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.

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?

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.