Kindergarten Communication from Teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish I could DM you - I have googled Catholic schools multiple times in the last 18 months and I never thought I'd consider parochial school.

We are Protestant. We carefully bought an house in a “good” public school pyramid (think W) with every intention of public schools all the way through. We now also are looking at local Catholic schools.

The ones near us have smaller class sizes than our public - low 20s of kids rather than 30+ kids/classroom. Much less screen time. Mainstream textbooks for math, science, history at the Catholic. Phonics-centered reading instruction. Explicit spelling and grammar instruction. I never thought we would be looking serious at Catholic schools, yet here we are.

Yeah, why not, indoctrinate your kid in Catholicism like JD Vance. It is way more important to get textbooks, the Bible and that all important gold cross necklace these days anyway that to like support some kind of public entity.
Times have changed and you have got to put the Bible and supporting religion first.

What a disgusting comment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hoping to hear from parents of current or recent Kindergarteners.

Is it normal to not have homework or textbooks?

Are you getting weekly updates on the class app with a brief overview of what they’re learning?

Otherwise, how do you know if your child needs help before progress reports? I’m not concerned about the grade, but making sure my child is understanding.

Oh sweetie.

1. No homework or textbooks in K. There never has been.
2. You'll probably get a weekly newsletter - ours was emailed
3. In K, they are required to have parent teacher conferences mid-quarter. You'll see a sign up in October. You can also contact the the teacher 3-4 weeks after school starts to check in. A nice email saying "Hello, I just wanted to check in to see how Ellie is doing class. Is there anything that we can support her with at home? Thank you, Madison"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No textbooks, and we did have some "homework" eventually - a packet that was sent home on Fridays to be returned the following Thursday or Friday - one page of ELA and one page of math concepts a day, usually. But the truth was I never had any idea where she was with her learning or whether she was on track. And even at the PT conferences it was not clear at all - I'd hear "oh, she got a 576 on I-ready" but that means . . . nothing to me? And when I asked what she needed to work on the teacher would pull up the test and go to look at the questions she got wrong and say "Oh, we haven't gotten to that yet, we haven't covered this yet" so I'm not sure WTF the testing was even supposed to be covering since it's not what they've learned?

My advice as a parent of a now-rising 1st grader - work on reading, writing, and math basics at home. This is all stuff you can teach your kid and if you wait for the teacher to tell you where your kid is falling behind you'll probably be disappointed. I was shocked by both 1) how little reading progress DD made in Kindergarten, and 2) how few weeks it took me this summer to get her from a handful of sight words to staying up late reading chapter books by herself. Her teacher sucked but luckily it wasn't a statistics or calculus teacher. I can still teach whatever she needs to learn at age 5.

This right here is my exact concern. We’ve made so much progress on reading at home, but there really does not seem to be a serious emphasis on phonics at school. I want him to have the fundamentals down, but the day is so long and he’s too tired for enrichment at home. I guess just the weekends and summer will have to suffice?

What school district?

[Anonymous]

Think of school as just for socialization. And day care. I taught my kid to read and do basic math. She’s in second grade now and the standards are so low and all the attention is on bringing up the bottom. I taught her to read and now I’m working on spelling. School actually does decent at teaching f the concepts of writing an essay but no grammar or spelling and it’s bad. Lots of workbooks and free sites that can help. I suck at math so I outsource that.

Take kids to museums and explain history because there’s none of that in school either.

For OP - check in with the teacher and if you have a good one she will tell you what needs work. Work on that and more because that’s what most parents are doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Think of school as just for socialization. And day care. I taught my kid to read and do basic math. She’s in second grade now and the standards are so low and all the attention is on bringing up the bottom. I taught her to read and now I’m working on spelling. School actually does decent at teaching f the concepts of writing an essay but no grammar or spelling and it’s bad. Lots of workbooks and free sites that can help. I suck at math so I outsource that.

Take kids to museums and explain history because there’s none of that in school either.

For OP - check in with the teacher and if you have a good one she will tell you what needs work. Work on that and more because that’s what most parents are doing.

I’m genuinely curious and don’t mean this in a snarky way, but why not homeschool then? Is it the socialization and electives?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hoping to hear from parents of current or recent Kindergarteners.

Is it normal to not have homework or textbooks?

Are you getting weekly updates on the class app with a brief overview of what they’re learning?

Otherwise, how do you know if your child needs help before progress reports? I’m not concerned about the grade, but making sure my child is understanding.

Oh sweetie.

