PM kindergarten Vienna

[Anonymous]

I just found out from a neighbor that our street will have PM kindergarten next year and I'm hoping for some guidance on options to switch, likelikhood etc. We both work and have a toddler at a nearby preschool. It seems daunting to think about arranging a schedule around pm K...

[Anonymous]

First of all, I wouldn't go by what your neighbor tells you. Neighborhoods switch from morning to afternoon and vice versa all of the time. We are in Vienna (Flint Hill district) and our neighborhood was afternoon last year and is morning this year.

With that said, if you'd like to request morning kindergarten, you should write a letter to the principal and turn it in with your registration forms in the spring. However, I wouldn't count on switching from afternoon to morning even if it's for childcare reasons unless your child is in SACC because morning K is more popular and always has larger classes than afternoon. Flint Hill wasn't able to grant any kindergarten timeslot requests before class lists were posted this year and was only able to grant the requests for switches to morning K from afternoon K if that person was able to find someone to switch with them (so a one for one switch). I actually saw the principal turn down a request from a mother who wanted to switch to morning because she had assumed she'd get morning and made childcare arrangements around that.

Good luck. My child is in afternoon K and I love it! The classes are smaller, too.

[Anonymous]

Go ahead and get your child on the SACC waitlist for next year. This way you won't have to worry, you will be covered.

[Anonymous]

I agree with PP who says the neighbor doesn't know. You won't know until about a week before school starts. Here in Oakton, our neighborhood was always afternoon K, and it took everyone by surprise when suddenly it was morning K this year.

[Anonymous]

My neighborhood pretty reliably alternates btw morning and afternoon very other year. You can ask the principal for a waiver, but everyone wants AM, so it's harder to request that.

My kids all went to private K. Among other things, the half day (and on Monday, half of a half day) was too much of a hassle.