What happened to half-day kindergarten? (04/08/08)

To the editor:

What happened to half-day kindergarten?

Upon registering our child for kindergarten, we learned that due to the implementation of full-day kindergarten, the half-day program was effectively no longer an option.

What happened to our choice of a half-day?

I was informed that by offering the full-day program, the half-day was virtually eliminated (an unintended consequence, I guess).

You can choose to send your child for a half-day, but if you do, your child will be leaving in the middle of, or entering into, the middle of a full-day curriculum.

This practice is strongly discouraged by the teachers.

We agree that some children may need and do well in full-day, while others who have more "wiggle" and less attention span would fare better in a half-day program to give them more time to mature.

Not all children mature at the same pace and their needs are different.

While I'm not against a parents' right to decide to send their children to a full-day program, I am disappointed that our "choice" of sending our child to half-day kindergarten is no longer a choice.

Parents, if any of you feel the same as our family, please call us or your school to voice your concerns.

We would like to work together with the school corporation to find a solution that will benefit everyone's needs.

Perhaps we could get half-day kindergarten reinstated in at least one or in some of our schools, depending on how many people are interested in the half-day program.

I am a mother of three. I would appreciate hearing from any interested parents. My phone number is (260) 726-9522.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you, so please call me as soon as possible.

Leave a message if there is no answer and I will call you back.

I really need to know how many parents would be interested in bringing back our choice of half-day kindergarten.

Jenny Bricker and family

Portland

Be careful

To the editor:

It was Sunday afternoon, and the youngest of my two daughters came to my wife and I with several text messages she had received on her phone that had been circulating amongst her sixth grade class.

Due to the unbelievably graphic nature of the texts I cannot write what was being said by sixth grade girls about fellow classmates.

Parents, your little girls are talking like sailors, if not worse, and are able to get away with it via text messages on their cell phones.

We live in a small town where it was less expensive to have cell phones versus a single land line, so we had a cell phone for our children's use at home. My mistake was allowing the ever so popular text service for someone so young. That was something I could and did fix.

Immediately after reading the texts, I called my cell phone provider and cancelled text servivce to the phone, as well as a block of all texts applied.

I encourage parents to randomly check their child's cell phone to review what is being sent or received. But since they can be deleted quickly to hide their content, the smart thing to do would be to not allow the service to begin with.

Whether you believe your child is capable of saying/texting some of the most offensive language I've ever seen or not, they can still read it, and probably are.

I know there are a few parents who don't care how their kids talk, but for those of you who do, take action and do the right thing. Who knows, the next text your child receives could be about them.

Jon Rodeffer

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