Today (Monday 4 June 2007) was Olivia's first day at Rosemary Hills Elementary School. She will do the last two weeks of this school year back in kindergarten, go into the long summer break and then start year 1 again in late August.
What is a bit strange to us is that the each school here has details on the Montgomery County website which includes a breakdown of students and staff by racial / ethnic origin and the percentages on various support programs etc.
There have been two visits to the International Student Centre to get Olivia enrolled, vaccinated, etc. Then there was another visit last week to the school for some more admin and a short tour of the school.
We drove over this morning in our rental car to have Olivia there at 8.30am. School is normally from 9.00 to 3.30. Her teacher, Mrs Skolnick, met us in the office and took us all down to the classroom. This is one of eight kindergartens in a school of 517 students that covers pre-kindergarten (but only for those from low incomes) to year 2. Rosemary Hills is know as the rainbow school as it deliberately brings together kids from a variety of social and ethnic backgrounds. Or to quote the school: 'Because students attending Rosemary Hills come from a multitude of culturally diverse backgrounds, our school is often called "The Rainbow School."'
While all the kids go to the canteen to eat their lunches, most in Mrs Skolnick's class take theirs. Which was lucky as Olivia told us last night that she didn't like most of what was on offer on the menu! There's basically two choices per day. Not having vegemite and not having Australian cheeses limits Olivia's options dramatically. Luckily Donna had packed her lunch so we were covered both ways. They run an account system for the kids so they don't have to take money each day if they are buying their lunch. Unlike Oz, the kids go straight through to lunchtime, although the teacher apparently put out some cheese biscuits in the morning for them to eat.
It doesn't seem that they did much today in the way of structured learning. Although this is hard to tell from Olivia's descriptions, it does fit with there only being two weeks left in the school year. Today was also day 28 of the 28 day gestation period of the duck eggs which have been developing in an incubator in the classroom. Apparently they didn't hatch. When I asked Olivia why, she asked me if she turned up on time. I told her, no the doctor had to encourage her out. 'Well that's just like the ducks, we don't just all come out at the same time you know.' Guess I've been told ...
We were also a bit nervous about her coming home on the big yellow school bus by herself. But it was all a bit of an anticlimax, a bit like going into the classroom this morning. She just went in, remembered to come back and give Donna a kiss and then just went. Her teacher helped her onto the right bus tonight and the driver made sure she got off at the right stop. But Olivia tells me that she knew when to get off as she knew it was the last stop.
Ms Cool has it all under control and we didn't see even a hint of the tears we were expecting! She also has a new best friend, albeit that she can't remember her name tonight but that's normal for Olivia when she meets new kids ...
She also seems to be a fair bit in front of her class. While that would seem reasonable given she has had a term of year 1, the papers here have had a lot of coverage on the teaching of reading in kindergartens in schools here and the tests that the kids have to pass. Her teacher was impressed at how much she was reading around the classroom this morning so I suspect the local reading test is fairly low level. Think our task will be to ensure she keeps up with reading, writing and arithmetic so she is up with her peers in Australia when we get back next year.
Malcolm
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