In less than three months, our Honeybee’s will be graduating preschool and heading into Kindergarten. It’s definitely an exciting time, even with all of the school uncertainty that the pandemic has caused.

We know that children do best when they are in school, in person, 5 days per week. That message is being supported at the federal level, with our president doing things like ensuring that teachers have access to vaccination before the end of March. Dr. Brabrand, the superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools has said that it’s “not realistic” to have K-8th back in person within Biden’s first 100 days due to the physical distancing requirements of 6ft from the CDC. Here’s an article where he is quoted saying that if those requirements are changed to 3 feet, it would be doable.

But even when public schools return to 5 day, in person learning, the risk of public classrooms having to close due to covid exposures is higher than in a setting like Common Ground. This is due to larger class sizes, the inability for certain classrooms to be properly ventilated (a great article from the New York Times on that), and the larger community as a whole. Those closures for quarantine, no doubt, will be handled by each teacher with grace. We have seen first hand, just how amazing our K-12 counterparts in the public school system have handled the challenge of teaching young children remotely! While the educational disruptions won’t have any long term negative effects on your child, it can be tough for working parents who have to stay home, and facilitate their education, while their child is in quarantine due to an exposure at school.

With that in mind, Common Ground made the decision to run our Private Kindergarten program for the 2021-2022 school year. (our first information session was recorded and is accessible here.)

At Common Ground’s Kindergarten will have a play based approach to covering the same curriculum topics, at about the same pace as Fairfax County. This will prepare your student to enroll in first grade for the 2022-2023 school year with a low risk of educational (and parental/work) disruption, due to our proven success in mitigating COVID within our center. In fact, our masked classrooms (3 years and up) have yet to have to close. This is due to our Community’s cooperation. You all deserve all the credit for keeping everyone here safe.

Kindergarten at Common Ground WILL RUN and already has 5 confirmed enrollments, please email Liz to reserve your spot.

While we would love to have your kiddo here full time next year, we also support our public schools in Fairfax County. We will make sure to run any program that is necessary to pick up where the school system leaves off - be it transportation with before and after care, to a full day virtual program (*however, we will not be able to support virtual learning if your child is home due to quarantine for a COVID exposure).

The Northern Virginia Association for the Education of Young Children (NVAEYC) AND Fairfax County Public Schools are hosting a free virtual event for parents/guardians and educators of rising Kindergarteners to learn about the transition to Kindergarten.

Thursday, March 25th- 6:30 p.m. - 7:45 p.m.

Event will provide information about how to help a child have a successful transition, how to register a child for kindergarten, and what a kindergarten day looks like.

Link to register: https://www.nvaeyc.org/family-events   

Here’s what you need to know about Kindergarten registration with FCPS:

Kindergarten Registration for the fall is open  for children who will turn 5 on or before September 30.

1. Parents can find out their local school by viewing the FCPS boundary locator.

2. For kindergarteners, the separate kindergarten registration page has the most detailed information.

3. Online registrations are submitted to the local school’s Student Information Assistant, who will assist with the registration process.

Here is a list of the Herndon individual school’s Student Information Assistants:

Clearview: Nalei Meneses

Herndon: Shermin Sirajudin (NOTE: Herndon is asking families to Click here to access the Herndon ES website and fill out the new student registration form.)

Hutchison:  Donna Espinales

 

Here is a list of the Reston individual school’s Herndon Student Information Assistants:

Dogwood: Pam Taylor

Forest Edge: Mervat Masoud

Hunters Woods: Pattie Ono

Lake Anne: Melinda Rivas

Please leave a comment if your school is not listed, as this information was provided to us by the Neighborhood School Readiness Team!