1. No homework or textbooks in K. There never has been.
2. You'll probably get a weekly newsletter - ours was emailed
3. In K, they are required to have parent teacher conferences mid-quarter. You'll see a sign up in October. You can also contact the the teacher 3-4 weeks after school starts to check in. A nice email saying "Hello, I just wanted to check in to see how Ellie is doing class. Is there anything that we can support her with at home? Thank you, Madison"

NP and I love your condescending tone as if you are the end all be all of kindergarten.

My kid’s school gave homework in K.

Never received a weekly newsletter or updates on a regular basis.

Parent teacher conferences were twice a year.

My kid learned a lot that year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish I could DM you - I have googled Catholic schools multiple times in the last 18 months and I never thought I'd consider parochial school.

We are Protestant. We carefully bought an house in a “good” public school pyramid (think W) with every intention of public schools all the way through. We now also are looking at local Catholic schools.

The ones near us have smaller class sizes than our public - low 20s of kids rather than 30+ kids/classroom. Much less screen time. Mainstream textbooks for math, science, history at the Catholic. Phonics-centered reading instruction. Explicit spelling and grammar instruction. I never thought we would be looking serious at Catholic schools, yet here we are.

Yeah, why not, indoctrinate your kid in Catholicism like JD Vance. It is way more important to get textbooks, the Bible and that all important gold cross necklace these days anyway that to like support some kind of public entity.
Times have changed and you have got to put the Bible and supporting religion first.

I gather you didn't actually *read* the post you are responding to, where it was quite clear that they:

- intended originally to go public,

- were not Catholic,

- were not interested in the religious aspects,

- but were impressed that Catholic schools still teach solid academics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish I could DM you - I have googled Catholic schools multiple times in the last 18 months and I never thought I'd consider parochial school.

We are Protestant. We carefully bought an house in a “good” public school pyramid (think W) with every intention of public schools all the way through. We now also are looking at local Catholic schools.

The ones near us have smaller class sizes than our public - low 20s of kids rather than 30+ kids/classroom. Much less screen time. Mainstream textbooks for math, science, history at the Catholic. Phonics-centered reading instruction. Explicit spelling and grammar instruction. I never thought we would be looking serious at Catholic schools, yet here we are.

Yeah, why not, indoctrinate your kid in Catholicism like JD Vance. It is way more important to get textbooks, the Bible and that all important gold cross necklace these days anyway that to like support some kind of public entity.
Times have changed and you have got to put the Bible and supporting religion first.

I gather you didn't actually *read* the post you are responding to, where it was quite clear that they:

- intended originally to go public,

- were not Catholic,

- were not interested in the religious aspects,

- but were impressed that Catholic schools still teach solid academics.

Oh no I read it. I understood it and I also understand that you are operating in an environment that is attacking all things public. Perhaps you don’t understand how that is pervading your thinking, but it is. Many posters, parents and government officials are attacking public schools and have been since the pandemic. Know that although you “believe” you are just doing it for the “good of your child”. You are also doing it because it is in the ether to do right now. You aren’t trusting ANY public service and are being manipulated. Everything public is being attacked (federal government, local government, schools etc) and the you jumping on that bandwagon.

So, don your crosses ladies, get your household vote together and try to sway your husbands. Schools are the last bastion of democracy. Keep punching them and watch the (and democracy) fall or get smart, stand up and fight for public services.

Now, go ahead and insult me and call this “bizarre” or “horrible” or “unhinged” but the more you know…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hoping to hear from parents of current or recent Kindergarteners.

Is it normal to not have homework or textbooks?

Are you getting weekly updates on the class app with a brief overview of what they’re learning?

Otherwise, how do you know if your child needs help before progress reports? I’m not concerned about the grade, but making sure my child is understanding.

WTF? Of course they don't have books or homework especially! It's Kindergarten! They are learning their ABCs and how to not pee in their pants still.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish I could DM you - I have googled Catholic schools multiple times in the last 18 months and I never thought I'd consider parochial school.

We are Protestant. We carefully bought an house in a “good” public school pyramid (think W) with every intention of public schools all the way through. We now also are looking at local Catholic schools.

The ones near us have smaller class sizes than our public - low 20s of kids rather than 30+ kids/classroom. Much less screen time. Mainstream textbooks for math, science, history at the Catholic. Phonics-centered reading instruction. Explicit spelling and grammar instruction. I never thought we would be looking serious at Catholic schools, yet here we are.

Yeah, why not, indoctrinate your kid in Catholicism like JD Vance. It is way more important to get textbooks, the Bible and that all important gold cross necklace these days anyway that to like support some kind of public entity.
Times have changed and you have got to put the Bible and supporting religion first.

What a disgusting comment.

