Are DCPS PK3-4 programs more play-based or academic?

[Anonymous]

Well, I looked up my kid's actual PK3 schedule at a T1 DCPS.

8:30-9:00 Breakfast and "morning activities" whatever that is.
9-9:15: Morning Meeting
9:15-9:30: Writing or pre-writing activities like fine motor and alphabet manipulatives.
9:30-10:20: Centers/small group-- the centers were entirely free play so count as about 15 mins of academics.
10:30-11:15: Specials, which also involved some free play with specials materials such as paint. The teachers came to their classroom except for PE, so no transition.
11:15-12:15: Lunch in room, then recess out front so 5 mins transition out.
12:15-12:30: Transition back inside, do bathroom and hand-washing.
12:30-2: Rest time (nap)
2-2:15: Snack
2:15-2:20: Dance break
2:20-2:45: Math in small groups
2:45-3: Interactive Read Aloud
3-3:15: Closing routine (song, jackets and backpacks) and dismissal.

So academically... 15 mins for writing, 15 mins for morning small group, 15 mins for small group math, and then if you're counting the read-aloud as academic that's another 15. So an hour on a normal day. Less on a day with anything unusual happening. I think the truth of it is, there wasn't that much free play-- not because of a huge academic load but because a lot of time is spent on nap, lunch, recess, toileting, and transitions.

My DD didn't take naps in PK3, so she would play quietly on her cot or look at a book. I think that was a big part of why she learned to read so well. But the teacher did intervene with a few key phonics things like "qu" and "ph" sounds, which gave her reading a boost. But I'm not counting that as academic time. It was just what she wanted to do during resting time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

Well, at our school they would be pulled out from centers to do things like math manipulatives with the teacher. Or for each kid to work on writing their own name with help. Or sometimes it was to talk about a behavioral or social development issue. And then you have all the IEP-related push-ins and pull-outs, which ideally would be worked into the centers play but that's not always feasible depending on what the service actually is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

Sorry to burst your bubble but this sounds very similar to our Title 1 DCPS experience. They just also did 10 minutes of Heggerty.

I never said that my experience was unique. Someone asked and I gave examples of how it is easy for the day to be all play based. If you had a similar experience then good for you.

But it sounds like central is giving top down orders to DCPS teachers now about a lot of academic requirements, and I find that really sad for the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

Sorry to burst your bubble but this sounds very similar to our Title 1 DCPS experience. They just also did 10 minutes of Heggerty.

I never said that my experience was unique. Someone asked and I gave examples of how it is easy for the day to be all play based. If you had a similar experience then good for you.

But it sounds like central is giving top down orders to DCPS teachers now about a lot of academic requirements, and I find that really sad for the kids.

Does this school you’re describing still function this way today? Curious if trending differently. Also wish people would name schools but I get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

I'm the PP and that's our T1 experience. The person I respond to said it's terrible there was no play but centers. What you're describing are centers.

[Anonymous]

The top two current threads on this subpage are basically:

1) DCPS does too much academically early on and is bad for kids
2) DCPS is terrible for academically focused kids because it doesn't do tracking early on

I'm by no means defending DCPS, there needs to be a wholesale re-evaluation and shakeup with a new mayor (and an elimination of mayoral control) but you can see why there's a near impossible set of expectations and that's just from the UMC set. Now throw in a very large pool of at-risk and IEP students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

I'm the PP and that's our T1 experience. The person I respond to said it's terrible there was no play but centers. What you're describing are centers.

But your schedule only has 2 blocks of centers in the whole day and in those blocks are small groups also. Other blocks are academics.

So no your schedule is not play based the whole day and even in the center blocks there are kids who are not playing if there are small groups.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The top two current threads on this subpage are basically:

1) DCPS does too much academically early on and is bad for kids
2) DCPS is terrible for academically focused kids because it doesn't do tracking early on

I'm by no means defending DCPS, there needs to be a wholesale re-evaluation and shakeup with a new mayor (and an elimination of mayoral control) but you can see why there's a near impossible set of expectations and that's just from the UMC set. Now throw in a very large pool of at-risk and IEP students.

Sorry you are confused and it’s not both at the same time.

