Now, that my daughter is in preschool, kindergarten seems years away. But, in reality, it is only a few months down the road. This will be my first child entering Kindergarten, so I didn’t know much about the process of getting her enrolled for school. After talking to a friend yesterday, I had a little panic session. I live in an open-enrollment school district, meaning that I can apply to enroll her into any kindergarten classroom in the school district. Preferential treatment is always given to people living within a school’s boundaries, but it does leave some room for some pickiness when selecting what elementary school my child will go to.
I hadn’t been worried about looking into it too much until yesterday. I realized that the deadlines were all coming up next week, and I had not done any of my homework! I still had to research what elementary schools were the best, and what programs they had. One thing I was surprised to find was that in many of the schools, the half-day Kindergartens are only 2 and a half hours long. That is shorter than she is currently going to preschool! So, that sent me into panic mode. Now, I’m looking at charter schools, private schools, and public schools. It’s a lot of work.
Do not wait too long to investigate getting your child into kindergarten. Deadlines come early. And, luckily, I had asked a friend, and was able to get her in for testing right before the deadline, which ended up being next week! If I had waited just a few more days, I would have been out of luck with choosing which school she attends. It is surprising to me also how competitive it can become at such a young age. You get to tell the school whether you would like a full or half-day program, but ultimately they make the choice. So, even in public schools, that leaves lots of room for brown nosing to try and get what you want. And, I’m thinking to myself…”All this? For kindergarten!” Also, some of the elementary schools offer advanced placement classes, or a gifted program. Again, they get tested in Kindergarten. I had no idea.
Most likely, my daughter will end up going to the elementary school in our neighborhood, and we will go to our school in the boundaries we are assigned to. But, I was amazed to realize how much work has to go into all of this at such a young age! Gifted classes, half-day, full-day, open enrollment, charter school lotteries…it all seems like a little too much. Maybe I was just naïve, but now I have to get busy!
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