The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Preschools face long wait lists, many other changes
New kindergarten cutoff date in state has ripple effect
Kathryn Scheinberg Meyer’s daughter turns 5 on Sept. 18, so she will just miss the new age cutoff — Sept. 1 — to be able to enter kindergarten next school year.
Originally, Connecticut’s age cutoff was Jan. 1, so kids who turned 5 by that date could enter kindergarten even at the age of 4.
Meyer, director of the medical-legal partnership at Yale Child Study Center, said to enroll her daughter into kindergarten, she would have to submit a waiver to her school district, which is something she personally chose not to do. Instead, she’s opting for another year of preschool.
Meyer isn’t alone.
With only a year to implement the cutoff change, parents have been scrambling to find preschools for kids who would have been eligible for kindergarten come September — and the money to pay for it. And popular preschools that routinely had waitlists need to make choices about youngsters already in their classes versus opening up spots for their siblings or new families.
And preschools already struggling with staffing shortages are in competition for teachers while trying to expand to fill a need that may only last a year.
While Meyer’s suggested solution of holding off the change for a year —”Give the child care settings some time to regroup and get their staffing together, which we know is at an insane
shortage. Give them some time to get it together” — isn’t possible, parents and preschools are doing their best to deal with reality.
Meyer, for instance, immediately started searching for a new preschool that had open spaces for next school year.
“She was not on any preschool list for a couple of weeks until I could try to figure it out,” Meyer said. “We already missed the deadline for her own preschool. So this is what people are facing.”
Already spiking
Some Connecticut preschool leaders said enrollment at their program sis already spiking for next school year, a similar situation Connecticut private schools are facing.
Chelsea Dianis, enrollment manager and coowner of Little Friends in Greenwich, said the kindergarten age cutoff has “restructured our entire classroom roster for next year.”
“It definitely gave us less space to offer families on our waitlist for sure,” she added. Right now, Dianis said Little Friends has a waitlist of close to 400 families for an average wait of about two years.
“It’s definitely gone up,” Dianis said. “Typically for the last five years, we have had a waitlist of at least a year.”
Maryashie Deren, executive director of Chabad Gan of Greenwich Preschool, said she is actively looking for ways to accommodate more students, partially because more young families are showing interest in sending their child to her school but partially because the new kindergarten age cutoff is impacting how many kids will be able to move on to kindergarten next school year.
“In general, we see an incredible influx of young families in our preschool,” Deren said. “And our toddlers, 2s, 3s and pre-K all have a waiting list for September.
“We’re working with the town on how to expand our program even for this September so that we can take the children that are on the waiting list because they have family, friends who come to our school,” Deren said. “So they really appreciate our curriculum.”
For som e fa milies, the minute their child is able to enter the public school system “is the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of the amount of money that they’re paying to send their child to preschool or to a daycare center,” said Charlie Malone, executive director of Leila Day Nurseries in New Haven.
Malone said he knows of two families at Leila Day who are affected by the new kindergarten age cutoff; their child was originally going to be eligible to enter kindergarten with the Jan. 1 cutoff but now their child will be too young.
The solution may be to keep the children in the school, he said. Leila Day has a kindergarten program and the two families were offered a spot in their kindergarten class.
Malone said he anticipates “more people will be wanting to or needing or having to send their child who is not 5 by Sept. 1 to
our Leila Day kindergarten.”
But since some parents may be looking for a way to be continue with their initial plans of sending their kid to public school next school year, Malone said he let the families know that most districts are offering a waiver option — something he said has been confusing parents, since each district has its own policies about letting near-5-year-olds into kindergarten under a waiver.
And expanding Leila Day’s program s co mes with a cost, which somebody has to bear.
Much of the funding for Leila Day comes through the School Readiness Preschool Grant Program, which “funds spaces for children ages 3, 4 and 5 who aren’t yet eligible for kindergarten,” according to the program’s website.
To qualify, at least 60 percent of the children enrolled must be at or below 75 percent of the state median income, the website states.
“We need to be able to get that School Readiness funding for those kids and we’re not in an ideal position to ask for that given that our timeline to ask for that funding doesn’t correspond with the New Haven Public Schools’ timeline when they make their decisions about who’s going to get in (to kindergarten) and who won’t,” Malone said.
“She was not on any preschool list for a couple of weeks until I could try to figure it out. We already missed the deadline for her own preschool. So this is what people are facing.” Mother Kathryn Scheinberg Meyer
‘It’s about kindergarten readiness’
At Little Friends, Dianis said the staff suggests children who have later birthdays to “red shirt” — postpone entering kindergarten until the year after the child is age-eligible.
“It’s about kindergarten readiness and social and emotional maturity,” Dianis said.
Dianis said about 10 families at Little Friends were affected by the new kindergarten age cutoff. Out of the 10 families, Dianis said one family is choosing to send their child to kindergarten next year.
“They’re a first week of September birthday, so I mean that’s obviously way different than a November or December birthday,” Dianis said.
Linda Herman, director of Connecticut Friends School in Wilton, said she also had many families who are opting to give their child an extra year of preschool before having them enter kindergarten.
“They were actually happy to have that extra year.
“They may be worried about kindergarten being academic and their child is not ready for it, just to have that extra year of play,” Herman said.
At Connecticut Friends School, Herman said she had to open up another class to support older 4year-olds and find a new staff member.
She said was fortunate to be able to find a teacher to address the capacity needs.
“I hired this amazing woman . ... I was just lucky,” Herman said.
Kelly Brennan, owner of See Us Grow, which has locations in Wallingford
and Branford, said the new kindergarten cutoff will also impact staffing at her school because “if children aren’t leaving that we thought were, we will have to make sure that we have obviously appropriate staff to maintain ratios.”
Brennan said her schools are adding an additional class so students don’t stay in a class longer than a year. Along with that, she said the way students progress to another class level may also change because of how the new cutoff is impacting how kids move on to kindergarten.
“Children that we may have generally moved up to another classroom ... we might be holding back a little because we don’t want them in that same classroom for two years repeating the information,” Brennan said.
“So just trying to figure out scheduling, detailing and making sure everybody is kind of where they’re supposed to be.”