Early on with the little ones it’s play based. Then in upper elementary is where you need tracking. That is why in many school districts, like the one I grew up in, G and T did not start until 3rd grade. Other school districts track by doing group pull outs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

I'm the PP and that's our T1 experience. The person I respond to said it's terrible there was no play but centers. What you're describing are centers.

But your schedule only has 2 blocks of centers in the whole day and in those blocks are small groups also. Other blocks are academics.

So no your schedule is not play based the whole day and even in the center blocks there are kids who are not playing if there are small groups.

Do you know what those small groups are doing? This went from there's no play! To there's not enough play! To sure there's play but there's also some academics and that's bad period!

Specials and recess are also usually play.

There's a weird subset that's basically like if my kid learns to count in school that's bad and I agree with a different PP that's kind of odd. None of it is like the school in Matilda. It's basically sure you have play and then there's also some learning. And if your kid hates that I get it and that's OK it has no future bearing, but when people are telling you their kids are happy and socially thriving in school and people are yelling at you that your experience is wrong it's pretty off-putting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

I'm the PP and that's our T1 experience. The person I respond to said it's terrible there was no play but centers. What you're describing are centers.

But your schedule only has 2 blocks of centers in the whole day and in those blocks are small groups also. Other blocks are academics.

So no your schedule is not play based the whole day and even in the center blocks there are kids who are not playing if there are small groups.

Do you know what those small groups are doing? This went from there's no play! To there's not enough play! To sure there's play but there's also some academics and that's bad period!

Specials and recess are also usually play.

There's a weird subset that's basically like if my kid learns to count in school that's bad and I agree with a different PP that's kind of odd. None of it is like the school in Matilda. It's basically sure you have play and then there's also some learning. And if your kid hates that I get it and that's OK it has no future bearing, but when people are telling you their kids are happy and socially thriving in school and people are yelling at you that your experience is wrong it's pretty off-putting.

No one said PP experience is wrong but it certainly is more academic than play based and it certainly is not all day play based. If parents are OK with a heavy academic day, that is fine but let’s be clear that this is not play based focused. It is academic focused.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

I'm the PP and that's our T1 experience. The person I respond to said it's terrible there was no play but centers. What you're describing are centers.

But your schedule only has 2 blocks of centers in the whole day and in those blocks are small groups also. Other blocks are academics.

So no your schedule is not play based the whole day and even in the center blocks there are kids who are not playing if there are small groups.

Do you know what those small groups are doing? This went from there's no play! To there's not enough play! To sure there's play but there's also some academics and that's bad period!

Specials and recess are also usually play.

There's a weird subset that's basically like if my kid learns to count in school that's bad and I agree with a different PP that's kind of odd. None of it is like the school in Matilda. It's basically sure you have play and then there's also some learning. And if your kid hates that I get it and that's OK it has no future bearing, but when people are telling you their kids are happy and socially thriving in school and people are yelling at you that your experience is wrong it's pretty off-putting.

No one said PP experience is wrong but it certainly is more academic than play based and it certainly is not all day play based. If parents are OK with a heavy academic day, that is fine but let’s be clear that this is not play based focused. It is academic focused.

There are roughly six hours in a school day and taking out nap and lunch that's four. So we're at a max 50/50 academic and play and it seems like even the academic schedule is less than 50 percent play. Seems more balanced than academic focused.

I get everyone wants the idyllic Scandi model but they have like a 1:5 ratio of kids to teachers, an entire year of parental leave, significantly more days off, and a social welfare system that allows for more free time and relaxing. I would love to have that. We don't. Happy to pay more in taxes for that but most people in this country don't want to. The focus of those countries early childhood are the core tenants of social welfare and collaboration. Someone implementing that in a US public school would be yelled at and called a commie.

By age 8 everyone is screaming that if there kid isn't testing in the 99th percentile they're screwed and it's all the schools fault. It's an impossible system. But it's not a uniquely DCPS impossible system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

I'm the PP and that's our T1 experience. The person I respond to said it's terrible there was no play but centers. What you're describing are centers.

But your schedule only has 2 blocks of centers in the whole day and in those blocks are small groups also. Other blocks are academics.

