Placement for Kindergarten (or any step, really)

“What class is right for my child??”

Sometimes it feels like I re-visited this every year for my kids’ entire childhood. And my own mother once told me her first response when I got into university was, “Oh thank goodness, I never have to worry about Jacqui’s school again.”

Honestly, there’s no “right” answer. 

There’s only the answer that works for your child and your family, for now. Nowhere is perfect: it’s a matter of prioritizing and deprioritizing. First, some real talk about what your options might be.*

Realistically, most school districts only have a few “levels” of support

Regular classroom. In Toronto, this usually means 29 kids, a teacher, and an Early Childhood Educator (ECE). Sometimes there’s also a Special Needs Assistant (SNA) who’s shared amongst all the kids who need help. 

Regular classes can include integrated extra support (this is written into a child’s Individual Education Plan, which might be called an IEP, IPP, 504, or something else). It is very rare to get individualized 1:1 support for your child in these classes. Sometimes regular classroom placement includes “pull out” special education, where your child leaves his peers and has time with a special educator or “resource specialist,” either for a specific subject or for part of the day. Pull out can also include Occupational Therapy, Speech Language Pathology, and more. At the heart, these are all add-ons to a regular placement, and what’s available will depend on your school, your district, and your child. These supports can sometimes take a while to set up, so they might not be in place right away when your child starts.

Alternative/charter/private/smaller classes. Many school districts have options for smaller classrooms or classrooms that focus, for example, on social-behavioural learning. These are sometimes structured to provide more support within the regular workings of the classroom (meaning the teacher is thinking in advance about what kids might need and builds it into the program before anyone starts to struggle). Some alternative/charter/private schools also offer educational support through pull-out programs or have SNAs in the classroom. Others might be too small to have the resources to provide “extras.”

Special education class in a regular school. This is a self-contained special education classroom that is “housed” in a regular school. In Toronto, these kindergartens are called “Diagnostic Kindergartens” or DK; other places have “transitional kindergarten” or “special day classes.” These are usually smaller (8-10 kids with two educators), and are supposed to be designed to help kids develop the skills they need to eventually enter the regular education stream. Many of them have opportunities to integrate with the rest of the school for certain periods. Sometimes these are separated by diagnosis or need; other times (Toronto), each class can have a full range of kids’ needs, so the “vibe” of the classroom can vary widely. Also varying is the level of academic achievement/expectation; in Toronto, DKs follow the regular Ontario curriculum, which means if your child is capable of that, they should be able to get it, but if they are not, they should receive extra support. In many places, special day classes’ level of academic expectation is set by the teacher, depending on the class. 

Special education school. These are schools entirely for children with disabilities. They’re called “congregated” settings or “intensive support programs.” These are usually for children who require full-day, very intensive support, often due to severe disability. In some places, these have classrooms for children with specific diagnoses, such as autistic kids with high support and safety needs. There are also some schools (often private) serving specific groups of kids, such as kids with learning disabilities or autism. Those programs vary widely in their capacity to help/handle children with behavioural challenges.

In truth, there’s a wide range of options, even within each of these levels. My last “regular” kindergarten class was 14 students with two teachers. 8 kids had Individual Plans for various reasons, but they also had me as a teacher, so the whole classroom was designed with built-in supports and accommodations. It’s possible (but hard) to find something close to what your child needs.

Except: you don’t always know what your child needs, and it doesn’t always exist where you can access it. We try to get close enough. The way I describe it is this: there is a classroom that offers too much support and a classroom that offers not nearly enough. Your child’s classroom is somewhere in the middle, and you might have to try some things out to narrow it down. It’s like finding the right dress for an event: you can have the best image in the world in your head, but at some point, you have to choose from amongst what is actually at the store.

Additionally, your choices will be driven by your own family’s needs: your other children, your values and priorities, your finances, time, and other resources, and everything else you are juggling in addition to this one four year-old. Please remember that is both allowed and encouraged: we all have to decide what we can sacrifice for one child and when we need to figure out another way.

Who decides?

I’m talking here as if parents announce to the school district, “I want that class,” and it happens easily. Not really. In many districts, the process for special education placement is arduous and restrictive, the goal being to integrate as many children as possible, whether or not typical classrooms are able to accommodate them. In Toronto, for example, there are layers of meetings and assessments before you even can get a Special Education Placement Recommendation Committee meeting, even for some kids who clearly will flame out in a typical classroom. Some districts have no (or super limited) special education at all for kindergarten; they just figure they’ll see who fails and work it out for grade 1. In most districts in Canada and the US, though, parents are supposed to be invited to participate in the process and have approval/rejection rights over any placement. Does this always happen? Hmph.

[interruption: I love attending placement meetings. This is a service The Huddle for Families offers, so if you want professional-seeming back-up at your placement meeting from someone who can throw around education terms and isn’t afraid to speak up, or if you want help making a plan in advance, let’s talk.]

So, how do I decide?

That is the real question, I know. Read on for advice and ideas on how to choose a school.

Or, sign up to Zoom 1:1 with me and talk it out.

* reality may vary depending on your district, of course