I Thought I Had It Figured Out.

I had heard the very end of a local news report about how to prepare your kindergartener for testing into a magnet school. In short, magnet schools are for child on the high end of the learning scale so to speak. Kids in grades 1-12 are selected based on grades and conduct, kindergartener's do an oral examine/interview and are ranked by how they did. It's very competitive to get in and very strict to stay in it. Kids who are enrolled must maintain a 3.0 grade point average and B in conduct.

So anyhow, I decided to look on the news website to see if I could find the story so I could hear the whole segment. I was curious as to what they expected kindergarteners to know in order to be accepted in the school. I found the story online and they had a retired teacher who use to give the magnet test listing what the kids should know. Some of the things she mentioned were:

• number sequence (which comes first last and inbetween)
• story sequence
• name, address, age, birthday, phone number
• identify coins

I hadn't really thought about the magnet schools for Cameron because I felt good about the elementary school we are zoned for. I would have looked more into the magnet schools once she reached middle school. Then a couple weeks ago when she was working in her work books I had given it another thought. My concern with her going to public school is that she is going to be bored.... at least in kindergarten. And because her birthday falls on the day of cut off, I can choose to wait until she turns 6 to send her to school. Starting school right when she turns 5, I am not sure how socially ready she would be for that. However, if I wait until she is 6 then she is really going to be bored by the academic part of school. Putting her in a magnet school would prove more challenging for her. The school works at 1 grade above where the child should be. So if she was in kindergarten at a magnet school, she would be doing 1st grade work.

Because of the waiting lists and kids who already attend getting first acceptance, then it might not be a bad idea to get her in for grade K if it's possible. Acceptance for that is based on high achievement with the interview. After grade K then you are competing with kids already enrolled the previous year plus kids trying to get in and wait lists. Cameron would actually have 2 chances to get into kindergarten because she could apply at age 5 and if she didn't make it (and I kept her out of school) she could apply again the following year.

On the other hand, that might be a lot of pressure for 5-6 year old. Gosh, I thought I had this all figured out and now I am thinking magnet and it's messed the thought up. And I still have a year before I would even have to worry about it ( application process starts in February for the fall ).

I will have to give this more thought now.