So no your schedule is not play based the whole day and even in the center blocks there are kids who are not playing if there are small groups.

Do you know what those small groups are doing? This went from there's no play! To there's not enough play! To sure there's play but there's also some academics and that's bad period!

Specials and recess are also usually play.

There's a weird subset that's basically like if my kid learns to count in school that's bad and I agree with a different PP that's kind of odd. None of it is like the school in Matilda. It's basically sure you have play and then there's also some learning. And if your kid hates that I get it and that's OK it has no future bearing, but when people are telling you their kids are happy and socially thriving in school and people are yelling at you that your experience is wrong it's pretty off-putting.

No one said PP experience is wrong but it certainly is more academic than play based and it certainly is not all day play based. If parents are OK with a heavy academic day, that is fine but let’s be clear that this is not play based focused. It is academic focused.

There are roughly six hours in a school day and taking out nap and lunch that's four. So we're at a max 50/50 academic and play and it seems like even the academic schedule is less than 50 percent play. Seems more balanced than academic focused.

I get everyone wants the idyllic Scandi model but they have like a 1:5 ratio of kids to teachers, an entire year of parental leave, significantly more days off, and a social welfare system that allows for more free time and relaxing. I would love to have that. We don't. Happy to pay more in taxes for that but most people in this country don't want to. The focus of those countries early childhood are the core tenants of social welfare and collaboration. Someone implementing that in a US public school would be yelled at and called a commie.

By age 8 everyone is screaming that if there kid isn't testing in the 99th percentile they're screwed and it's all the schools fault. It's an impossible system. But it's not a uniquely DCPS impossible system.

Sorry but you are deluding yourself and trying to justify things. You can’t see outside your T1 bubble.

Go see some of the popular charters discussed on here. There is no academic math or literacy blocks or daily worksheets or HW. Parents would have an uprising over a schedule like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

I'm the PP and that's our T1 experience. The person I respond to said it's terrible there was no play but centers. What you're describing are centers.

But your schedule only has 2 blocks of centers in the whole day and in those blocks are small groups also. Other blocks are academics.

So no your schedule is not play based the whole day and even in the center blocks there are kids who are not playing if there are small groups.

Do you know what those small groups are doing? This went from there's no play! To there's not enough play! To sure there's play but there's also some academics and that's bad period!

Specials and recess are also usually play.

There's a weird subset that's basically like if my kid learns to count in school that's bad and I agree with a different PP that's kind of odd. None of it is like the school in Matilda. It's basically sure you have play and then there's also some learning. And if your kid hates that I get it and that's OK it has no future bearing, but when people are telling you their kids are happy and socially thriving in school and people are yelling at you that your experience is wrong it's pretty off-putting.

No one said PP experience is wrong but it certainly is more academic than play based and it certainly is not all day play based. If parents are OK with a heavy academic day, that is fine but let’s be clear that this is not play based focused. It is academic focused.

There are roughly six hours in a school day and taking out nap and lunch that's four. So we're at a max 50/50 academic and play and it seems like even the academic schedule is less than 50 percent play. Seems more balanced than academic focused.

I get everyone wants the idyllic Scandi model but they have like a 1:5 ratio of kids to teachers, an entire year of parental leave, significantly more days off, and a social welfare system that allows for more free time and relaxing. I would love to have that. We don't. Happy to pay more in taxes for that but most people in this country don't want to. The focus of those countries early childhood are the core tenants of social welfare and collaboration. Someone implementing that in a US public school would be yelled at and called a commie.

By age 8 everyone is screaming that if there kid isn't testing in the 99th percentile they're screwed and it's all the schools fault. It's an impossible system. But it's not a uniquely DCPS impossible system.

Sorry but you are deluding yourself and trying to justify things. You can’t see outside your T1 bubble.

Go see some of the popular charters discussed on here. There is no academic math or literacy blocks or daily worksheets or HW. Parents would have an uprising over a schedule like this.

Which charters? For ECE these days it seems to be mostly about the immersion schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

I'm the PP and that's our T1 experience. The person I respond to said it's terrible there was no play but centers. What you're describing are centers.

But your schedule only has 2 blocks of centers in the whole day and in those blocks are small groups also. Other blocks are academics.

