Katherine Thomas Preschool

[Anonymous]

We are looking at KTS as a potential option for our 4 year old son. I have seen a few different threads, most related to older children. Does anyone have recent experience with KTS pre-K or K?

[Anonymous]

Have you been on a tour? I went recently to see the lower school and the two things that struck me were that they talked about behavior and regulation a lot more than education and that the enrollment numbers are a lot stronger in middle and high school than in the earlier grades. If you are looking for long term placement this is something to think about as later you will be looking at combined classes of K/1 (which is not so bad) but this year grades 2, 3, and 4 are all together. That broad an age distribution would bother me. The preschool is in the afternoon. If you are in MoCo that's when four year old PEP is.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much for your input. We did go on a tour and liked it alot. I took away from the person giving our tour that they would tailor academic learning to the child and did not get as much about behavior/regulation. This is why it is good to get different perspectives. Who knows where we will be by 3rd or 4th grade! lol.

[Anonymous]

They probably have more older kids as the county often pays for the placement.

[Anonymous]

What are your child's needs? There might be other preschools we can recommend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you been on a tour? I went recently to see the lower school and the two things that struck me were that they talked about behavior and regulation a lot more than education and that the enrollment numbers are a lot stronger in middle and high school than in the earlier grades. If you are looking for long term placement this is something to think about as later you will be looking at combined classes of K/1 (which is not so bad) but this year grades 2, 3, and 4 are all together. That broad an age distribution would bother me. The preschool is in the afternoon. If you are in MoCo that's when four year old PEP is.

Unfortunately in my experience this is true of all the SN day schools that take public placements. Academics are not a priority at all.

[Anonymous]

I toured very recently as well. I was concerned that at least for my child, turning five this summer, would fall behind academically. I did like a lot of what I saw there: support for sensory issues, social development and pragmatic language learning in a safe and supportive environment.

Ultimately, I decided that we will not send our child there bc of the academic concerns. We are still conflicted though. :/

[Anonymous]

PP: So those are the exact issues/reasons we are dealing with and why and are looking at KTS for him. He really needs a small class room and teacher ratio. What school did you find that addresses those concerns and are also academic?

[Anonymous]

We were in a very similar situation -- wanted adequate academics combined with social support -- and we attended KTS from pre-K through 1. It worked out extremely well for us, and we would highly recommend KTS based on our own experience.

The pre-K speech pathologist was phenomenal. And honestly, pre-K academics are largely about learning how to conduct oneself in a classroom, and KTS did very well with that. DC learned how a classroom functions and how to participate enthusiastically and with confidence in group learning.

DC is now in a mainstream school and doing extremely well, and we credit KTS in large part for preparing DC.

On the academics vs social support balance, two thoughts:

1) KTS stressed to us that the most important thing for future academic success is garnering the social cognitive tools to be able to learn in the classroom -- much more than the academic content itself, at least at early ages. We were a little skeptical at first, but we became believers. You can catch up on academic content later if the cognitive groundwork has been laid, but at some point you won't be able to do well academically if it hasn't.
2) In terms of academics we thought pre-K and K were fine at KTS. We were less happy with 1st grade, DC was in a K-1 class and wound up reviewing a lot because there was no academically matched 1st grade peer. And frankly, the teacher wasn't quite as good in terms of sharing our strong academic expectations. That year wasn't great for us academically but pre-K and K were solid.

My recommendation is to lean on the side of getting more social support early, over academic advancement. In our case we feel very comfortable that going there for pre-K and K was a very good move, in fact indispensable for equipping DC for mainstream school success. I would not have wanted to transition any later than we did (1st grade heading into 2nd) and an argument could be made that we should have done it earlier given the 1st grade academics.

I'd have no qualms about highly recommending KTS for pre-K and K. 1st grade would depend on the child and readiness to move on.

[Anonymous]

this thread comes at a great time for us. DS is a rising 3rd grader, I toured the school and had mix feelings about the class I observed at his level. He needs support on the social/emotional side and language. He is at grade level, but benefits from a nurturing environment, and small class. After touring other schools in the area, (all SN) I have the same impression, that the academics part is not very strong.

we just do not know what to do.

