Angst #3

So, Nathan has been enrolled in public kindergarten next year.

First, I need to tell you they have cut back on the program.

Why would they do this? you ask. Well, here's the deal. Our town has four public schools. The high school, for 9-12. The middle school, for 6-8. An upper elementary school, for grades 3 - 5, and a lower elementary, which has been grades 1 and 2, but recently had a kindergarten class added.

Except for the High School, which is brand new (we used to ship our kids off to the town next door) all of the buildings are pretty crowded. See, the town experienced population growth, and that means more children, and the school buildings were unprepared.

The Lower Elementary School is crowded now, especially since Kindergarten has been added. The town voted to add a special Kindergarten building.

But apparently the Upper Elementary School is even MORE crowded. So crowded, in fact, that a decision has been made to split the 3rd grade in half. Half the third grade shall remain behind at the Lower Elementary. Even though it's already full.

This causes a problem. Suddenly the same resources are not available for all third graders. Suddenly the third graders do not have access to the same music, science, art teachers. What's to be done?

Well, the solution for the music and art classes is that the music and art teachers at the Lower Elementary get to teach these students for an extra year. Unfortunately, as there are only so many hours to the day, this means the kindergarten will not get music or art.

The librarian assured me that Kindergarten will still get library time, but she gets a shorter lunch.