It’s springtime, and that means kindergarten round-up in my neck of the woods. Our district takes four full days to meet, greet and screen all the incoming “5 before November 1st” kinders for the fall. Michigan recently passed a new age cut off for kindergarten. In the past, it was 5 before December 1st, but, over the next several years, that cut off birth date will continue to be pushed back a month at a time until the new cut off day is September 1st.
This year’s kindergarten round-up is bitter sweet for me personally, because it’s the last one I go through as a mom. My own pre-k honey is heading off to kindergarten this fall. Now while he’ll be right in my own school with me, there’s still something a little sad about seeing that last one go through the process and head off to school all day every day in the fall.
He, of course, is rip raring ready to conquer the kindergarten world.
On the day of round-up, each child is welcomed to our school with a name badge and, of course, of pile of papers for mom and dad to complete.
This is the time we can collect birth certificates, check immunization records and get all the paperwork done that is necessary for registration. While parents are completing those papers, one of our teachers escorts the child to a room where they will ‘play some games’ with different teacher-screener. The screening process can really be anything that your district finds useful to make a good recommendation for placement and also to get information that will help when dividing students up and creating class lists.
Our system is a very thorough process and takes anywhere from 15 minutes to a half and hour to complete. It just depends on the student. The great thing is that once it’s done, we have a very good snapshot of the student. Parents often have this assumption that it’s a pass-fail kind of ‘assessment,’ but it’s not. The intent is really to find the best placement for their student to find success.
There are many areas that we consider before making a recommendation at our school. Of course, there are some basic skills we like to see, but social and emotional maturity are often just as important as their academic readiness for the rigors of kindergarten. We are fortunate in our little elementary school to have junior-kindergarten classrooms (some schools call this young 5s or transitional kindergarten) as well as regular kindergarten classes. Both allow students to attend all day everyday. Junior kindergarten just allows for a slower pace, smaller classes and time for growth. That time is so important, especially for a child who may not be mature enough to handle the rigors of kindergarten.
I put my own son who is in kindergarten this year, in junior kindergarten last year because, although he was academically ready for kindergarten, he was deathly shy, insecure, immature and just NOT ready for kindergarten. After his year in that classroom, he is a leader in his classroom and excelling in school. He was fortunate enough to have a teacher who differentiated so that, although he was not mature enough to handle kindergarten, she was still able to challenge him academically and keep him interested and engaged in school. It really is a wonderful option for students who just need more time to get themselves ready academically, socially or emotionally for kindergarten.
Ok, so back to round-up . . . once the student is finished with the screening process, it is looked over by our kindergarten/junior kindergarten staff and a recommendation is made. Then a teacher, either a junior kindergarten or kindergarten, meets with the parents and student to go over the recommendation and talks a bit about what school will be like in the fall, when classes starts, what a typical day might be like and answers any questions. Students get to check out all the different classrooms, take a tour of the building and check out the playground. It’s an exciting day for them, and we love having the opportunity to get a peek at the new recruits coming in the fall.
We have a roundup, but there is no interview process. Just the parents come in with the paperwork of birth certificates, leases, etc.. Then the registrar assigns them to a class. There is no academic or social screening process whatsoever! Kinda stinks 🙁
Oh Pam, that would be a touch one. Yikes!
Marsha
We have a half day with a quick assessment that day. My question to you is what do you do with the 20 or so who register after this week? I say 20 because we have 8 Kindergartens so that is about what shows up between April and the start of school. 20-30!!
Yep, we have those 20 or so that register the week before school starts too. When at all possible, our principal screens them. (She has an extensive early childhood background and actually developed our round-up system, so it’s right up her alley.) However, there are those few that don’t get screened. We take a close look at them those first couple of days and make a recommendation for JK when necessary.
Marsha
First and foremost, Congratulations to your very handsome son! I’m not sure who is more proud ~ him or YOU! As you should be! But we do a lot of the same with our kinder-screening. We also took the time to assign points to all the “games” the children accomplish for us so we can get a point total. After screening, we sit and average the in0coming classes numbers to get a norm for THAT class. Then we have a more numerical and hopefully accountable placement when we look at that child both academically and socially/emotionally. I have to agree with Emilie, though! We never rescreen those children who come in late ~ so do YOu do anything with those little ones?
Thanks Laura! I think he’s pretty handsome too. I love that you assign a point system and average it. That’s so smart. I know that this year we had a ton of kids that are academically very ready for kindergarten. That is in large part due to the different Pre-K opportunities that are available. However, as funding for pre-k programs shift, we see the levels of readiness shift as well. An average would be a great resource to have. When possible, we do screen those students that register late, but there are a couple that show up the day before school starts, and we have little if any information on them. Those are tough cases when they turn out to be ill prepared for kindergarten. But we do everything to make sure there aren’t many of them.
Marsha
WOW! Our process is just fill out the paper work. I love that you interview the kids. What does junior kinder look like?
Rowdy in First Grade
Our junior kindergarten has their own curriculum. It introduces letters and sounds and basic skills that are necessary for a student to have before entering kindergarten, but, also, because there are some students, such as my son who attended jk two years ago, that are academically ready but maybe not mature enough, they also are able to differentiate for students who are showing readiness for reading, sight words and more advanced math skills such as adding and subtracting.
