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Education Week
Schools Try
Class Rotation for Kindergartners on Week One
By Christina A. Samuels
September 6, 2016
Rockville, Md. - Unlike older students, kindergartners often start the
school year as cute little blank slates to their teachers.
In many cases, those teachers have no more to go on when assigning
children to classes than the limited information they were able to
glean from kindergarten-orientation sessions. That lack of deeper
knowledge about their new pupils can lead to classroom imbalances in
terms of readiness and social skills that are hard to fix as the school
year progresses.
But at a handful of elementary schools in suburban Washington,
kindergarten teams have developed a way to address the issue, borrowing
a technique more commonly seen in middle and high schools.
Instead of assigning kindergarten pupils to permanent classrooms at the
beginning of the year, some schools in Montgomery County, Md., set up a
system that initially rotates children through all the kindergarten
classrooms.
By the end of the first week of school, teachers say they have enough
information to make class assignments based on more than obvious
traits, such as gender and race. During the kindergarten "switcheroo,"
the child-friendly name the schools have given the process, teachers
see which children are reserved, as opposed to those raising their
hands at each question; which ones get along well with one other,
compared with friction-filled groupings; and which pupils are more
independent, as opposed to those needing more adult support.
Intangible Elements
Those intangible elements are routinely considered when it comes to
making class assignments in other elementary grades, because the
children's skills and personalities are better known.
Kindergarten is the only grade where teachers don't already have that
deep knowledge of most of their charges, say the teachers who have
invested time in this process.
"The first day of kindergarten is probably the hardest day for any
teacher in any grade, and we do it five times," said Heidi Grant, a
kindergarten teacher at Fallsmead Elementary School here. "We wouldn't
do it if we didn't think it worked."
Creating a thriving classroom community is particularly important for
kindergartners, who are building the foundation for future learning,
said Kristen Johnson, the senior director for early-childhood-program
accreditation for the National Association for the Education of Young
Children.
Johnson said she could not address the "switcheroo" concept
specifically because she was not familiar with it.
But the reasons teachers have stated for using it—taking time at the
beginning the year to lay the groundwork for intentional community
building—matches what teachers should be making a priority for young
children, Johnson said.
"Learning for young children really comes in the form of
relationships," Johnson said. "It's important for children at that age
to have that positive experience where they feel safe and secure and
can share and can learn."
In Montgomery County, the kindergarten-rotation concept started at
Fallsmead Elementary, now in its fifth year of the process. Other
teachers and administrators in the 156,000-student district heard about
the idea from Fallsmead, and a handful have implemented similar
programs in their own schools.
Members of the Fallsmead kindergarten team say they were given the
seeds of the idea from a former principal at the school.
The orientation process didn't provide enough time to get to know
pupils, they said. Generally, elementary schools in the county have a
kindergarten orientation in the spring, where children are brought in
groups of eight to 10 and given some brief assessments while their
parents fill out enrollment forms.
But not all of a school's kindergartners attend orientation; many
register later or just can't make those dates. Plus, some children are
too shy to do much in that atmosphere, said Grant, the kindergarten
teacher at Fallsmead.
And the orientation, even for the youngsters who attend, can't always
capture the sometimes-dramatic changes that occur during the handful of
months before school starts.
"In six months, you can be a different child educationally," said Roni
Silverstein, the principal at Fallsmead.
But the rotation process involves more than just moving the children
around from class to class.
The schools that have adopted the process generally use a very scripted
routine at the beginning of the year. All pupils, for example, will
start the day in the cafeteria, divided into groups that they will stay
with during the first week. All of them learn that they're supposed to
enter the classroom and sit on a rug. Pupils will learn the same
process for hanging up their backpacks, stashing their lunchboxes, and
handing in their work folders.
Kindergarten 'Homeroom'
Also, each grouping of children spends the beginning of each day with
the same "homeroom" kindergarten teacher, and paraprofessionals and
other school staff members are assigned to each group and transfer with
them wherever they go.
Those elements are intended to introduce some stability and familiarity
for the children, the teachers say.
The kindergarten rotation was not an instant hit with all parents,
Silverstein said.
"Parents were convinced this was going to psychologically harm their
children," she said. And the school does take into account if there are
young children who seem very reluctant to separate from a teacher.
But most children adjust to the program because they don't know that
kindergarten is supposed to be any different. They end up knowing all
the teachers and many more of their peers than they might otherwise,
Silverstein said.
Rebekah Jacobs, the president of the Fallsmead PTA, has two children
who went through the kindergarten rotation. "What they explained is
that this is an opportunity to think about kids in the best way. To me,
it sounded like a really smart way of doing things," Jacobs said. "Is
it possibly a little confusing? Yes. But for the long-term benefit, I
think it's great."
The idea is starting to spread to other schools in the county;
representatives from dozens of schools visited Fallsmead earlier this
year to find out how the rotation works.
Beall Elementary, also in Montgomery County, has been conducting its
own "switcheroo" for three years after learning about the process from
Fallsmead.
"Honestly, I don't think everyone bought into it initially," said
Elliot Alter, the principal at Beall. Some teachers were concerned that
they would lose an emotional connection with their pupils. And they
were also concerned that the process would cut into instructional time.
"I don't think we're losing a week of instruction," Alter said. "It's
giving us back hours that we might have been regrouping kids for
reading, for example." Under the old process of class creation,
children might not have that many academic peers in the classroom,
requiring shifting groups of children around for instruction.
Other than a few tears, the process seems deceptively smooth.
But it takes a lot of planning, said Allison Nelson, a kindergarten
teacher at Beall.
"We have literally designed flip charts with times at the top for
exactly what we should be doing at exactly the same time on the same
day," she said. "We have spent so much time on this, but we've seen the
true benefits."
Read this and other articles at Education Week
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