Schedule for Kinder Screening August 2013

Basic Schedule. The first three days of school will consist of sessions of kindergarten students. There will be two sessions each day 9-11:30 and 12:30-3. As students register for school they will be assigned one session to attend.  Two sessions on Wednesday and Thursday and one AM session on Friday.  We aim for 10-15 students per session, but enrollment is the deciding factor as to how many students are ultimately in each session.

Friday afternoon is reserved for staff to come together, look through the data and “sort” students into classrooms. Many factors are considered. Boy girl ratio. Behaviors. Spec Education Needs. ELL. High/low academics. (In the past we have administered the AGS, a type of intelligence test to help determine high/low ability, we are uncertain if we plan to use it this coming year).  After students have been assigned a classroom teacher, teachers call each family to introduce themselves and to set up a family conference for next week.

Monday-Wednesday of the following week is reserved for full day of family conferences (a WaKids requirement). Students do not officially begin school until Thursday.  Families come to share about their students during 30 minute conferences. Conferences are to focus on the child and family, not data collected.

Full day of school then begins for our kindergarteners on Thursday, making it a two day week to start off. (The previous year, we held a week of ½ days for students with conferences in the afternoon.  It was nice to get students off to a slow start, but for the rest of our district that could become a bussing nightmare. And families were somewhat confused as to when students were full or ½ days as the rest of their “big” kids were full day). 

Wednesday	9-11:30  Batch 1	12:30-3 Batch 2
Thursday	9-11:30 Batch 3	12:30-3 Batch 4
Friday	9-11:30 Batch 5	Classroom Assigned/Confo set up/Teachers prep room
Monday	8:30-3:30 Conferences every 30 minutes
Tuesday	8:30-3:30 Conferences every 30 minutes
Wednesday	8:30-3:30 Conferences every 30 minutes
Thursday	Students start full day Kindergarten

During October teachers must input data collected on students into the system. Unclear at this time what that will look like for our school. Last year we had several half days for students, which was very confusing to families. 

Personally I found I needed about 2 hours. By the time I got to this stage, I had all my data and had turned that into a number so it was very easy to input. Not all teachers were that prepared,nor found it as easy and they appreciated all the extra time given. If the state/federal government should ever change the requirement, and make us enter the proof, that would take a very very very long time!!!