[Anonymous]

For the PP who sent their child to KTS for K-1, did your child learn the basics of reading, writing and math? I feel like if KTS can do that while delivering the social/emotional, I would feel much better. I know every child is unique... Just wanted your take on it. Thank you for posting!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the PP who sent their child to KTS for K-1, did your child learn the basics of reading, writing and math? I feel like if KTS can do that while delivering the social/emotional, I would feel much better. I know every child is unique... Just wanted your take on it. Thank you for posting!

Our child was reading/writing very early, well before pre-K, so we may not have much useful info there. They did help with the areas that needed it -- vocabulary, comprehension, etc. Some of the vocabulary work was particularly useful. We thought math instruction was fine, though again, in pre-K and K rather than 1st grade, where there was too much backward review for our tastes because DC was a 1st grader in a K-1 grouping.

Had our child switched after K we would have been completely confident that they'd be coming over in a strong academic position. We marked time in 1st grade a little bit, but not so much that transitioning was an issue. We can't do anything about the past, so looking back we tell ourselves that 1st grade year was valuable for social skills work, which it was though honestly, we might have done just as well to make the jump after K.

Based on our experience I would have no hesitation about recommending pre-K and K taking academics fully into account, though of course the peer group always changes and the teachers we had for those grades are no longer there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:this thread comes at a great time for us. DS is a rising 3rd grader, I toured the school and had mix feelings about the class I observed at his level. He needs support on the social/emotional side and language. He is at grade level, but benefits from a nurturing environment, and small class. After touring other schools in the area, (all SN) I have the same impression, that the academics part is not very strong.

we just do not know what to do.

Do you mind sharing what other schools you toured?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were in a very similar situation -- wanted adequate academics combined with social support -- and we attended KTS from pre-K through 1. It worked out extremely well for us, and we would highly recommend KTS based on our own experience.

The pre-K speech pathologist was phenomenal. And honestly, pre-K academics are largely about learning how to conduct oneself in a classroom, and KTS did very well with that. DC learned how a classroom functions and how to participate enthusiastically and with confidence in group learning.

DC is now in a mainstream school and doing extremely well, and we credit KTS in large part for preparing DC.

On the academics vs social support balance, two thoughts:

1) KTS stressed to us that the most important thing for future academic success is garnering the social cognitive tools to be able to learn in the classroom -- much more than the academic content itself, at least at early ages. We were a little skeptical at first, but we became believers. You can catch up on academic content later if the cognitive groundwork has been laid, but at some point you won't be able to do well academically if it hasn't.
2) In terms of academics we thought pre-K and K were fine at KTS. We were less happy with 1st grade, DC was in a K-1 class and wound up reviewing a lot because there was no academically matched 1st grade peer. And frankly, the teacher wasn't quite as good in terms of sharing our strong academic expectations. That year wasn't great for us academically but pre-K and K were solid.

My recommendation is to lean on the side of getting more social support early, over academic advancement. In our case we feel very comfortable that going there for pre-K and K was a very good move, in fact indispensable for equipping DC for mainstream school success. I would not have wanted to transition any later than we did (1st grade heading into 2nd) and an argument could be made that we should have done it earlier given the 1st grade academics.

I'd have no qualms about highly recommending KTS for pre-K and K. 1st grade would depend on the child and readiness to move on.

OP here. Thank you so much for your message. Yes, #1 you highlighted is really where we are. At home or individually in thereapy, academically he is where he should be-more or less- for his age. It is the social with peers (he wants to engage but trouble closing circles of communication with peers, developing better play skills) and the attention and self confidence, sensory piece in a class that really needs a lot of help. It sounds like it could be a good fit for him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this thread comes at a great time for us. DS is a rising 3rd grader, I toured the school and had mix feelings about the class I observed at his level. He needs support on the social/emotional side and language. He is at grade level, but benefits from a nurturing environment, and small class. After touring other schools in the area, (all SN) I have the same impression, that the academics part is not very strong.

we just do not know what to do.

Do you mind sharing what other schools you toured?

Dieener and Ivymount.