Truth hurts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No textbooks, and we did have some "homework" eventually - a packet that was sent home on Fridays to be returned the following Thursday or Friday - one page of ELA and one page of math concepts a day, usually. But the truth was I never had any idea where she was with her learning or whether she was on track. And even at the PT conferences it was not clear at all - I'd hear "oh, she got a 576 on I-ready" but that means . . . nothing to me? And when I asked what she needed to work on the teacher would pull up the test and go to look at the questions she got wrong and say "Oh, we haven't gotten to that yet, we haven't covered this yet" so I'm not sure WTF the testing was even supposed to be covering since it's not what they've learned?

My advice as a parent of a now-rising 1st grader - work on reading, writing, and math basics at home. This is all stuff you can teach your kid and if you wait for the teacher to tell you where your kid is falling behind you'll probably be disappointed. I was shocked by both 1) how little reading progress DD made in Kindergarten, and 2) how few weeks it took me this summer to get her from a handful of sight words to staying up late reading chapter books by herself. Her teacher sucked but luckily it wasn't a statistics or calculus teacher. I can still teach whatever she needs to learn at age 5.

A lot of people here claim that their children learn nothing in elementary school, no basics. I’ve only seen that at poorly performing schools that are overcrowded and underfunded. Your typical school is not like that and schools with large budgets in wealthy towns are doing fine.

I’m don’t understand how your kid only had some sight words if you have been reading to her all along. Or maybe something clicked this summer and it came together for her. It can’t be that every kindergarten is failing.

If you think your child isn’t where he should be then ask questions.

I have a child at a top performing wealthy public school and can confirm they spent lots of time on screens and don’t learn much at school apart from socialization and apps. They watch movies all the time and it’s all special events like assemblies and party days with no written work I’ve seen at home. It’s all on screens and they drag and click answers or play math games on IXL. I didn’t know this until 1st grade, but it turns out everyone goes to Kumon / tutoring / supplements at home.

You do NOT have to do the Kumon thing to have a kid do well in school. That is just competitive parenting and anxiety.

There are alternatives to using an after school center. Many parents will supplement/reinforce at home. We supplement at home, using the Kumon workbooks from Barnes & Noble. That said, it is not an accident that many local suburbs do have Mathnasium, RSM, AoPS, and Kumon centers. Those businesses would not survive if they did not have customers.

well, that is a little obvious. But you really don’t have to do that unless you are incapable of doing it yourself. It isn’t rocket science in the early grades. Parents just want to outsource what used to be considered parenting. Those companies want to make money, so they (and parent peer pressure) make you think you need to, but if your kid is average to smart, it is really easy to reinforce at home.

Here is another news flash: those for profit schools want your money and will act like your kid needs more help and that the schools aren’t doing a good job so they can get your money.

I”m a fan of school homework. I had kids at 2 different elementary schools in the area. One gave homework, one didn’t so I supplemented.

That is a lie. This is not outsourcing what every parent was expected to do. My parents never taught me to read, or do arithmetic. They didn’t need too. It was taught at school along with spelling, vocabulary, cursive, and all kinds of other things that are not being fully taught (if at all!) at even the well funded elementary schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Think of school as just for socialization. And day care. I taught my kid to read and do basic math. She’s in second grade now and the standards are so low and all the attention is on bringing up the bottom. I taught her to read and now I’m working on spelling. School actually does decent at teaching f the concepts of writing an essay but no grammar or spelling and it’s bad. Lots of workbooks and free sites that can help. I suck at math so I outsource that.

Take kids to museums and explain history because there’s none of that in school either.

For OP - check in with the teacher and if you have a good one she will tell you what needs work. Work on that and more because that’s what most parents are doing.

The problem with that is that then the child has very little free time to play and do other activities that interest them.
And I don't want to spend what little time I have with him at home sitting and doing math problems.

The other question I have is, when does this change? When does school move beyond socialization and babysitting only? 5th grade? 6th grade?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No textbooks, and we did have some "homework" eventually - a packet that was sent home on Fridays to be returned the following Thursday or Friday - one page of ELA and one page of math concepts a day, usually. But the truth was I never had any idea where she was with her learning or whether she was on track. And even at the PT conferences it was not clear at all - I'd hear "oh, she got a 576 on I-ready" but that means . . . nothing to me? And when I asked what she needed to work on the teacher would pull up the test and go to look at the questions she got wrong and say "Oh, we haven't gotten to that yet, we haven't covered this yet" so I'm not sure WTF the testing was even supposed to be covering since it's not what they've learned?

