Kindergarten: The Throwback Year

We are in the middle of Kindergarten registration season, and even though my husband and I have made the decision to put E into public school, it's still causing a lot of stress.

You may think the stress comes from knowing that the charter school we registered for is expecting to receive over 500 applicants to fill only 40 spots.

Or you might think it's due to knowing that our public school's enrollment is at near capacity and some residents may get re-districted to a sister district.

But mostly what is stressing me out is the very establishment of Kindergarten itself, which seemingly still operates on the assumption that there is always one stay-at-home parent who has no other scheduled priorities beyond his or her child's school schedule.

When our kids enter Kindergarten, we will be tethered to 4-hour school days, 8:30am - 12:30pm (or even worse, 11:00am - 3:00pm - I might as well throw my whole day away). What do we do with E the rest of the day? There's no after-school care program through the school district, so now we have to find some alternative child care in addition to making a decision about school itself (I refuse to think about what to do if he gets put in the 11:00am class, I have no idea how to work my job around those 3 hours in the morning until he would go to school).

I really don't understand why this is. E's pre-school allows me to drop him off at 8:30am and pick him up at 6:00pm. He has structured lessons in pre-school: math, reading and writing, art, and PE. He is used to this schedule, it's not too much for him. He doesn't feel abandoned by his parents. When he goes into first grade, his schedule will be 8:15am - 3:30pm. So why is there this one school year where parents are forced to scramble to figure out what to do with their kids for half the day?

Now we have to consider hiring a nanny to shuttle him to and from school and watch him for the time he's not in class. The cost of a nanny who has driving credentials: almost the cost of a private school that does offer full-day kindergarten. I'm starting to see why people thought we were crazy to go the public school route. But really, it shouldn't have to be crazy to support our public education system.

I'm sure there's some method to this madness that I can't see. Maybe someone can explain it to me. Or better yet, maybe someone can tell me how to solve the dilemma we'll be in come September.