Signing up for school

It's that time of year when most parents sign their kids up for kindergarten OR decide to move their kids to a new school. It's REGISTRATION time once again!

It didn't even dawn in the fathoms of my mind until last week that I had to get the Bear signed up. Yes. We recently decided to keep him with me until kindergarten in the fall, but it didn't click that I needed to already be getting his info into the school.

We've decided to enroll the Bear into the same charter school that the Princess attends. There are only about 120 kids at the school, which has classes from kindergarten to 8th grade. I like the way that the Princess has progressed academically, so I want the same for the Bear. I want him to have her support, so that's another reason for both of them at the charter school.

I really like the way in which the school provides positive enforcement for good behavior. They try to nix any kind of bad behavior in the bud. The kids get a couple chances and they are in the Principal's office. It's a light/football system. The kids earn little paper footballs when they do things properly & listen to the rules. They also earn a football when they've done well on a test/quiz or helped someone else in class or in school. BUT if they've done something wrong? They get footballs taken away AND their level on the light system changes. Each kid starts each day at a blue light. One transgression puts them down to a green light. The next bad move gets them down to a yellow light and they get sent into the hallway. Then it's onto the red light and the Principal. On Friday afternoon, each kid gets to count up their footballs and can turn them in to pull something from the class treasure chest. It's a pretty easy system and because the classes are small, even I know who has been "bad" during the day/week. And because the classes are small, the positive behavior mentality is easily transferred between the kids.

I already know some of the kids that'll be in the Bear's class. The Princess' best buddy (who started kindergarten with her) will have her little sister in the class. The Princess' other buddy (who started at the school this year) will have her little brother in the class. So there will be two "good" kids in the class with the Bear.

Now where do you plan on putting your kindergarten aged child in the fall? Have you signed him/her up yet?