So, as I posted a few weeks ago, my son started kindergarten. We lucked out and got the teacher our neighbors with an older child had been raving about. He also knew a couple of the kids in his class from pre-school. He’s only been going for two weeks, but he loves it. He’s started making friends with his classmates, and he loves the teacher so much he hand-made a gift for her (a card/drawing) and even insisted on bringing her an apple last week – my wife had to go out and buy a red apple for him to bring her!
Well, last week we got a letter from the principal that said that due to overcrowding, the school was able to hire a new K teacher so that they could reduce class sizes from 20 to 18. We cringed a little, but we figured there was only a 10% chance he would be moved.
Well, today he came home with another letter. Effective tomorrow, he is to report to a new classroom, with a brand-new-to-the-school teacher and all new classmates (except one). Also, this will be a combined class, so instead of one teacher with 20 students, he’ll be in a double class with two teachers and 35-ish students.
He is crushed… he wants to know why his old teacher didn’t want him anymore. I know the school is trying to do what’s best for the students, but he is so sad.
Yeah, we’re putting a happy face on it. All the new friends! Two teachers! How exciting! His old teacher must have thought he was so mature to make the change!
He’ll be fine in a couple of weeks, it’s just sad to see his feelings hurt (even though it’s nothing personal against him).
Oh man, that sucks. I remember when we had to pull our 4 year old out of the daycare she enjoyed after a peanut incident. You’re doing everything right though - keep a positive and upbeat attitude and point out all the advantages to him. Save planning the principal’s unexpected and painful demise for after your son goes to bed.
They switched me from one kindergarten class to another after about a week. Me, the kid who just moved to Brooklyn from Kansas and knew NO ONE. Apparently I was crushed. My parents have told me they were pissed.
a)I don’t remember it at all now. Even as a kid I didn’t remember it much.
b)within 5 minutes in the new class I had made a friend, who was my best friend for the next 10 years.
Well we just found out that one of his best friends from pre-school is in the other half of this combined class, so hopefully that will soften the blow. And I’m going to get him some Legos on the way home to cheer us up.
It sucks, they did that to my daughters grade three years running. There are JUST enough kids in her age bracket to divide the classes into three…but if one extra child shows up the first day of school, they need to have four. Every year they’d know a few weren’t coming back, every year they’d try and get by with three classes, every year a week in they’d juggle kids around. Every year there would be tears - both the kids staying in class and the kids leaving. “Lifelong” friendships are made that first week in Kindergarten and they will NEVER see their dearest friend AGAIN!!!
Stories like this always make me inwardly chuckle. I especially like the phraseology, “apparently, I was crushed”. I know it’s really hard to keep children’s little day-to-day crises in perspective; my instinct is always to step in and make things right and ease the pain. But usually, in the long run, these little things don’t have the lasting effect one thinks they do.
My wife took him to school today and apparently it took him all of five minutes to get over it. His new teacher, according to my wife, is in her mid-twenties and extremely attractive. I have been told that parent-teacher conferences will no longer be my responsibility.
I didn’t read the post from a couple weeks ago, but I imagine I am not the only person thinking to myself…“the hell? It’s the middle of August! Who starts Kindergarten at the beginning of August?”
In Michigan, public schools are not allowed to start before Labor Day.
All the schools here in town start mid-August. It gets pushed earlier every year, and the first day of school here was August 11th. We get out in mid-May.
I remember this was really common when they started to integrate the schools in the 70s. In one year (2nd Grade) I got moved four times, twice in one school, then they moved me to a new school, then they decided I was smart enough to be skipped a grade. So I stared out in an all white class in a school 2 blocks from my house in 2nd grade and wound up in 3rd grade in a class full of older mixed kids I didn’t know anyone.
That’s how it was for me growing up in Massachusetts, but in our county here, the kindergarteners started on August 2 and the rest of the school (I think) on August 9.
They’re on a semi-year-round schedule, so they get two weeks off in the fall, two weeks in the winter, two weeks in the spring, and get out for the summer in mid-May.
Update: he had a great day. He loves his new teacher. There are only 29 kids in the combined classes, so the teacher/student ratio is pretty good.
He said the only “bad thing” that happened today was at lunch – from where he was sitting with his new class he could see all his friends from his old class that he used to sit with (and a girl I think he liked). So he cried through lunch. But, he sounds fine.