My advice as a parent of a now-rising 1st grader - work on reading, writing, and math basics at home. This is all stuff you can teach your kid and if you wait for the teacher to tell you where your kid is falling behind you'll probably be disappointed. I was shocked by both 1) how little reading progress DD made in Kindergarten, and 2) how few weeks it took me this summer to get her from a handful of sight words to staying up late reading chapter books by herself. Her teacher sucked but luckily it wasn't a statistics or calculus teacher. I can still teach whatever she needs to learn at age 5.

A lot of people here claim that their children learn nothing in elementary school, no basics. I’ve only seen that at poorly performing schools that are overcrowded and underfunded. Your typical school is not like that and schools with large budgets in wealthy towns are doing fine.

I’m don’t understand how your kid only had some sight words if you have been reading to her all along. Or maybe something clicked this summer and it came together for her. It can’t be that every kindergarten is failing.

If you think your child isn’t where he should be then ask questions.

I have a child at a top performing wealthy public school and can confirm they spent lots of time on screens and don’t learn much at school apart from socialization and apps. They watch movies all the time and it’s all special events like assemblies and party days with no written work I’ve seen at home. It’s all on screens and they drag and click answers or play math games on IXL. I didn’t know this until 1st grade, but it turns out everyone goes to Kumon / tutoring / supplements at home.

You do NOT have to do the Kumon thing to have a kid do well in school. That is just competitive parenting and anxiety.

There are alternatives to using an after school center. Many parents will supplement/reinforce at home. We supplement at home, using the Kumon workbooks from Barnes & Noble. That said, it is not an accident that many local suburbs do have Mathnasium, RSM, AoPS, and Kumon centers. Those businesses would not survive if they did not have customers.

well, that is a little obvious. But you really don’t have to do that unless you are incapable of doing it yourself. It isn’t rocket science in the early grades. Parents just want to outsource what used to be considered parenting. Those companies want to make money, so they (and parent peer pressure) make you think you need to, but if your kid is average to smart, it is really easy to reinforce at home.

Here is another news flash: those for profit schools want your money and will act like your kid needs more help and that the schools aren’t doing a good job so they can get your money.

I”m a fan of school homework. I had kids at 2 different elementary schools in the area. One gave homework, one didn’t so I supplemented.

That is a lie. This is not outsourcing what every parent was expected to do. My parents never taught me to read, or do arithmetic. They didn’t need too. It was taught at school along with spelling, vocabulary, cursive, and all kinds of other things that are not being fully taught (if at all!) at even the well funded elementary schools.

Mmmmmkay. Why, then were there Leave it to Beaver (see really really old) episodes about how hard it was to help the Beav with math homework? Why were there Berenstain Bear (circa 1980s) books about failing quizzes and how the parents had to help? So many sitcoms had kids who needed help with math and spelling homework.

Schools are teaching spelling and vocabulary. If your parents neglected you or didn’t help drill you in math flash cards, that is your experience. Popular culture for decades was you help your kids with homework.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish I could DM you - I have googled Catholic schools multiple times in the last 18 months and I never thought I'd consider parochial school.

We are Protestant. We carefully bought an house in a “good” public school pyramid (think W) with every intention of public schools all the way through. We now also are looking at local Catholic schools.

The ones near us have smaller class sizes than our public - low 20s of kids rather than 30+ kids/classroom. Much less screen time. Mainstream textbooks for math, science, history at the Catholic. Phonics-centered reading instruction. Explicit spelling and grammar instruction. I never thought we would be looking serious at Catholic schools, yet here we are.

Yeah, why not, indoctrinate your kid in Catholicism like JD Vance. It is way more important to get textbooks, the Bible and that all important gold cross necklace these days anyway that to like support some kind of public entity.
Times have changed and you have got to put the Bible and supporting religion first.

I gather you didn't actually *read* the post you are responding to, where it was quite clear that they:

- intended originally to go public,

- were not Catholic,

- were not interested in the religious aspects,

- but were impressed that Catholic schools still teach solid academics.

Oh no I read it. I understood it and I also understand that you are operating in an environment that is attacking all things public. Perhaps you don’t understand how that is pervading your thinking, but it is. Many posters, parents and government officials are attacking public schools and have been since the pandemic. Know that although you “believe” you are just doing it for the “good of your child”. You are also doing it because it is in the ether to do right now. You aren’t trusting ANY public service and are being manipulated. Everything public is being attacked (federal government, local government, schools etc) and the you jumping on that bandwagon.

So, don your crosses ladies, get your household vote together and try to sway your husbands. Schools are the last bastion of democracy. Keep punching them and watch the (and democracy) fall or get smart, stand up and fight for public services.

