Thursday, July 23, 2009

Seth vs. Kindergarten

Don't you just hate it when you plan something and than it goes kaput?! Well that is excatly what happened to our plan with Seth in private Kindergarten.

Here's the back story; DODDS (department of Defense school) changed the Kindergarten age requirement to September 1. Meaning, your child has to be 5 by September 1 to start Kindergraten. Translation, that sucks, Seth turns 5 on September 29!!! We have known about this lovely change since January.

So I toured the private Kindergarten's in this area (which has the age requirement at 5 years by October 31) and found a great one at Faith Baptist Church. Don't freak out, its english spoken, all American run. Anyway, Loren and I made the decision to have him start because we had him tested and academically speaking...he is more than ready! So we thought putting him into private Kindergarten would keep him on the track to stay ahead.

Well, I got a lovely call from the Principal telling me the school did not get approved for stateside accreditation. Lovely! So if we keep him in Faith Baptist he would have to repeat Kindergarten next year since he didn't go to an accredited school. Grrr, okay, know what? I'm not going to put him in a program that he would have to repeat. Especially since it is so expensive... 440 euro a month...meaning about $650 a month!!!! So obviously there is no way we would pay that much money just to have him repeat Kindergarten.

Now where do I stand, there are no schools he can go to...we are left with no choice...he has to wait a year. Part of me is sad (and very frustrated!) that he won't be starting with his friends. But another part of me is so HAPPY I get to have him home for another year. And of course we will have $650 dollars more a month to travel!

I went and bought Kindergarten home schooling books to keep him on the right track. The books are awesome! He loves doing them with me while Adam goes down for his afternoon nap.

Morale of the story, a quote I heard at a women's conference:

Never fall in love with your plan...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hear ya girl...that will be Juliette here since she is a Sept. 28 birthday and the cutoff here is Aug. 30. I, like you, tried to ask around about private kindergartens, but they all follow the same age guidelines as the public school district. I'm gonna have to have her in preschool for sure...or she will be so bored. will you do preschool again for Seth?

Katie said...

Yeah I am going to put him in a program the base offers for kids who missed the cut off by 3 months. Its M-F 8:30-11:30. He needs to be in something. To much for a socail kid to be at home all day. I'm going to run into the same thing with Adam, his b-day is 9-16!