May 13, 2005 - Glebe Report

SCHOOL NEWS Glebe
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Kindergarten registration
parents speak out at Hopevvell
BY KEN ROSS
About half of Hopewell Public
School's April council meeting was
dedicated to considering alternatives
to the current system of determining
morning and afternoon registration
for kindergarten. If there are any
supporters for the method that has
been used for many years, they
didn't show up at the meeting. The
issue, in a nutshell, is that currently,
if you wish to make sure your child
is registered in the morning
kindergarten class (whether senior
or junior), you are pretty much
obliged to line up the night before in
order to get a secure position on the
sign-up sheets.
Ken Blogg, Hopewell's principal,
opened proceedings with a short
statement expressing his concern
that the current system is discriminatory
against single parents or
others who simply don't have the
resources to stand outside overnight
in minus 300 weather. He added that
he had received enough letters and
phone calls expressing dislike for
the status quo to convince him that
there is a strong desire among many
parents to see it changed.
After canvassing his colleagues,
the principal came up with a list of
three possible alternatives:
Option 1operate junior kindergarten
in the morning and senior
kindergarten in the afternoon
Option 2junior kindergarten and
senior kindergarten operate in both
Report May 13, 2005 36
the morning and afternoon, with the
youngest in each grade in the
morning classes .
Option 3the principal makes up
the class lists based on criteria such
as child care arrangements, special
needs, age, male/female ratio and
other factors
One parent noted that offering
choice is important and would
therefore support Option 3. But the
first option had a lot of support. "Just
getting rid of the vigil," said one
parent, "makes me happy." Some
parents, having experienced afternoon
classes, said that they'd
discovered they liked them. There is
a prejudice against afternoon class
time that, in the opinion of many at
the meeting, is undeserved.
Late in the meeting, talk turned to
Option 2. Some saw it as the worst
method, since it is both arbitrary and
open to lobbying. But Option 2 also
had its supporters. One parent said,
"It's a problem to opt for one extreme
or the other. You don't want
something that leaves no flexibility
to deal with children having special
needs."
There was a show of hands at the
end, not by way of making any
decision, but just to get a sense of
where support lay. Parents were
asked to support any option they
could live with, and they could vote
more than once. The results were-
Option 1: 21 votes, Option 2: 7,
Option 3: 16.
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