Calling All 5-Year-Olds, School Beckons

Parents in Regional School District 17 whose children will turn five by the end of 2011 should start getting information packets in the mail this weekend informing them of upcoming kindergarten registration at district elementary schools.

Registration is scheduled for Jan. 20 from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Jan. 21 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Killingworth, Haddam and Burr elementary schools.

Parents must provide copies of their child's birth certificate and proof of residency when registering them for school, but children do not need to be present.

Haddam Elementary will host a kindergarten orientation program for parents at 6:30 p.m. on May 18. Information on kindergarten orientation at Killingworth and Burr elementary schools will be made available during registration.

Registration for kindergarten in Regional School District 13 will be held Feb. 1 through Feb. 4, at Brewster and Lyman elementary schools. To obtain an information packet parents are asked to contact the schools.

Parents may also visit either school to observe classroom instruction or ask questions from Jan. 6 through Jan. 31.

Legislature Mulls Change to Cutoff Age

Although the state's Board of Education has proposed changing the cutoff date of when kids can start kindergarten — moving from Jan. 1 to Oct. 1 the date by which children must turn 5 in order to start kindergarten — the legislature has not acted on that proposal.

Nancy Heckler, principal of Brewster Elementary School in Durham, said the issue of changing the cutoff date has been debated before by lawmakers without action.

For parents of children born in the fall, the question of whether to start their child in kindergarten the year they turn 5 or wait until the next year is an important one, Heckler said.

Some children born late in the year might be ready to start kindergarten the year they turn 5, but others simply aren't, she said.

"It's usually a difficult decision for parents," Heckler said. "We have kids now in school that just turned 5 and some are right there and some are not. I have a background in education and even for me it was a difficult decision."

While school administrators can help parents by giving them information on typical signs of whether a student is ready to start school, they can't make recommendations to parents, she said.

"I'll meet with them and tell them the pros and cons, but I don't push them one way or the another."