Kindergarten switcheroo

[Anonymous]

Any of your kids was a kindergartener participate in the switcheroo? Our school will participate this. All new kindergarteners will move among all grade K classrooms to meet and interact with all K teachers, and we won't know who the assigned homeroom K teacher/classroom are until the end of first week. I wonder how teacher would decide whick kid they would select to be their kids for the rest of year. Will this method make most parents/kids happy for the rest of school year since it maybe a better fit for teacher & students?

[Anonymous]

What school is doing this?

[Anonymous]

My guess is they are doing this to balance the classes. There are kids that need more support from the teacher to make it through the day in K versus kids who function more independently in the classroom. My understanding at our elementary is that in K-2, they identify the different types of kids and try to balance each class so one teacher doesn't have too many kids of one type or the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My guess is they are doing this to balance the classes. There are kids that need more support from the teacher to make it through the day in K versus kids who function more independently in the classroom. My understanding at our elementary is that in K-2, they identify the different types of kids and try to balance each class so one teacher doesn't have too many kids of one type or the other.

This. It’s good idea.

[Anonymous]

Good point. I am sure that makes some parents or kids more nervous. Some kids have no/limited preschool experience or shy. There is a lot for their brain to function to meet so many kids and teachers in a week in different rooms.

[Anonymous]

What school is this?

[Anonymous]

That's a great idea, actually. My kids' school did not do this. Of course, there could always be sleeper kids who are awed by the first week of school, classified as non-troublesome, then start getting up to all sorts of hi-jinks during the year

[Anonymous]

Never heard of this idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's a great idea, actually. My kids' school did not do this. Of course, there could always be sleeper kids who are awed by the first week of school, classified as non-troublesome, then start getting up to all sorts of hi-jinks during the year

Lol. I have seen some kids were thought to be shy and they showed their true self later on.

[Anonymous]

This kind of makes me sad to think that well behaved kids are just going to be in classes where they get ignored. I know they use those kids to balance out classes instead of just making a whole class of those kids where they can come out of their shells more.

[Anonymous]

My kids' MCPS school had kids who signed up for kindergarten to come in for an "orientation" where we left them there for an hour with the teachers. Presumably the teachers could get a sense of who was a holy terror from that hour.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids' MCPS school had kids who signed up for kindergarten to come in for an "orientation" where we left them there for an hour with the teachers. Presumably the teachers could get a sense of who was a holy terror from that hour.

Apparently this orientation is something a lot of MCPS schools did in the past. Now, only some schools are doing an orientation in the spring, and others aren't. Many schools won't meet the incoming kindergarteners until the open house the week before school starts.

A week of chaos at the beginning of the school year sounds absolutely horrible. OP, where did you hear about this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This kind of makes me sad to think that well behaved kids are just going to be in classes where they get ignored. I know they use those kids to balance out classes instead of just making a whole class of those kids where they can come out of their shells more.

I can speak for the school where I work that used to do this, and it has nothing to do with ignoring well behaved kids. It’s about balancing the number of kids who need special ed, ESOL, and have never been to preschool. All those kids need extra attention to know what is going on, so it’s harder if they’re all in one class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This kind of makes me sad to think that well behaved kids are just going to be in classes where they get ignored. I know they use those kids to balance out classes instead of just making a whole class of those kids where they can come out of their shells more.

I can speak for the school where I work that used to do this, and it has nothing to do with ignoring well behaved kids. It’s about balancing the number of kids who need special ed, ESOL, and have never been to preschool. All those kids need extra attention to know what is going on, so it’s harder if they’re all in one class.

+1 Exactly. My kids had the "orientation" in the spring before K where they presumably balance most of the kids who are enrolled in a timely fashion, but I don't think it's the worst thing in the world to do it at the start of the school year. You don't want any one teacher to get stuck with an unmanageable class. Your child will be fine if his class is changed within 3 days of the start of the school year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This kind of makes me sad to think that well behaved kids are just going to be in classes where they get ignored. I know they use those kids to balance out classes instead of just making a whole class of those kids where they can come out of their shells more.

I can speak for the school where I work that used to do this, and it has nothing to do with ignoring well behaved kids. It’s about balancing the number of kids who need special ed, ESOL, and have never been to preschool. All those kids need extra attention to know what is going on, so it’s harder if they’re all in one class.

I've heard of this at different schools. Our school dumped any kid with an IEP or 504 in the same classroom and refused to let the kids out in less they dropped the IEP. It was horrible as the kids who needed help but at the higher functioning were ignored for the behavior problem kids.