Kindergarten

We finally made a decision about what to do for Sydney this coming school year.  We decided to do the private kindergarten route.  This is the same school my friend has sent all of her kids to and Sawyer will be going to preschool here too.  The kindergarten program we are putting Sydney into follows state curriculum and will prepare a child for 1st grade in the public school if they are ready to move on.  I felt reassured after speaking to the teacher.  She told me that by January she will know if a child is ready for 1st grade or if the child needs to repeat kindergarten in the public school.  She was also well aware of the hard decisions those of us who have young 5 year olds have to make about schooling.  She said that the majority of her students are in fact summer birthdays.  Two other key factors in our decision were small class size (max of 16 students) with one main teacher and a full time assistant teacher.  So the ratio is so much better than public school.  The other factor is that this program is a half day kindergarten class.  Our district has full day kindergarten and Sydney is still a napper.  I think it will be a benefit to her to start out at half day.  I know most people covet full day, but I don't if it means my kid will do better in school.

Sydney tested out of speech in February (thanks to her wonderful speech teacher!) and has made great strides.  She still lacks a little bit of confidence that plagued her because she was often not understood.  She was always social, but tended to have some performances issues at preschool.  She writes well, knows most of her letters and a few numbers (she still has an aversion to numbers!). 

We have a meeting with her soon to be new teacher next week.  I am very excited.  I love the fact that this teacher will tell us one way or the other whether she should start 1st grade or do kindergarten again in the public school system.  There are some downfalls to her starting 1st grade in public school.  The biggest concern is that the kindergartners in public school will have already been together for a year before starting 1st grade.  Friendships will have already been established.  Sydney will be "new" to the kids.  I am not going to stress out about it, I will just have to see where she is after the school year next year.  Paying tuition is going to be a pain, but it will be money well spent if she is better prepared to start her school career.

Making decisions for a child's education is tough.  Especially a summer birthday child!!!  Darn the super crazy benchmarks in public school these days!