What are the factors parents should look into while selecting a kindergarten for their kid. Please add in your suggestions, so we get a good list which parents can keep in their mind while shortlisting kindergartens.
Choosing a kindergarten...
- Thread starter jollysmith123
- Start date
You get a choice? I'm in Ontario, Canada, and we just have to send our kids to the school in our own area. We don't have a choice about which school to send kids to, other than whether we choose to send them to a French or English school.
Where we live, we can send our kids to the local public school, a private school, a charter school, or we can homeschool. The factors that were important to us were educational quality (measured by the school's AYP), distance, and access to educational resources.
We ruled out public school because our local one started failing its AYP a few years prior to our daughter's first year of school. Charter school admission is by lottery, so we entered her into everything within 100 miles to broaden our options, but there were no guarantees. Most of the private schools lacked a library or lab equipment, so access to resources was pretty comparable to homeschool. We decided we would look into the one good private school in our area, to decide if we could afford it, and start off homeschooling if not. Fortunately, we got a spot in two charter schools, but not our first choice one. We picked the one that was the closest.
Hope that helps!
*A charter school is a public school available to any student in the school district, not just students who live within a prescribed area. Some have open enrollment, but others select students by lottery to keep classrooms small. They are funded by the district the same way the other public schools are, but they have more flexibility in their curriculum, so different charter schools tend to tailor to different learning styles. They receive the same per capita funding as public schools, but they have more flexibility on how they use it (for example, they don't have to provide bus routes, school lunches, tutoring, etc.). They may have uniforms or different hours. They can offer unique education, like foreign languages or art emphasis or hands-on learning (Montessori is a common charter school program). Because parents have to request enrollment, the student body tends to have more parent involvement than regular public schools. Theoretically, parents are supposed to be able to choose a charter school because it complements their child's learning style, but in reality parents often sign up for all the charter schools and enroll their child into whichever one they are offered a spot, even if it's not the one they wanted. (I have a friend who wanted her kids in my daughter's school, and I wanted mine in her son's school, but because it's by lottery, we took what we could get.)
We ruled out public school because our local one started failing its AYP a few years prior to our daughter's first year of school. Charter school admission is by lottery, so we entered her into everything within 100 miles to broaden our options, but there were no guarantees. Most of the private schools lacked a library or lab equipment, so access to resources was pretty comparable to homeschool. We decided we would look into the one good private school in our area, to decide if we could afford it, and start off homeschooling if not. Fortunately, we got a spot in two charter schools, but not our first choice one. We picked the one that was the closest.
Hope that helps!
*A charter school is a public school available to any student in the school district, not just students who live within a prescribed area. Some have open enrollment, but others select students by lottery to keep classrooms small. They are funded by the district the same way the other public schools are, but they have more flexibility in their curriculum, so different charter schools tend to tailor to different learning styles. They receive the same per capita funding as public schools, but they have more flexibility on how they use it (for example, they don't have to provide bus routes, school lunches, tutoring, etc.). They may have uniforms or different hours. They can offer unique education, like foreign languages or art emphasis or hands-on learning (Montessori is a common charter school program). Because parents have to request enrollment, the student body tends to have more parent involvement than regular public schools. Theoretically, parents are supposed to be able to choose a charter school because it complements their child's learning style, but in reality parents often sign up for all the charter schools and enroll their child into whichever one they are offered a spot, even if it's not the one they wanted. (I have a friend who wanted her kids in my daughter's school, and I wanted mine in her son's school, but because it's by lottery, we took what we could get.)
Last edited:
We don't get a choice either in my state as far as public schools go. You have to go to a public school in your 'district' they start from Kindergarden (5 yr old) to 12th grade.
You can always send your child to a private school of your choice but of course you have to pay for it. Even if you do that you still have to pay for public school in your annual taxes.
You can always send your child to a private school of your choice but of course you have to pay for it. Even if you do that you still have to pay for public school in your annual taxes.
A friendly teacher who is patient. Seems obvious but it really is unfortunate how many teachers aren't patient enough and give kids failed purposes too early on