We have decided to go ahead and enroll Jonah in kindergarten. We visited the school this morning for a tour and then went back this afternoon to meet the teachers who be working with him and the principal. The kindergarten teacher is very kind, around our age, and seemed very dynamic. The principal and her asked us a lot of questions about our concerns for him and what they could do to help him transition into school. He will also receive assistance from what they call an adaptive resources teacher, so when they know there may be a situation that would be difficult for him she'll come assist him through it (i.e. the fire drill next week). The school also has para's so it's possible that after his 30 day evaluation that could be added to help him also.
The principal is a young guy, mid thirties. The first thing he said to Jonah was that he liked his name because it was one of his favorite Bible stories. We later found out he graduated from Messiah College in Pennsylvania. Very cool to have an openly Christian principal.
Another nice thing is the school is not that big. There are only three kindergarten classes, one full day, and two half day.
The biggest deciding factor for me in this was that I came to the conclusion that it would be more harmful to him to keep him out of school this year. Preschools in the area don't have programs for five year olds and even if we could find one to take him, we can't really afford that expense right now.
Jonah was frustrated with being at the school twice today and not being able to stay. He was ready to jump right in. He even let us give him a haircut tonight with no fuss because we told him it was a kindergarten haircut.
So it looks like his first day will be Thursday. We thought it would be good for him to ease in with two days this week, then there's no school Monday, so next week will only be four days.
I guess that wasn't so quick, oh well!
2 comments:
I'm sure Jonah will do great. It looks like he'll have a lot of capable professionals surrounding him to make his transition easy. Are you choosing half or full day?
I'll be praying for Jonah and you guys...let us know how Thursday goes. It sounds like everyone at the school is really great and he's very excited to start school!!! Are you ready for him to start kindergarten? I just read your past couple blogs--how neat that God provided the speech therapist for you guys right away, He is so good!!
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