South Bend-Zouth Bend Schools has adjusted the age requirement for kindergarten students, so that more children can go to school in 2025-26 at a possible younger ages.
During a board meeting on Monday, August 4, Trustes unanimously approved the board of policy 5112, in which previously incoming kindergarten students on or before August 1 of a certain school year were 5 years old. According to the new policy, children must be 5 years old on or before 1 October.
Board lawyer Pete Agostino said the change was allowed by Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner; Earlier Staats policy also adhered to the threshold of 1 August.
Agostino said he believes that the change has been made to enable more students to go to school, but he added that children are not obliged to register as early as parents do not believe that their child is ready. The changed threshold simply gives parents the option to start at school earlier at school, he explained.
“Some parents stop their children a bit because they don't think they are ready and other parents say:” Oh, this child is really advanced; I'm going to bring them to school, “said Agostino.
But Linda Lucy, the president of the South Bend Teachers Union, warned that with the possible intake of more students, some at a younger age with little to no kindergarten, teachers need a lot of help. She suggested that the district is looking at the implementation of smaller classes and hiring parap professionals to help in the classroom to compensate for these challenges.
“The sooner we have children at school, we all know, the better they are and we are,” said Lucy. “… but we will have to tackle the special needs for many little ones that are not really ready to be there.”
E -Mail South Bend Tribune Education Reporter Rayleigh Deaton at [email protected].
This article originally appeared in South Bend Tribune: South Bend School Board approves the requirement of the new kindergarten
