Help! Appeal for MCPS Early Kindergarten

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone successfully appealed the MCPS early entrance into kindergarten assessment exam to get your child into kindergarten?

MCPS has an age cutoff for 5-years old by September 1, but will test kids that turn 5 between September 2nd to October 15th. My daughter will turn 5 on September 15th, two weeks after the cutoff. She has been in the school aged room of her daycare for about six-months because they thought she was ready to move up. We were all shocked when we found out she didn’t pass the exam. She is social-emotionally mature, can independently complete multi-step directions, passed the mathematics and letter naming parts of the early entrance exam, but did not pass the reading/writing part. Has anyone successfully appealed MCPS to get your child into kindergarten? What supporting documentation did you submit? Are there any buzzwords/phases that are helpful to use? Is it worth mentioning her older sibling already attends the school? Any help is greatly appreciated! My daughter is ready to start school and these technicalities are heartbreaking for her continued education.

Why would you want to do this? There are significant advantages to being among the oldest in the grade.

When your child is applying to college, remember that she’ll be competing against applicants who went on-time from school districts with a 9/1 cutoff. So, your kid will be competing with applicants who are at least a full year older.

And some of the kids will only be two weeks younger. My August 30th kid is at aT20 college.

[Anonymous]

Move to Virginia or DC. Cut off is Sept 30.

[Anonymous]

Move to Fairfax County. Cutoff is September 30th.

[Anonymous]

The exam is a joke and subjective. Most principals will not approve early entry. Try some small privates with space or a dc private with the layer birthday cut off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone successfully appealed the MCPS early entrance into kindergarten assessment exam to get your child into kindergarten?

MCPS has an age cutoff for 5-years old by September 1, but will test kids that turn 5 between September 2nd to October 15th. My daughter will turn 5 on September 15th, two weeks after the cutoff. She has been in the school aged room of her daycare for about six-months because they thought she was ready to move up. We were all shocked when we found out she didn’t pass the exam. She is social-emotionally mature, can independently complete multi-step directions, passed the mathematics and letter naming parts of the early entrance exam, but did not pass the reading/writing part. Has anyone successfully appealed MCPS to get your child into kindergarten? What supporting documentation did you submit? Are there any buzzwords/phases that are helpful to use? Is it worth mentioning her older sibling already attends the school? Any help is greatly appreciated! My daughter is ready to start school and these technicalities are heartbreaking for her continued education.

Your daughter is not ready to start school and these are not technicalities. This is not heartbreaking. She sounds like a bright little girl. The test is there to make sure you don’t end up with a child who's not ready and starts to struggle and hate school. It does not matter that a sibling attends the school. Your daughter is not ready to attend.

Not necessarily true as mcps test is subjective and most principals refuse early entry. We did ours via a private and looking back it was the right decision. Why hold kids back. They are 5.

[Anonymous]

Google the decisions. Parents never win. Your only option is private. But in case you aren’t aware, you have to do K and 1st to guarantee admission to the grade you want your child to attend. After private k, they go to MCPS k and get reassessed after six weeks. The reassessment is really rigorous - kid has to be performing at the end of first grade skills at the time of entry to first grade to get bumped and at that point they would have missed the first six weeks of first grade, which is no big deal if they are performing at end of first grade level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone successfully appealed the MCPS early entrance into kindergarten assessment exam to get your child into kindergarten?

MCPS has an age cutoff for 5-years old by September 1, but will test kids that turn 5 between September 2nd to October 15th. My daughter will turn 5 on September 15th, two weeks after the cutoff. She has been in the school aged room of her daycare for about six-months because they thought she was ready to move up. We were all shocked when we found out she didn’t pass the exam. She is social-emotionally mature, can independently complete multi-step directions, passed the mathematics and letter naming parts of the early entrance exam, but did not pass the reading/writing part. Has anyone successfully appealed MCPS to get your child into kindergarten? What supporting documentation did you submit? Are there any buzzwords/phases that are helpful to use? Is it worth mentioning her older sibling already attends the school? Any help is greatly appreciated! My daughter is ready to start school and these technicalities are heartbreaking for her continued education.

Your daughter is not ready to start school and these are not technicalities. This is not heartbreaking. She sounds like a bright little girl. The test is there to make sure you don’t end up with a child who's not ready and starts to struggle and hate school. It does not matter that a sibling attends the school. Your daughter is not ready to attend.

