Mclean elementary FDK class sizes

[Anonymous]

What are the class sizes this year? Is there an aide or just 1 teacher? Is there a nap? has enrollment gone up? How's it going? If you could name your school, it would be helpful.

[Anonymous]

I think the kindergarten classrooms range from about 17 to 27 children depending on enrollment and the FCPS class size equation for each year. I think there is a full time aide in all kindergarten classrooms. Our school has a 30 minute quiet time when children can either rest or can look at or read a book. They also have two 15 minute recess periods.

[Anonymous]

We're at Spring Hill. Enrollment is definitely up. We have 27 with 1 teacher and 1 full time aid. I'd never ever heard of as few as 17 in a FCPS kindergarten class.

[Anonymous]

Even Chesterbrook has large classes this year and that is one of the smaller Mclean schools. i think a lot of people who did private for K switched over to public once it went full day.

[Anonymous]

At Churchill the classes have about 21 with teacher & FT aide. They do have a rest period for about 30 mins. and they have recess too. So far I'd say the teachers and parents are very happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even Chesterbrook has large classes this year and that is one of the smaller Mclean schools. i think a lot of people who did private for K switched over to public once it went full day.

This is fact. From half day K to 1 grade, enrollment always went up one full class (families switching from private FDK to public 1st grade). This year, most of those families started in FDK rather than waiting till 1st.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even Chesterbrook has large classes this year and that is one of the smaller Mclean schools. i think a lot of people who did private for K switched over to public once it went full day.

This is fact. From half day K to 1 grade, enrollment always went up one full class (families switching from private FDK to public 1st grade). This year, most of those families started in FDK rather than waiting till 1st.

I looked into private FDK when no one knew what was going to happen. I know lots of other families who were doing the same for work/financial reasons. I wouldn't be surprised to start seeing many of those daycares that had the private K option start to dump that program.

[Anonymous]

Daycare and preschool are different, PP. You must not have looked very far.

OP, everyone I know went from private K to public K once it switched to FT. A shame for the good preschools!

[Anonymous]

Our school switched from half day to full day and they went from two K classes to 5 enormous classes (all at least 27 students). I have no idea how many kids would have been in daycare vs. full day K though--no one I know was in that situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Daycare and preschool are different, PP. You must not have looked very far.

OP, everyone I know went from private K to public K once it switched to FT. A shame for the good preschools!

OK, my comment was only that I believe because FDK is now a reality for FCPS, a lot of places that offered private K programs (I mentionned the daycares like Chesterbrook and Winwood only as an example) probably would not be offering them much longer. Simple business - lack of demand.

If you want your kid in private/parochial K, that's fine. But many of the people I know who sought out private K programs were doing it simply because public HDK did NOT work for them, mostly for work reasons but also because some felt HDK didn't offer the same educational opportunity that a FDK would.

I actually found that the daycares that offered the private FDK programs were ridiculously expensive, so I was left with a parochial K-8 school and a traditional preschool that offered a private K program. The parochial school offered a full-day Monday, and only wound up being slightly more expensive than the cost of the 2 SACC programs would have been in a HDK school.

Certain private K programs will likely continue, but for most people, why pay extra for school if it isn't necessary?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our school switched from half day to full day and they went from two K classes to 5 enormous classes (all at least 27 students). I have no idea how many kids would have been in daycare vs. full day K though--no one I know was in that situation.

27-29 kids in a kinderg. class has been standard practice for years in our FCPS.