Choices, Choices

QUESTION OF THE DAY

Did you have any choices about Kindergarten options?

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It was pretty much a given, for me, that I would choose Catholic school for my kids. I’m Catholic and my husband is not. He was raised by wolves and, although he’s very supportive, I know he finds the whole faith thing a bit bemusing and it’s only because he likes me so much that he tolerates it.

I knew, based on my own tendency towards skepticism, that I would need some solid back-up if my kids were to be properly indoctrinated – especially when my children turned out to be boys. In the absence of any nearby militant Jesuits I settled for the local parochial school.

It helps that I’m a member of the parish, and it’s a very nice parish and a very nice school and that we can walk there. I grew up out in the country and that meant always taking at least one, sometimes two or three buses to my school. It was not a heavily Catholic area, so going to Catholic school there meant that your friends could come from anywhere in about a forty mile radius and pretty much guaranteed that none of your neighbors went to school with you. Consequently, the idea of not only living in the same town as most of your friends but being able to walk to school, really appealed to me. (Of course, it turns out that most of my kindergartner’s friends live in those big developments outside town and their parents think we’re odd for walking, but hey ho!)

Our town also has an excellent stand-alone Kindergarten Center, which everyone seems very pleased with. It doesn’t offer any choice (it’s half days, mornings or afternoons decided by where you live), but at least that makes things easy. The Catholic school offered many choices (which caused me some heartache).

My son wasn’t close to the cut-off point for birthdays, being a winter birthday, but I know some people who chose to repeat a year of pre-K, and some whose child is going through kindergarten for the second time this year. How about you?

QUESTION OF THE DAY

Did you have any choices to make on the Kindergarten front? (Public, private, parochial? Full or half day? Before and after care? Lunch options? Go early, go late, repeat a year?) How did you make your decision?

Were you happy with the options available to you? Did you wish you had more or fewer (or different) choices?

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