DH just called the school district
to see what the criteria would be and the process if someone such as BM would attempt to register their child for the next grade when the previous school was going to retain the student. According to the school district, they would put SD in kindergarten again because that is what her report card and file dictates. After school starts, a conversation can be had with the principal of the school to see what the options are, but only in special circumstances would they complete an evaluation and move a child up a grade when the outgoing school of the transfer student decided the student would be retained.
The good news is that this washes our hands of a battle with BM because when DH and I just overlooked the curriculum and the standards at the end of kindergarten, SD still doesn't meet SD's new district's standards, it is more advanced. Now all DH plans to do is upload the outgoing assessment from the tutor on Thursday and then tell BM to keep DH informed on how registration day goes on August 1.
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That the decision is not
That the decision is not based on BM's whim is good. Criteria is slightly different in all districts, and while SD has come a long way with tutoring, she would still have difficulty in most first grades. Over the past decade the K curriculum in many places has morphed into a mini grade one. OGD went to K, it was a half day, and the standard was 25 sight words. Her brother went two years later, it was a full day, and the standard was 100 sight words.
SD did well with tutoring. She is now set up for success in K this year.
According to what we
Were told at SD's old school there was no sight words, just being able to count to 100, know all 26 upper and lowercase letters plus their sounds. There are words that in her knew school she would need to know, plus vowel sounds, beginning, middle and ending sounds, etc. We have been working on beginning word sounds and the tutor had SD identifying the word the and some CVC words but that is it.
Dh and I feel more relaxed because now she will be starting kindergarten off where she basically should of been at the start of last year. Clearly BM didn't call the district and talk to anyone just doing her typical this is how I think it should work and I'm going off of that without finding out additional information.
That's good news. Frankly,
That's good news. Frankly, even if SD, after tutoring and all the work you and your DH put in with her, met the new district standards, she'd probably be better off repeating kindergarten. Her gains may not stay with her once she's back with BM and no one is working with her or pushing her to do her work. It's better that she is in a situation where she can be confident and not struggle from the get go since she doesn't sound terribly self-motivated and BM doesn't seem to work with her at all. It's terrible when a child struggles early on and grows to dread and hate school.
Definitely agree!
The only reason we were on the fence before looking at the curriculum for kindergarten in the new district is because we don't want to hold her back if she was ready. We have been sitting on crafting the response to BM because we wanted to put on there that for SD to succeed is for BM to put in the extra work SD needs at home even during the school year. Finding out that they will automatically place her in kindergarten wipes our hands of having to discuss any of that further. Already DH mentioned he hopes SD does have a tutor this year and BM claims all of that is set up. He also asked if she could upload information about her tutoring like he has been all summer long. We shall wait and see what happens.
I totally agree, the last thing we want to do is to make SD hate school because she is constantly behind. Let's hope some of all this works sticks and BM steps up this year, but we aren't holding our breath
SD was recommended to either
SD was recommended to either repeat Kindergarden or go to 1st grade with an IEP. Both BM & ExH wanted her to move on so I held my tongue. It was the complete wrong decision for SD & it followed her through all 12 years of school. Let her repeat & build confidence.
That is terrible!
That is exactly what we don't want to happen to SD or to tear down her confidence because yet again she is starting behind. Repeating kindergarten she will be starting where she should of been and other kids will be who went to preschool and/or had been taught the information to prepare them for the year. BM doesn't care about what it does to SD she only cares how it makes her look
When I was young.. I went to
When I was young.. I went to a Kindergarten in Okinawa.. that had a very different kind of educational focus. It was a lot of play learning.. crafts and singing etc..
BUT.. not really on the numbers/letters/writing. I ended up in a 1st grade the next year at a private school in the states.. and it was really tough for me since the other kids were so much further ahead of me... it's hard to catch up when you don't have the basics mastered.
Exactly!
Even though SD knows the things I listed earlier now, she still needs to count to her tens or do other sort of references to find out the answer, I wouldn't say all those skills are quite mastered. Especially going back to the same household that didn't support and help her all last year, repeating the year would set her up for success for not only this year, but hopefully the next couple of years at the least.