Now, go ahead and insult me and call this “bizarre” or “horrible” or “unhinged” but the more you know…

I assume you are a troll, but the reason many of us are down on public school is that we are speaking from our own experiences with it. We put our children in public school and saw first hand what is happening. Nobody has brought local and federal government into this thread or other school-related threads that I've seen. - signed, another casual Protestant that ended up putting kids into Catholic school

The other troubling thing that is happening in education right now is that the religious extremists/ far right have taken up the mantle of "classical education" and twisted it into a way of indoctrinating kids and families. I visited a Christian school last year and toured it with my son, not realizing who is funding it and why. The only reason they are able to do this is that many, many public districts have turned too far away from the basics of teaching the "3 Rs."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No textbooks, and we did have some "homework" eventually - a packet that was sent home on Fridays to be returned the following Thursday or Friday - one page of ELA and one page of math concepts a day, usually. But the truth was I never had any idea where she was with her learning or whether she was on track. And even at the PT conferences it was not clear at all - I'd hear "oh, she got a 576 on I-ready" but that means . . . nothing to me? And when I asked what she needed to work on the teacher would pull up the test and go to look at the questions she got wrong and say "Oh, we haven't gotten to that yet, we haven't covered this yet" so I'm not sure WTF the testing was even supposed to be covering since it's not what they've learned?

My advice as a parent of a now-rising 1st grader - work on reading, writing, and math basics at home. This is all stuff you can teach your kid and if you wait for the teacher to tell you where your kid is falling behind you'll probably be disappointed. I was shocked by both 1) how little reading progress DD made in Kindergarten, and 2) how few weeks it took me this summer to get her from a handful of sight words to staying up late reading chapter books by herself. Her teacher sucked but luckily it wasn't a statistics or calculus teacher. I can still teach whatever she needs to learn at age 5.

A lot of people here claim that their children learn nothing in elementary school, no basics. I’ve only seen that at poorly performing schools that are overcrowded and underfunded. Your typical school is not like that and schools with large budgets in wealthy towns are doing fine.

I’m don’t understand how your kid only had some sight words if you have been reading to her all along. Or maybe something clicked this summer and it came together for her. It can’t be that every kindergarten is failing.

If you think your child isn’t where he should be then ask questions.

I have a child at a top performing wealthy public school and can confirm they spent lots of time on screens and don’t learn much at school apart from socialization and apps. They watch movies all the time and it’s all special events like assemblies and party days with no written work I’ve seen at home. It’s all on screens and they drag and click answers or play math games on IXL. I didn’t know this until 1st grade, but it turns out everyone goes to Kumon / tutoring / supplements at home.

You do NOT have to do the Kumon thing to have a kid do well in school. That is just competitive parenting and anxiety.

There are alternatives to using an after school center. Many parents will supplement/reinforce at home. We supplement at home, using the Kumon workbooks from Barnes & Noble. That said, it is not an accident that many local suburbs do have Mathnasium, RSM, AoPS, and Kumon centers. Those businesses would not survive if they did not have customers.

well, that is a little obvious. But you really don’t have to do that unless you are incapable of doing it yourself. It isn’t rocket science in the early grades. Parents just want to outsource what used to be considered parenting. Those companies want to make money, so they (and parent peer pressure) make you think you need to, but if your kid is average to smart, it is really easy to reinforce at home.

Here is another news flash: those for profit schools want your money and will act like your kid needs more help and that the schools aren’t doing a good job so they can get your money.

I”m a fan of school homework. I had kids at 2 different elementary schools in the area. One gave homework, one didn’t so I supplemented.

That is a lie. This is not outsourcing what every parent was expected to do. My parents never taught me to read, or do arithmetic. They didn’t need too. It was taught at school along with spelling, vocabulary, cursive, and all kinds of other things that are not being fully taught (if at all!) at even the well funded elementary schools.

Mmmmmkay. Why, then were there Leave it to Beaver (see really really old) episodes about how hard it was to help the Beav with math homework? Why were there Berenstain Bear (circa 1980s) books about failing quizzes and how the parents had to help? So many sitcoms had kids who needed help with math and spelling homework.

Schools are teaching spelling and vocabulary. If your parents neglected you or didn’t help drill you in math flash cards, that is your experience. Popular culture for decades was you help your kids with homework.

My parents were immigrants whose first language was not English. They worked all day and I was with a sitter and watched TV or played outside. My parents were not around to drill math flash cards and they didn't need to. I was taught by teachers at my low-to-mid public school and did fine. It is not expected that parents of elementary kids should need to do anything beyond many read to their kids (which my parents did do sometimes).