Gabriel was SOOO excited and so ready to start Kindergarten. Besides the normal anxieties a mother gets when sending her first-born to his first day of school, I was also nervous about the actual school environment and administration.
We live on the outskirts of downtown Akron in a less than desirable neighborhood. We have a cute town home that is affordable and close to the University, and that is what we were going for...knowing it would be temporary. However, when it came time to register Gabriel for school I was dissapointed to learn that the entire Akron City School District failed the state report card system. This meant that students weren't reaching acceptable academic levels, which made me concerned about the learning environment. I also learned that the state of Ohio allows for open-enrollment, giving priority to kids that live in school districts that underperform. Unfortunately, I learned all of this too late and missed the deadline for open enrollment.
So, we registered Gabriel with Legget Community Learning Center K-5 (they don't call them elementry schools), which is only a few minutes away from our home. It is a fairly new school (built in 2011), so that was encouraging as many other schools in the area are so run down. We attended oreintation and met his teacher, Ms. Keen, and was pretty impressed with how the school was run. We quickly learned that there may be room for improvement in curriculum or teaching methods, but A LOT of the children's performance results were influenced by the lack of support/involvement on the part of the parents!
We also learned that they run a tight ship, and really focus on teaching respect, kindness, order and rule compliance (as expected), but I love how it is mostly enforced through reward. Granted, there are some disciplinary tools as well. Every classroom follows a color-coded behavior system where staying in the green area means you are behaving the way you are supposed to; moving to the yellow area is a warning; moving to blue is a time out; and moving to red requires parent notification/involvement. If they stay on green, or have no more than 2 yellows in the week they get to attend "Fun Friday" events, which is a reward for good behavior. They also receive "Tiger Dollars" at random to acknowledge good behavior. They can use their "Tiger Dollars" at the school store to buy prizes.
There is zero tolerance for misbehavior/disrespect as we found out during Gabriel's first week. They have the Kindergartners eat lunch with the 5th graders, which at first I was leary about. However, the whole goal is to have the 5th graders help the kindergartners with their lunch, and in doing so teaching them to be helpful and caring. During Gabriel's first week at school a certain 4th grader was on a time-out at a lunch table next to Gabriel's. The 4th graders already had their lunch, and were at recess, but he was still there for a time-out. Being bored and angry that he was in time-out, he saw an opportunity to make fun of Gabriel for bringing a packed lunch with a note from his mom in it. He teased him, called him girly and threw a bag of carrots at him to the point that it left a mark. This just devastated Gabriel, but being new to the whole school thing he didn't know what to do. So, he found a quiet spot on the playground and cried. However, a 5th grader noticed that Gabriel was upset, and notified a teacher. The teacher asked Gabriel to point out the kid, but they couldn't find him. Later, when he told us about his day we felt like his teacher needed to know in order to avoid future incidents, so we mentioned our concerns to his teacher. She took it very seriously, and she made sure to find out who the kid was, and addressed the issue. There was never a problem again.
It may appear like this in how any elementry school would be run - like it's no big deal. However, a majority of the students attending this school come from very challenging social and economic backgrounds. Many have chaotic home lives and come to school lacking any boundaries, discipline, structure, or any idea of respecting onself let alone the people and property around them. So, I was amazed at how effectively the school was run, and completely impressed with Gabriel's Kindergarten teacher. After that first week of school I felt so much more confident about sending him to school there.
Gabriel, on the other hand, didn't have a care in the world. He was so excited and independent on his first day of school. They wear school uniforms, but the Kindergarteners were given yellow Legget School t-shirts to wear the first week of school. This would make them easy to identify if they needed extra help. He was so excited to wear his yellow t-shirt, new Nike shoes and backpack! He wanted to be a big boy, and insisted on combing his own hair...gel and all! We headed to school and found his classroom. They have their own lockers in the classroom and he had no problems finding his. He found his seat and started working on the coloring assignment waiting for him.
It wasn't like before when I first took him to preschool, and he was so apprehensive and insecure. He didn't want me to leave his side then. But, on his first day of Kindergarten he hardly noticed we were there. He was so confident and independent...so grown-up. I was thinking he might cry at the sight of us leaving, but it was quite the opposite. In fact, I was the one that cried - seeing my baby all grown-up like that. I was so glad that the transition was an easy one for him, and that he felt comfortable and excited to be there.
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| All ready for is first day of Kindergarten! |
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| Looking like a "Big Boy!" |
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| Walking into school... |
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| Finding his locker |
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| Busy at work |
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| Our little Kindergartener! |
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