Choosing the Right Kindergarten
This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 4:39 am and is filed under Education. | Leave a CommentFor some reason, I stressed out quite a bit when it came to choosing the right kindergarten for my daughter. I narrowed things down to four options:
1. The public school to which she would be assigned
This is a frightening option. There are a lot of unknowns that fact into my daughter attending the school to which she assigned. Up until this coming school year, school choice was in place in our county. You could put your child in pretty much any school in the county, as long as there was room. Now, students entering kindergarten, middle school, or high school are assigned to the “close to home” school. We live in a location in our county where if she was place in a school just to out east, things would be as good as they can get. If she is placed in the school to our west, I would be frightened to drop her off each morning. Since the county is not even putting out the maps to show the school placements until this coming week, I did not feel comfortable replying on this alone.
2. A county charter school
These are privately run school, funded by the county. It is like attending private school, but for free. I found three charter schools in our area and I filled out the applications for the two I liked: one for the arts and one that teaches classes in both English and Greek. State law mandates that all kindergarten students entering the system have an equal and fair chance if they want to attend the charter schools, the placement is determined by lottery. My daughter did not get into the lottery for either of the chatter schools. She is on a waiting list, but I am fairly certain we will not see her name come to the top of the list.
3. A county fundamental school
There are several fundamental schools in our district. In fact, their track record is so tremendous that districts from all over the nation come here to study the program and use it as a model. A fundamental school is back the basics. There is homework every night, a stricter uniform code, mandatory parent meetings and participation, and stricter behavior guidelines. Unlike other public schools, students can be asked to leave a fundamental school if they or their parents do not live up to the agreements we sign when we choose to place them the school. A fundamental elementary school further north in the county is number one in FCAT scores in the state. The one closer to home is in the top 10. Entrance is determined by lottery for these schools as well. My daughter did receive an invitation to attend one of the fundamentals and I accepted.
4. The private, Christian school she currently attends
I love the school where my daughter attends pre-K. I think I could qualify for next year to use a state scholarship, but in subsequent years when I am working fulltime, I sill surely no longer qualify. Therefore, the expense might eventually mean I have to pull her out of the Christian school and place her in the public system, at which point I may not be able to get her into the fundamental school and I will be left with only the option of her “close to home” school. I am still considering biting the bullet and just finding the money to keep her there. In the meantime, the fundamental school I listed above is my safety.
Should it be this hard? I just want to make sure she is in the best place I can find. She is smart and creative, but emotional and easily distracted. I do not want her lost in a larger school or overlooked if she ends up in the middle of the pack. And, since I am making this decision on my own, I feel all the more pressure. I never imagined I would be alone in planning my daughter’s education, or in funding it – but that is my reality.