Sunday, March 29, 2009

Kindergarten Here She Comes!

After a lot of stress, cursing of the school system, tantrum throwing and harassing phone calls to the pediatrician's office, I am pleased to announce that my daughter has FINALLY been enrolled in Kindergarten.

For awhile we were torn between enrolling her here where we live or if we should try for an intra-district transfer (so she can go to school close to where we work). I was a huge stress ball about the whole situation. I just knew an intra-district transfer was going to be a hassle and I wouldn't know until August if the transfer was approved.

My co-worker was having the same dilemma as I was, except the school district she lives in won't allow students to transfer out of their district. She told me she'd been thinking about charter schools and told me about one that is close to our work.

Listening to her talk about the school I quickly fell in love with the idea of my daughter going to Kindergarten here. The class sizes are VERY small (love it). It's a dual language academy, so half the day the children are taught in English and the other half of the day is taught in Spanish (really love it). The school offers a full day Kindergarten from 8:30 - 3:00 (totally love it).

Even though I loved the idea of the school, I didn't know how Bryan would feel about it. He liked the idea of the charter school, especially the dual language aspect of it. As he told me, "The Spanish will help her with Spanish classes in high school and college. I sure had a hell of a time trying to cheat my way through Spanish." So with Bryan on board we went for a tour of the school, just to be sure we liked what we saw.

While waiting for registration to start I made sure she had her physical, immunizations and dental check-ups all completed. Finally registration began and we faxed papers to the Doctor and Dentist that had to be filled out. The admin at the school told us in order for her to be accepted EVERYTHING needed to be completed and turned in.

Evidently somewhere along the line the Pediatrician's office lost the memo that we needed this back as soon as possible. It took THREE days of harassing phone calls (thanks for your assistance with those Bryan) to finally get one tiny piece of paper back. Seriously, all the Doctor had to do was fill out one box, check a few other boxes and sign it. That was all and they needed three days for it! Come on, give me a break.

After I finally got the papers from the doctor back I had a mini panic attack about a blood test she didn't have done. Luckily the panic attack didn't last long (turned out she didn't need the blood test after all). So I took the paper work down to the school and received the green light. The spot is hers and she'll be attending Kindergarten there next year.

I'm so excited and sad at the same time. I can't believe I just finished registering my baby girl for Kindergarten. I don't think Dylan is as excited to start though. My mom asked her what she thought of her new school and she said, "It doesn't have any toys."

6 comments:

Jess said...

Awwwwww! I can't believe she's even old enough to go to kindergarten. I know how you feel, I was in your position last year. She'll do great and she'll love it!!

cristina said...

congrats to dylan - and you guys! so jealous of the bilingual kindergarten. what a great thing!

Alicia said...

I had no idea she was starting kindergarten; for some reason, I thought she had another year to go. Will they stop growing up so fast? Geez.

I love the idea of the dual language thing. How awesome.

And maybe, just maybe there might be a few toys there. I would hope so!

jae said...

The school sounds amazing! I cannot believe she is going to be a kindergartener so soon. She'll love it as soon as she makes new friends and fits in. How exciting!

I don't know how you did it. I'm intimidated by the process of registering and I'm scared to death that I'll somehow miss the deadline for when real school begins. AGH.

Anonymous said...

What an exciting time for you guys! Thank God the headache of all that stuff is over! Sheesh...
Doug and I have discussed a private dual-language school around here...you'll have to keep us posted on what you think. Yay!

Annita said...

Wow, Dylan is old enough for Kindergarten already! Such a bittersweet milestone.