I don’t know how I missed this, but in case you did, too: Annelisa Hedgecock wrote this Op-Ed piece in Oakland North a couple of weeks ago about her family’s school search — and the reactions she gets from other parents when the name of her kid’s Oakland public elementary school comes up.

Here’s how it starts:

As sure as it’s the New Year, it’s also school selection season in Oakland. Obsessing about kindergarten is one of those things almost every middle-class parent here does, as normal as buying a family membership at the zoo. So, parents are touring private school after private school.

Read the rest of this entry »

I blogged in March about school assignment letters and the spike in neighborhood applications at Oakland’s high-altitude schools.

Well, some people may have just been hedging by applying to their local public school. In some cases, the actual registration numbers at these high-demand schools — while still high – are lower they were back then, or have remained steady. Redwood Heights looks particularly overcrowded, but the 54 children will be split between two and a half classrooms.

NUMBER OF KINDERGARTNERS ADMITTED/REGISTERED

Chabot 97 87 Read the rest of this entry »

Last month, I stumbled upon a memo addressed to all elementary school principals, strongly advising them not to retain kids in the same grade for a second year – particularly kindergartners, English learners and special education students (unless that is part of their education plan).

“First off, the research is clear; retention does not work,” it says.

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photo from Inferis’ photo stream at flickr.com/creativecommons

More California families are choosing not to have their kids vaccinated, a trend that is worrying public health officials, according to a Los Angeles Times report this weekend:

A rising number of California parents are choosing to send their children to kindergarten without routine vaccinations, putting hundreds of elementary schools in the state at risk for outbreaks of childhood diseases eradicated in the U.S. years ago.

Exemptions from vaccines — which allow children to enroll in public and private schools without state-mandated shots — have more than doubled since 1997, according to a Times analysis of state data obtained last week. Read the rest of this entry »

School starts just two weeks from today, but not for new students without immunization cards.

Sherri Willis, the public information officer for the Alameda County Public Health Department, said that when she worked in OUSD, hundreds of kids would miss the first few days of school — in some cases, more — as a result. 

Some families wait until mid-summer to make an appointment with their pediatrician and can’t get one in time, or they misplace their records, she said.

But don’t panic! You can take advantage of the public health department’s free and low-cost immunization program. It’s designed for uninsured families, but everyone can use the service — no questions asked, Willis said.

Check out the clinic locations Read the rest of this entry »

Five-year-olds in Oakland are logging many more classroom hours these days than they used to. The switch to universal full-day kindergarten happened about a year before I came to town, but I understand the move was intended to help working parents while giving kids an academic boost.

Has it worked?

Carrie McKiernan, a Thornhill mom with an incoming kindergartner and a fifth-grader (who attended half-day), says the change has been a “mixed bag” for parents. While it undoubtedly helps many families with two working parents, she said, the new schedule — combined with ramped-up academic rigor – might be too much for some little ones to handle. She also says she has yet to meet a teacher who really likes the new structure.

In a letter to the Brad Stam, the district’s chief academic officer, McKiernan proposes that individual schools have more scheduling flexibility. Below is the text of the letter, which 25 parents and teachers from various schools “signed” electronically.

Share your experiences with full-day kindergarten by posting a comment or e-mailing me directly — or both. Read the rest of this entry »