Marsha
This will be the first time I am going through this process…as far as I understand, we screen the current preschoolers, but I don’t think the principal truly examines or uses the results in any way – if they qualify age-wise, they are in. I’m wondering if you have any recommendations for having a conversation with the preschool teachers regarding what we would like kindergarteners to start with in september? I’ve got one pre-k class that can write their names, cut independently, and even read some sight words, while the other class can do none of the above and their teachers aren’t even attempting the skills because they believe we will teach those stills in kindergarten. I know that kindergarten always has a huge range of kids but….I’m terrified of the disparity in abilities next year from kids that all attend our school already….
I was a pre-k teacher before I was in kindergarten so I understand what you’re talking about. All pre-k programs are not created equally and, just because a child has attended pre-k doesn’t mean that are equipped with the skills they need for kindergarten. I am fortunate to have our JK and Pre-K teachers in our building so they can see first hand what we are doing in kindergarten and know what the expectations are for entering students. You can always invite your Pre-K teachers in to visit your classroom and actually observe what your students are doing. That is often a big enough eye-opener to help them understand what they need to do. You have to give Pre-K teachers alot of credit. They are often the first experience our students have in school and so the responsibility of teaching routines and basic expectations are, for some children, about all they can handle that year of pre-k. Anything more than that is a bonus in some cases. It’s a tough job. I know I loved it, but whew! it was exhausting.
Marsha
Thanks for the input Marsha! I actually come from a Pre-K background as well, so I also know the struggles they encounter – and at my school the classes are jam packed. One of the ironies of the situation is that the class that’s not cutting or writing, the teacher’s daughter is in my class this year – so she would know better than anyone what our expectations are this year. We’ll see what happens next year I guess!
Your son is so adorable!!!!!!!! He looks so excited!!!! We don’t do any screening!!! 🙁 the parents just fill out the paperwork. Then we sort by boy/girl, preschool/ no preschool and EL/ English speaking. Our state (CA) is also slowly moving the cut off date back!!! I love how you do round up!!!!! Awesome!!!
Thanks Beth. It really is a great system and helps create some better balanced classrooms rather than when they are just divided up without consideration of their screening results.
Marsha
We also screen our little ones and assign a score to their results. We screen in early May and they can change a lot by September so I am not sure how accurate the information is. I am also wondering if you do anything to screen children that come in after your screening day. I asked if there was anyway we could have them screened but was told we don’t have the personnel to do that. We had about 45 show up this year for screening but we will get anywhere from 30-45 more by September. That leaves half of them a question mark. Thank you! Great post by the way! Andrea
Andrea, my principal has an early childhood background so we have the benefit of having her screen students who register over the summer or late spring. It does get a little hairy when students arrive a few days before school starts in the fall though.
Marsha
In Tennessee, we have a new law that changes the age requirements for Pre K and K. Our K age cut off this new year will be Aug 31 and next year will be around Aug 15. Most schools screen in the summer, but our school has a lot of transition in the summer and parents that do not register until August. (or as late as October) We have a phase in day for each child to attend a full day in August and we screen on that day. The teachers get one day to get all of the information together, start files, divide classes, and call parents. The next day we are all at school together.
Whew! That’s a tight schedule to get your classroom list and everything else together. It must make for a very long day for all of you.
Marsha
We do a program and have students come in to register. Then parents are given a choice of 8 afternoons to screen. All the K teachers then take 2 afternoons to screen and are provided a sub. We screen each child individually for about 15-20 minutes. Then the information is saved for classroom placements. This year we also wrote a grant to make packets for students that come in knowing very few letters and sounds. We put lots of letter games and materials together, all ready prepped and ready to go, in hopes that parents work with their kiddos over the summer! The problem is we only have about 25 kids signed up to screen and we expect about 90 kids total. Our community is always VERY slow to register and prefer to wait until the last minute. How do you all get so many parents to come on your round up days?
Laurie
Laurie, do you find that your parents work with students over the summer? That’s always such a tricky thing. It seems like those students who are ready for school anyway, get that extra help from home, but the ones that need it the most don’t always get it. I’m not sure what the secret of round-up attendance is, but this has been going on for years in our community so parents are kind of used to it. Also, the fact that all the pre-k programs in the area are sent information and registration applications prior to the days and make sure their students get registered as well. It really helps to have them on board.
Marsha
I love the idea of an assessment BEFORE the classes are created! Our classes are created MONTHS before we do our intake meetings with parents and kids in the first week of school.
Marsha, what district in Michigan are you in? My friend Diane Ferritto is in Cadillac and I thought it was you that she said she knew. Do you teach with Diane? I teach kindergarten in Farmington, a suburb of Detroit. I enjoy reading your blog. Thanks for sharing.
Lisa
Marsha, this was certainly an interesting post! I have another question? Who funds this JK? Is it State funded like the regular Kindergarten? Thanks for the good post!
Marsha, I am just curious…How many students are usually in the JK classroom? It’s good to hear that differentiation is taking place in there as well for kids that are academically ready as your son was. Another question that I have: Do you find that many of the students that are recommended for the JK class have behavioral issues as well, and if so, how does the JK teacher handle all those needs in one classroom. I currently have 4 students with late summer birthdays that are very immature, which makes for many frustrating days. I can’t imagine having a whole classroom of students with behavior issues.