA KEI process. 

To initiate PA KEI participation in the 2025-2026 school year, send the POC name, email address, and phone number to [email protected] by May 30, 2025.

All kindergarten teachers who have not previously participated must complete a required professional development online course and obtain a certificate of completion. Teachers with an expired proficient user certificate (more than five years since certification) must also complete the professional development online course. More information about taking the online course is available on the KEI Professional Development webpage.

Questions about this communication may be sent to [email protected].

USDE Opens Title IX Investigations (February 8, 2025)

On February 6, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) opened Title IX investigations into a middle and high school athletics association and two universities that it says have allowed transgender women and girls to participate on teams corresponding with their gender identity. The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, San JosĂŠ State University, and the University of Pennsylvania, are being investigated. In addition, it is reported that OCR is reviewing athletics participation policies at “a number of schools.”

The investigations are in response to an executive order barring transgender women from playing on women’s sports teams and threatening to pull federal funding from educational institutions that don’t comply.

OCR is also taking aim at the term “transgender ideology,” which according to the Southern Poverty Law Center is often used by anti-LGBTQ+ groups to imply that someone’s transgender identity “is not real but is instead a belief system that is imposed on others.”

For more from K-12 Dive, click here.

House Republicans Float Plan to Cut CEP (February 7, 2025)

The House Ways and Means Committee is suggesting cutting $12 billion in school meal programs over 10 years by adjusting school qualification for the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) and requiring income verification for national K-12 breakfast and lunch programs, according to a document on the committee’s budget reconciliation options.

Specifically, the committee proposed raising the minimum threshold for low-income schools and districts to qualify for CEP, which allows low-income schools to serve free meals to all students. To participate in the program, 25% of students enrolled in a school have to be certified as eligible for free school meals. The House proposal calls for a 60% threshold. 

The proposal would strip away 24,000 schools’ ability to participate in CEP, impacting over 12 million children, according to the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC), a nonprofit anti-hunger advocacy group. In fact, according to a report by FRAC, participation in the CEP increased by almost 19% during the 2023-24 school year as half of all National School Lunch Program (NSLP) schools now use the provision that lets low-income schools serve free meals to all students.

For more from K-12 Dive, click here.