No MCPS Kindergarten Orientation

[Anonymous]

Kindergarten teachers were told no orientation this year for new students.
What do families think?

[Anonymous]

K orientation was nice to give PK kids who are nervous about starting school a chance to meet the teachers, but it was not essential from that perspective—and it meant that K students had to miss a couple of days of school, which is certainly disruptive.

Did teachers find K orientation useful for creating balanced classes? That would be a good reason to keep it in place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:K orientation was nice to give PK kids who are nervous about starting school a chance to meet the teachers, but it was not essential from that perspective—and it meant that K students had to miss a couple of days of school, which is certainly disruptive.

Did teachers find K orientation useful for creating balanced classes? That would be a good reason to keep it in place.

Why would K students miss "a couple days" of school? How long do you think orientation was?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:K orientation was nice to give PK kids who are nervous about starting school a chance to meet the teachers, but it was not essential from that perspective—and it meant that K students had to miss a couple of days of school, which is certainly disruptive.

Did teachers find K orientation useful for creating balanced classes? That would be a good reason to keep it in place.

Why would K students miss "a couple days" of school? How long do you think orientation was?

Last year it was two days long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:K orientation was nice to give PK kids who are nervous about starting school a chance to meet the teachers, but it was not essential from that perspective—and it meant that K students had to miss a couple of days of school, which is certainly disruptive.

Did teachers find K orientation useful for creating balanced classes? That would be a good reason to keep it in place.

Why would K students miss "a couple days" of school? How long do you think orientation was?

Last year it was two days long.

(And pre-pandemic it was three days long.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:K orientation was nice to give PK kids who are nervous about starting school a chance to meet the teachers, but it was not essential from that perspective—and it meant that K students had to miss a couple of days of school, which is certainly disruptive.

Did teachers find K orientation useful for creating balanced classes? That would be a good reason to keep it in place.

Why would K students miss "a couple days" of school? How long do you think orientation was?

Last year it was two days long.

My kid started kindergarten in MCPS this year. Orientation was 2 hours. I think you chose between two days. Where was it two days long?

[Anonymous]

Just another way to keep parents out of the schools. This is really too bad as it is the first chance to create a community in the schools which is very needed these days.

[Anonymous]

I take that back. Orientation last year at our school was one hour.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:K orientation was nice to give PK kids who are nervous about starting school a chance to meet the teachers, but it was not essential from that perspective—and it meant that K students had to miss a couple of days of school, which is certainly disruptive.

Did teachers find K orientation useful for creating balanced classes? That would be a good reason to keep it in place.

Why would K students miss "a couple days" of school? How long do you think orientation was?

Last year it was two days long.

My kid started kindergarten in MCPS this year. Orientation was 2 hours. I think you chose between two days. Where was it two days long?

But presumably the current kindergartners weren't there those two days? They had to be gone for two days for each incoming kindergartner to get 2 hours in the classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I take that back. Orientation last year at our school was one hour.

You may ha be been there for an hour, but K orientation has kids and parents coming in and out for two days. That means current kindergarteners miss 2 days of school so rising kindergarteners can have orientation.

[Anonymous]

Just use one of the school half days for orientation or do it the Wednesday before school starts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:K orientation was nice to give PK kids who are nervous about starting school a chance to meet the teachers, but it was not essential from that perspective—and it meant that K students had to miss a couple of days of school, which is certainly disruptive.

Did teachers find K orientation useful for creating balanced classes? That would be a good reason to keep it in place.

Why would K students miss "a couple days" of school? How long do you think orientation was?

Last year it was two days long.

My kid started kindergarten in MCPS this year. Orientation was 2 hours. I think you chose between two days. Where was it two days long?

But presumably the current kindergartners weren't there those two days? They had to be gone for two days for each incoming kindergartner to get 2 hours in the classroom.

They were in the gym. Why would you think they'd have to keep the kids home for a 1 hour orientation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I take that back. Orientation last year at our school was one hour.

You may ha be been there for an hour, but K orientation has kids and parents coming in and out for two days. That means current kindergarteners miss 2 days of school so rising kindergarteners can have orientation.

You seem to be confusing the short orientation in the spring with the prep session right before school starts in August.

At least at our school, orientation was a scheduled one-hour block, and they were pretty strict about getting you out of there so they could bring the kids back to the classrooms.

I really don't understand why you would think they'd have the kindergarteners miss school those days.

[Anonymous]

My kid is a junior now, but when she was starting MCPS kindergarten a dozen years ago, they had two introductions to the school.

In the spring before they started K, there would be a day (maybe two?) where the kindergartners had the day off (but grades 1-5 didn’t), and the kindergarten teachers would welcome kids from the next year’s class. They also had information about things like before/after care, signing up for FARMS, and joining the PTA. This was all combined with a registration drive, to encourage families enroll their kids well before the start of school in the Fall. I’m pretty sure they referred to this the Kindergarten Open House.

Then, the week before school started in August, they’d have Kindergarten Orientation, where kids could come see their specific classroom and meet their assigned teacher. This way, all the specific stuff would be fresh in their minds when school started the following week, and they’d easily remember where to go and who their teachers would be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I take that back. Orientation last year at our school was one hour.

You may ha be been there for an hour, but K orientation has kids and parents coming in and out for two days. That means current kindergarteners miss 2 days of school so rising kindergarteners can have orientation.

You seem to be confusing the short orientation in the spring with the prep session right before school starts in August.

At least at our school, orientation was a scheduled one-hour block, and they were pretty strict about getting you out of there so they could bring the kids back to the classrooms.

I really don't understand why you would think they'd have the kindergarteners miss school those days.

I hope you are being obtuse on purpose as a troll. This is my last shot at explaining it to you.

The spring orientation takes two days to get the PK-age kids in and out of classrooms. Kids go for an hour, but the kindergarten teachers spend two days doing this. Kindergarteners don’t have school those days.

Anyway, getting back to OP’s question, given that K orientation requires current kindergarteners to miss school, I don’t think I in is worth it unless that process is important to forming classes for the fall—but I would defer to teachers on that.