Crazy to give up TK spot in desirable OUSD school?
We live in the neighborhood of a desirable OUSD elementary school. We received a TK offer but upon learning more about the school it seems the aftercare is non existent or insufficient, and that we will be ok a waitlist for most of the year. Our child’s personality and our jobs are not the most flexible so we are considering waiting one more year before piecing together care.
We have heard from other parents that people are using TK to get into non neighborhood schools to guarantee a K spot. If we decline our TK spot this year, do we risk not getting in next year? Is this a real phenomenon of concern?
Mar 19, 2024
Parent Replies
In general, the chance for you to get into your zoned school for K is very high because the class size expands from TK to K. The non-neighborhood people want to get in at TK because they have less chance to get in at K. Schools like Chabot are also larger and can accommodate more students, if that is your local school.
Like the other poster said, if it's your zoned school, it's very unlikely you'll have issues getting in in K.
In general, don't believe the hype about "good" vs "bad" schools in OUSD. Our kindergartner's OUSD school, Emerson, has an incredible TK program and has free on-site aftercare until 5:30pm or paid aftercare at Studio One across the street until 6pm -- and typically has a very very short waitlist. (I've also heard from plenty of families who got into a 'good' OUSD school and then found various reasons why it didn't work for them and their kid.) Don't restructure your entire lives based on a school's publicity!
Hi- we gave up a spot in a desirable TK spot last year for basically the same reasons- we needed aftercare, and it felt too uncertain and we didn’t want to deal with juggling the pieces so we stayed at our pre-k school where we were happy. We had no problem getting assigned to our neighborhood school for kinder. It wasn’t awesome having to pay the extra $$ for another year, but it was fantastic just having things be easier. Most of the non-neighborhood kids taking kinder spots bc they got TK are just taking slots that would have gone to non-neighborhood kids anyway.
We turned down a spot at Hillcrest TK last year. I was worried about giving up our spot for K, but it was 100% the right move for our family. Our son was thriving at his preschool, we were happy with the extended care, and given that Hillcrest TK is not on Hillcrest campus, it meant less transition overall. We made peace with the fact that we might lose our spot and would instead go to a still close-by, still wonderful school like Chabot or Montclair, but ultimately we did get into Hillcrest for K and will start next year. I would definitely make the decision based on what is best for your family now.