DS is (barely) old enough to begin kindergarten this fall. However our first choice (charter) school is totally full, current staff and siblings have priority and there is not a single space. Our second choice school will have a handful of spaces, the drawing for entry is in a few weeks. His odds are maybe 50-50 of getting in there. Maybe less, the school has had a lot of really glowing media coverage this past year and a lot of people want their kids to go there. Our neighborhood school is problematic for various reasons. Transferring to a different neighborhood school is a possibility but DH and I don't agree on this.
DS will be a VERY young kindergartener, he was born (early, in fact) just two weeks before the cutoff. If he'd made it to his due date he would not even be allowed to start this year. North Carolina's laws have changed so that starting next year the cutoff is August 31st (it was Oct. 16th up until this year). One effect of this is that the kindergarten cohort is expected to be 15% smaller next year. So what this means is (1) less competition to get into one of our preferred schools if he tries for kindergarten NEXT year as well as (2) the big clump of younger siblings at our first choice school got in THIS year, next year's class will have more openings and fewer applicants.
Furthermore, I will be on maternity leave until Nov. 1st. I am kind of heartbroken about the idea that after years of childcare, at the point I could actually be home for a few months, DS will be going off to a school I don't even want him in! We had really wanted to time it that I would be on leave with the baby and DS all summer before he started kindy, but I just didn't conceive in time. I am due in mid-August, right around when school would be starting.
Also -- I know quite a few people who did not get into the first or second choice school at the drawing, but a week or a month or two months into the school year, they got a phone call saying a space had opened up and did they want it. At that point it was a very difficult decision about disrupting their child from a different school that had become familiar, away from their friends, etc. Obviously if the situation was terrible you would just do it, but what if the situation were merely mediocre? And the child was upset about changing schools?
So it dawned on me last night -- why not just keep him home with me and see what happens? There's a roughly 25% chance, I'd estimate, that I will not go back to work at all. So even if he doesn't get a spot down the road, whatever, he's not legally obligated to be in kindergarten this year. I think it will be a lot more fun to be home with both kids, than just with the baby. Honestly I was bored to death when DS was a baby/toddler, but he's so much fun now! OTOH, even if I do go back to work, I think we can figure something out. I wouldn't want to try to enroll him in the neighborhood school several months into the year, and I wouldn't want to put him back into "daycare," but we might have a nanny, or he could maybe attend a private "transitional kindergarten" near us. It's kind of aimed at his demographic, like kids who are technically old enough for kindy but for whatever reason not enrolling in public K yet. They have 4/5 year olds for a half day, then they have aftercare as well for working parents. The class is TINY, like 10 kids.
Thoughts?
DS will be a VERY young kindergartener, he was born (early, in fact) just two weeks before the cutoff. If he'd made it to his due date he would not even be allowed to start this year. North Carolina's laws have changed so that starting next year the cutoff is August 31st (it was Oct. 16th up until this year). One effect of this is that the kindergarten cohort is expected to be 15% smaller next year. So what this means is (1) less competition to get into one of our preferred schools if he tries for kindergarten NEXT year as well as (2) the big clump of younger siblings at our first choice school got in THIS year, next year's class will have more openings and fewer applicants.
Furthermore, I will be on maternity leave until Nov. 1st. I am kind of heartbroken about the idea that after years of childcare, at the point I could actually be home for a few months, DS will be going off to a school I don't even want him in! We had really wanted to time it that I would be on leave with the baby and DS all summer before he started kindy, but I just didn't conceive in time. I am due in mid-August, right around when school would be starting.
Also -- I know quite a few people who did not get into the first or second choice school at the drawing, but a week or a month or two months into the school year, they got a phone call saying a space had opened up and did they want it. At that point it was a very difficult decision about disrupting their child from a different school that had become familiar, away from their friends, etc. Obviously if the situation was terrible you would just do it, but what if the situation were merely mediocre? And the child was upset about changing schools?
So it dawned on me last night -- why not just keep him home with me and see what happens? There's a roughly 25% chance, I'd estimate, that I will not go back to work at all. So even if he doesn't get a spot down the road, whatever, he's not legally obligated to be in kindergarten this year. I think it will be a lot more fun to be home with both kids, than just with the baby. Honestly I was bored to death when DS was a baby/toddler, but he's so much fun now! OTOH, even if I do go back to work, I think we can figure something out. I wouldn't want to try to enroll him in the neighborhood school several months into the year, and I wouldn't want to put him back into "daycare," but we might have a nanny, or he could maybe attend a private "transitional kindergarten" near us. It's kind of aimed at his demographic, like kids who are technically old enough for kindy but for whatever reason not enrolling in public K yet. They have 4/5 year olds for a half day, then they have aftercare as well for working parents. The class is TINY, like 10 kids.
Thoughts?
. Oh and supposedly the principal is a "great person", this is like third-hand from someone who knows someone who goes to church with her. Whatever.
