Parents: Are You Happy With Your Child's Kindergarten Placement?

Over the weekend, more than 700 parents received letters on where their child will start kindergarten with the Framingham Public Schools.

The Class of 2027 has 743 students at the moment. This is the fourth year in a row with a kindergarten class of more than 700 students.

According to school administration, more than 89 percent of the students were assigned to their first choice of school.

This year parents good choose from from nine elementary schools, as Framingham administration plans to open the King Administration Building as the town's ninth elementary school with four kindergarten classes in the 2014-15 school year.

Waitlists were created for parents who did not get their first choice. 

One school with a long wait list is Dunning Elementary School. According to the school's principal there are more than 20 students on the wait list.

One of the reasons is that in the 2014-15 school year, Dunning will only have three kindergarten classes instead of in past years when it had four kindergarten classes.

Administration, to deal with space crunch issues, has decided that the number of kindergarten classes will not exceed the number of outgoing fifth grade classrooms. There are only three fifth grade classrooms at Dunning in the 2013-14 school year.

Another reason Dunning has a long wait list is due to how school choice operates in Framingham.

Incoming kindergarten students who need a specific program, be it special needs or an English Language Learner program are placed first in a school, followed by siblings of current students. 

An autism strand was recently started at Dunning Elementary which has taken up a classroom and this year there were many siblings of current students in the class of 2027 that requested Dunning, that there were very few slots open to neighborhood students and parents who chose Dunning as their first choice.

Kindergarten assignment forms are due back to the Parents Information Center on Friday, May 9.

Kindergarten orientation will take place on June 2.

School starts for the graduating class of 2027 on August 28.

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Framingham Patch would love to hear your thoughts on the Kindergarten choice program. Post your comments below.