No MCPS Kindergarten Orientation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Kindergarten orientation is the spring session, and that is what they are getting rid of. The session right before school starts is the open house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

What were the kindergarten teachers doing the other five hours those days? It's not like kids were going in and out- it was only for one hour and then parents and kids left.

Surely schools can come up with a way to accommodate orientation without keeping kids home those days.

[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?

If you chose between two days then it means that from the perspective of the current kindergarteners it was two days long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

What were the kindergarten teachers doing the other five hours those days? It's not like kids were going in and out- it was only for one hour and then parents and kids left.

Surely schools can come up with a way to accommodate orientation without keeping kids home those days.

My kid started K this year and my sister is a K teacher. Parents and kids came in waves over two full days. We were assigned a time slot to show up. Current kindergarteners were home the two full days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

What were the kindergarten teachers doing the other five hours those days? It's not like kids were going in and out- it was only for one hour and then parents and kids left.

Surely schools can come up with a way to accommodate orientation without keeping kids home those days.

Yes. Yes they are. Are you sure you're posting in the right school system forum? The number of days depends on the size of the school. We have 75 K students this year and orientation is usually 1.5 days, with the families staying 45-90 minutes depending on how much registration still needs to be done.

I don't find it particularly helpful for balancing classes but it's an opportunity to get a heads up for some behavior, speech, or language needs. And to meet parents.

[Anonymous]

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

Troll. Name the school or this did not happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Troll. Name the school or this did not happen.

It’s not a troll, all schools were given the same message.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

What were the kindergarten teachers doing the other five hours those days? It's not like kids were going in and out- it was only for one hour and then parents and kids left.

Surely schools can come up with a way to accommodate orientation without keeping kids home those days.

There were small groups coming ang going throughout the day. Everyone did not come at the same time. The teachers were involved. Honestly I think it was most useful for the parents to be at the school and meet the admin and K teachers. It was a bit early for the kids since they were not starting for months. It would be better in August. My DD favorite part was taking a bus ride around the parking lot!

[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?

The opportunity was offered two different days. However, current Kers had to miss both of those days so teachers were available for the rising Kers.

[Anonymous]

So why are they ending it? This has been a long standing MCPS tradition. I always thought the main purpose was to get kids enrolled. Secondary was to introduce kids and and parents to building and teachers. It was also an opportunity to get families signed up for kindergarten playdates, give out PTA information, build the community. My kid's ES is a focus school. It is much easier to disseminate information in person, and we could get start collecting contact information. Admin and PTA had Spanish speaking folks there to answer questions in Spanish. We always had very positive feedback from families about the Kindergarten orientation. I think MCPS should keep it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

What were the kindergarten teachers doing the other five hours those days? It's not like kids were going in and out- it was only for one hour and then parents and kids left.

Surely schools can come up with a way to accommodate orientation without keeping kids home those days.

Just because your school does it one way doesn't mean you have to act like everyone else is lying. Many schools have the rising kindergarteners come in small groups or one-on-one so they can get to know the children better, which means it takes one or two days to fit it all in. The kindergarten teachers are busy with kids the whole time. There is typically no school for the current kindergarteners that day.

[Anonymous]

Kindergarten orientation was a total waste of time. They gave my kid a couple of "tests" and that was about it. Pointless, at least for the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

The kindergarteners at our school were out for two days last year- on pretty short notice FWIW. Maybe it's different depending on the school and whether there would be staff to watch an entire grade in the gym all day? The teachers were in the classrooms for orientation...

[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?

NP here. At our ES, each orientation session was 2 hours. There were many sessions over 2 total days. The current K students don't attend those 2 days. So that explains why current K students would miss "a couple of days" (as posted above).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kindergarten orientation was a total waste of time. They gave my kid a couple of "tests" and that was about it. Pointless, at least for the kids.

So maybe it was an opportunity for the teachers to learn about your child and how to meet their needs, and get a chance to see your sparkling personality.