Moving question - ELemantry school question (Aurora, Naperville: renting, day care, home)

[Pooh2000mk]

Hi there,

My family and I are moving to the are in next 2 months. We have 2 kids, 6 (October)and 3 (July). We are moving from Florida and I've noticed that schools are a bit different. Anyone knows which schools are full day rather then 2:30 hours for PK with good score ranking.

Btw, we are still not convinced which city we should relocate to, napervill, Geneva, st.charles, Schaumburg, mt prospect, or other. Bottom-line my job will be in Schaumburg, so...... Also, we are planing on renting for the first 12 months.

Thanks,

[chisub]

I know Dist. 203 and 204 (Naperville/Aurora/etc.) have full day Kindergarten, but only half day for preschoolers unless you went through a private school. I believe registration is closed for both of the public preschools (these are tuition based unless you qualify for assistance) for 2012-3. I really don't know about the other towns, but wanted to chime in on the ones I knew about. Also, I don't think I would want to commute from Naperville to Schaumburg anyways. I head up that way during the week during off peak times and it's not my favorite drive, so I can only imagine rush hour, yuck!

[cubssoxfan]

Around Schaumburg here are some recommended public school districts that keep you within 30 minute rush hour drive of Schaumburg. Look them up online to determine if they have full day pre-school: Schaumburg D54, Palatine D15, Arlington Heights D25, Prospect Heights D23, Mt. Prospect D57 and D26. St. Peter Lutheran in Arlington Heights has an outstanding pre-school program and offers full day classes and after-school care. St Peter Lutheran in Schaumburg may also. I know some of the private preschool providers like Kindercare offer one stop service. They will pick up your 6 year old after school and bring s/he to the center where you can pick s/he up with sibling. They may offer the same service for before school if needed.

[whakru]

Originally Posted by chisub

I know Dist. 203 and 204 (Naperville/Aurora/etc.) have full day Kindergarten, but only half day for preschoolers unless you went through a private school. I believe registration is closed for both of the public preschools (these are tuition based unless you qualify for assistance) for 2012-3. I really don't know about the other towns, but wanted to chime in on the ones I knew about. Also, I don't think I would want to commute from Naperville to Schaumburg anyways. I head up that way during the week during off peak times and it's not my favorite drive, so I can only imagine rush hour, yuck!

D203 does not have ADK...only D204. In fact it was just shot down again in the recent restructuring decisions and is supposed to be revisited next year. It is very frustrating because Kindergarten is only 2.5 hours and when you are not stay at home you almost have to find a private ADK. We are past that part now (mine are in 1st and 4th) but I still feel the pain for others who would like ADK.

[chisub]

Originally Posted by whakru

D203 does not have ADK...only D204. In fact it was just shot down again in the recent restructuring decisions and is supposed to be revisited next year. It is very frustrating because Kindergarten is only 2.5 hours and when you are not stay at home you almost have to find a private ADK. We are past that part now (mine are in 1st and 4th) but I still feel the pain for others who would like ADK.

LOL I should have known better than to assume full day Kindergarten was already passed in 203 a long time ago since it was "in the works" when we moved here in 2007! We are in 204 though, so I didn't follow up, so pardon my assumption and wrong data.

[nana053]

The public schools are in truth not intended as daycare for working parents. It was not so long ago that kindergarten was not even offered. Full day kindergartens (which are the norm now in a lot of places) are a recent invention too.

Full-day Versus Half-day Kindergarten

Kindergarten has a 176 year history. The birth of kindergarten was in 1837 by Frederick Froebel, a German philosopher and educator. He believed that children after the age of three should be placed in the care of a properly trained governess for a portion of the day. Froebel “viewed education as supporting development and emphasized self-directed activities that fostered the child's innate curiosity and sense of social responsibility” (Olsen & Zigler, 1989, p. 170). He rigidly prescribed the use of materials focusing on fine motor skills, which he devised for his school (Bryant & Clifford, 1992). Froebel focused little attention on the length of the kindergarten day (Holmes & McConnell, 1990). In 1856, Froebel's student, Margaret Schurz, introduced the first kindergarten for German-speaking students in the United States in Wisconsin. From Wisconsin the kindergarten philosophy spread to Boston in 1860 where Elizabeth Peabody opened the first private, English-speaking kindergarten. By 1873, the first public kindergarten was opened in St. Louis by Susan Blow and by the 1880’s there were hundreds of kindergartens in the public schools throughout the United States (Bryant & Clifford, 1992). In this country, kindergarten started as a full-day program (Holmes & McConnell, 1990; Karweit, 1992; Naron, 1981) and continued with this format until World War II. Because of the shortage of qualified teachers and building space, the growing birthrate, and the feeling that 5-year-olds were not mature enough for a full-day program, the half-day kindergarten schedule became popular (Puelo, 1988). Many methods and theories have come and gone, yet most have been found to support the concept of a full-day kindergarten program (Bryant & Clifford, 1992). Theorists currently suggest that large blocks of time are required for optimal learning conditions during the early years.

There is still a lot of controversy surrounding the whole idea of full day kindergarten in terms of what it does to our children

Full-day kindergarten has changed the expectations of what children should know upon entering first grade and that a developmentally appropriate full-day kindergarten should be a half-day of hands-on learning activities in the morning and a nap/ quiet time in the afternoon or an in-school day care setting, which does not often happen in full-day kindergarten programs (Elkind, 2001; Olsen & Zigler,1989). “Today’s child has become the unwilling, unintended victim of overwhelming stress- the stress borne of rapid, bewildering social change and constantly rising expectations” (Elkind, 2001, p. 3).

That said, many parents want full days because they have to work and it is a cheap alternative to a daycare setting which they would have to pay for.

[whakru]

Originally Posted by nana053

The public schools are in truth not intended as daycare for working parents. It was not so long ago that kindergarten was not even offered. Full day kindergartens (which are the norm now in a lot of places) are a recent invention too.

Full-day Versus Half-day Kindergarten



There is still a lot of controversy surrounding the whole idea of full day kindergarten in terms of what it does to our children



That said, many parents want full days because they have to work and it is a cheap alternative to a daycare setting which they would have to pay for.

I disagree that most parents want it as a cheap alternative to day care. For us it did not make sense to take our children from a full day program that they had been accustomed to for basically their whole life (9-3pm curriculum with before and after care) to a 2.5 day learning scenario only to throw them back into a full day the very next year for 1st grade. I will also say that it would cost us MORE to send them to public kindergarten and find additional day care than it cost for ADK at the private school, BUT if that made sense from an education perspective, we would have done it. Trust me, going to public school is not cheap when you consider the day care (at any grade).

I also think that it is unreasonable to send kids to school for 2.5 hours a day (which includes a recess) and think that this will prepare them for first grade. I am not one of those insane parents who believes in pressuring children with education but it makes far more sense to allow more time for children to learn basic concepts than to try and smash it into a couple of hours a day. Both of my daughters ended up staying at their preschool/day care facility for all day kindergarten and both of them were well ahead of their peers in public 1st grade. The both LOVED Kindergarten because there was time for a nurturing educational environment that included all sorts of things like poetry, Spanish, art, math, reading, writing, science, etc. They are not Wunderkind nor do I push them into unreasonable educational goals, however, they did benefit greatly from having that full day Kindergarten.

In the end it comes down to what your preference is for your own child and their learning style. It would have been nice to have the ADK option for the public school.