Not necessarily true as mcps test is subjective and most principals refuse early entry. We did ours via a private and looking back it was the right decision. Why hold kids back. They are 5.

How old is your child now?

[Anonymous]

I have a September birthday kid and moved to Maryland right before the kid turned 5. I wish I had known that transitional K/junior K was a thing here. It would have been a really good fit for that kid that year.

The September kid was the oldest in their preK class, but they’re not the oldest in their school class. I was hyper aware of birthdates when they hit kindergarten. There were 1 or 2 summer birthdays and a bunch of September birthdays. Several years in, 3 of their 5 closest friends are Sept, October, November birthdays. All of which is to say, it will probably be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've never heard of an appeal being successful. MCPS is allowed to set its own criteria and they say a child has to pass all parts of the exam. Your daughter didn't. There is no "right" to attend kindergarten at taxpayer expense before statutory age.

Don't get me started on "rights" and "taxpayer expenses". We pay our taxes and didn't qualify for public pre-k for our kids because we make more money than the poverty line. Explain that right to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone successfully appealed the MCPS early entrance into kindergarten assessment exam to get your child into kindergarten?

MCPS has an age cutoff for 5-years old by September 1, but will test kids that turn 5 between September 2nd to October 15th. My daughter will turn 5 on September 15th, two weeks after the cutoff. She has been in the school aged room of her daycare for about six-months because they thought she was ready to move up. We were all shocked when we found out she didn’t pass the exam. She is social-emotionally mature, can independently complete multi-step directions, passed the mathematics and letter naming parts of the early entrance exam, but did not pass the reading/writing part. Has anyone successfully appealed MCPS to get your child into kindergarten? What supporting documentation did you submit? Are there any buzzwords/phases that are helpful to use? Is it worth mentioning her older sibling already attends the school? Any help is greatly appreciated! My daughter is ready to start school and these technicalities are heartbreaking for her continued education.

Your daughter is not ready to start school and these are not technicalities. This is not heartbreaking. She sounds like a bright little girl. The test is there to make sure you don’t end up with a child who's not ready and starts to struggle and hate school. It does not matter that a sibling attends the school. Your daughter is not ready to attend.

Not necessarily true as mcps test is subjective and most principals refuse early entry. We did ours via a private and looking back it was the right decision. Why hold kids back. They are 5.

How old is your child now?

High school, highest level math track. Our school would not even allow my kid to test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've never heard of an appeal being successful. MCPS is allowed to set its own criteria and they say a child has to pass all parts of the exam. Your daughter didn't. There is no "right" to attend kindergarten at taxpayer expense before statutory age.

Don't get me started on "rights" and "taxpayer expenses". We pay our taxes and didn't qualify for public pre-k for our kids because we make more money than the poverty line. Explain that right to me.

Welcome to life in society. The same way you pay taxes to support SNAP, WIC, TANF, SSI, Section 8, Medicaid, Medicare, and hundreds of other government-funded programs with eligibility criteria you might not meet. If you would like to quit your job and set fire to your money so your kids can llive in housing projects and go to Head Start, there's nothing except sanity stopping you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've never heard of an appeal being successful. MCPS is allowed to set its own criteria and they say a child has to pass all parts of the exam. Your daughter didn't. There is no "right" to attend kindergarten at taxpayer expense before statutory age.

Don't get me started on "rights" and "taxpayer expenses". We pay our taxes and didn't qualify for public pre-k for our kids because we make more money than the poverty line. Explain that right to me.

It’s the law of your
Jurisdiction. If you don’t like it, move to somewhere where the law meets your
Needs.

[Anonymous]

You should have spent more time drilling writing. Seems like you just didn’t want it enough.

[Anonymous]

I dunno, OP. My kid went into kindergarten reading level 2 books and writing (poor, but complete) sentences, and certainly wasn’t the only one in her class. Sounds like she didn’t qualify for kindergarten because she didn’t have those academic skills yet. You just have to trust the process. Or move to DC.

[Anonymous]

Just a thought for you. My daughter is Aug born. So when she turned 5. I put her in k. She was already ahead in academic. She is reading grade1. We thought she was so mature for her age base on her talk and action. However, she is struggling socially. I think staying back will be a good idea cause most kids that come into K are almost 6 and socially I do see it makes a difference.