Kindergarten...should we stay or should we go...by Rachel

We are beginning to think about what to do for J for Kindergarten next year. He will be 5 in May so age-wise he could go to public schools. We have a great elementary school that he is districted to go to so that is not a worry for us. Here is our pros/cons list:

1. Once he is in public schools then all his therapies come from the school. J gets great therapies right now from the IU (Intermediate Unit - county). I am not saying that he will not get great therapies from the school but we know it won't be the one-on-one therapies he gets right now.

2. Private Kindergarten will allow him to continue services through the IU for one more year.

3. If he excels in a private Kindergarten then he could go to 1st grade the following year when he is 6 or go into Kindergarten again. You are only allowed to repeat a grade once so if he goes to public school for K then isn't ready to move to 1st grade he will repeat Kindergarten.

5. At 6 he will have to go to public schools.

6. Private K or a Pre-K enrichment programs are wicked expensive.

I visited a Montesorri school that I loved but I am not sure if it is a fit for J. We will take him to visit a few times before we make our decision. We would like him to go to where Kirsten is sending her kids but it is so hard to get into their program. We have been on a waiting list for 2 years there and I call 3x a month to see if they have any openings. There are 2 more schools that we are thinking about in the area also. One we have visited the other we haven't.

We made an appointment with elementary school for December to start the registration process and we have a transition meeting through the IU also. We were told we should go through the process of putting him into elementary school and have the evaluations done to see what type of classroom he should be in.