Presley's preschool had a parent teacher meeting to discuss education options for our children. Presley will not be heading to kindergarden for another year but we decided to attend. It's a topic that has given me some anxiety. And I tent to think it's that for many families so I decided to blog about what I discovered.
A few months ago I had one teacher give me information on where to find the K-12 requirements as well as school rating. With that information I was able to see that the school in our neighborhood was a highly preforming school (ranked by test scores). This as good, but considering I don't care for all the testing required and many educators agree- does this matter?
Yes, it's a good measure but is not the only criteria you should use to pick a school. Each family is different so different emphasis may be placed in different areas when doing this research. Here are a few pointers to help you feel more empowered when making this decision.
Here are the pointers I received:
- Visit the school (and others) several different times and take a tour of different grade levels. Because your child will ideally continue on with their classmates in that school so make sure it's a good fit. Each school has a culture and see how it feels for you and your child.
- Are the seats in rows or in groups? Do you like or dislike this set up?
- Ask about extra curricular activities and discipline policies.
- If your school allows fill out a Teacher Preference form.
Yeah, nothing ground breaking I know. I did know I should visit schools I just didn't have any questions in mind. And I feel like whatever the person tells me at the time, sound reasonable. These points above gave me a few ideas to walk in the door with.
But this last point have never crossed my mind. I was unaware but apparently in the recent years the age for kids entering kindergarden has been set back. So younger children are now allowed into school. This was done not because all of a sudden our kids are now smarter but because of funding (more kids=more money). Consider your child emotional maturity when enrolling in school. Just because your child may be able to preform the required tasks does not make them school ready.
The point to consider, if your child is entered into school just making the cut off date. Your child will for their entire education career be young for their grade level. We were shown handwriting samples for kids from a 4yr old, 5 yr old and 6yr. old. The hand writing difference was very noticeable and all age appropriate. However, not all of them were "good" for kindergarten.
I really thought this was a great point I never considered. I would love for Presley to have one more year of emotional maturity and be the older girl in her grade. After talking to my brother about this he pointed out he remembers athletically playing against older boys in our grade and how much of a difference they were in size. One of the educators pointed out that especially if you have a small or shy child it's sort of setting your child up to be a follower. An interesting point.
Now what if you live in an area where your school is not performing well. There is something to be said about your children having neighborhood friends. So what do you do? Again still follow the steps above, low performing schools do have some good teachers. These schools also get more training for their teachers.
Parent involvement is a responsibility that we can't fall short on. We have to be advocates for our children and make sure they get the attention and education they need.