So no your schedule is not play based the whole day and even in the center blocks there are kids who are not playing if there are small groups.

Do you know what those small groups are doing? This went from there's no play! To there's not enough play! To sure there's play but there's also some academics and that's bad period!

Specials and recess are also usually play.

There's a weird subset that's basically like if my kid learns to count in school that's bad and I agree with a different PP that's kind of odd. None of it is like the school in Matilda. It's basically sure you have play and then there's also some learning. And if your kid hates that I get it and that's OK it has no future bearing, but when people are telling you their kids are happy and socially thriving in school and people are yelling at you that your experience is wrong it's pretty off-putting.

You’re misunderstanding what we (teachers and some parents) are saying though. You can learn counting through play, it doesn’t have to be at the table, that’s more formal at not developmentally appropriate for pre-k.

What’s off-putting is SOME parents getting defensive without trying to understand because you are taking everything personally.

I have read so many other teachers say play is learning -especially guided play and a rich environment.

That’s why great reggio programs for example thrive. Play based doesn’t mean a lack of pre-academic skills being taught -it’s learning that through the environment and the teacher’s expertise.

Your experience is not wrong, what teachers are warning about is this is becoming worse and more tech is involved. A happy child is wonderful and important. But so is ensuring developmentally appropriate practices. Especially for at risk students -who are getting iPads and utilizing tech at a younger age than even 2 years ago.

All in all I understand it’s a touchy subject. A little small group isn’t the devil, it’s the amount many schools are starting to require. You should not be seeing kids for 20-30 min a day or have play be a short part of the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

I'm the PP and that's our T1 experience. The person I respond to said it's terrible there was no play but centers. What you're describing are centers.

But your schedule only has 2 blocks of centers in the whole day and in those blocks are small groups also. Other blocks are academics.

So no your schedule is not play based the whole day and even in the center blocks there are kids who are not playing if there are small groups.

Do you know what those small groups are doing? This went from there's no play! To there's not enough play! To sure there's play but there's also some academics and that's bad period!

Specials and recess are also usually play.

There's a weird subset that's basically like if my kid learns to count in school that's bad and I agree with a different PP that's kind of odd. None of it is like the school in Matilda. It's basically sure you have play and then there's also some learning. And if your kid hates that I get it and that's OK it has no future bearing, but when people are telling you their kids are happy and socially thriving in school and people are yelling at you that your experience is wrong it's pretty off-putting.

No one said PP experience is wrong but it certainly is more academic than play based and it certainly is not all day play based. If parents are OK with a heavy academic day, that is fine but let’s be clear that this is not play based focused. It is academic focused.

There are roughly six hours in a school day and taking out nap and lunch that's four. So we're at a max 50/50 academic and play and it seems like even the academic schedule is less than 50 percent play. Seems more balanced than academic focused.

I get everyone wants the idyllic Scandi model but they have like a 1:5 ratio of kids to teachers, an entire year of parental leave, significantly more days off, and a social welfare system that allows for more free time and relaxing. I would love to have that. We don't. Happy to pay more in taxes for that but most people in this country don't want to. The focus of those countries early childhood are the core tenants of social welfare and collaboration. Someone implementing that in a US public school would be yelled at and called a commie.

By age 8 everyone is screaming that if there kid isn't testing in the 99th percentile they're screwed and it's all the schools fault. It's an impossible system. But it's not a uniquely DCPS impossible system.

Sorry but you are deluding yourself and trying to justify things. You can’t see outside your T1 bubble.

Go see some of the popular charters discussed on here. There is no academic math or literacy blocks or daily worksheets or HW. Parents would have an uprising over a schedule like this.

Which charters? For ECE these days it seems to be mostly about the immersion schools.

But, look, that’s also what lots of non-T1 ECEs are like. I had no idea other schools were being forced to implement insane academic requirements… I guess our school just doesn’t do them? For sure, Building Blocks does not appear outside the games & puzzles station until PK4. There are no iPads at all. There are two recesses, which amount to 1 hour or even more in nice weather. The reason I am so sure the academics were nothing like this thread is describing is because the transition to K, which is much more academic at our school, was rough… and even K had 1.5 hours of center time daily!