Kristine Stueve

Kristine Stueve, principal
Isanti Primary School, Isanti

Overwhelming benefits for student, teacher, principal, parents, school nurse, social worker…

Greeting those new kindergarten students for the first time is very exciting for the principal and teachers, but also, full of unknowns. Similarly, new kindergarten students run the gamut of emotions from excitement to anxiety about coming to school. Have you ever wondered how you could make the start of kindergarten less stressful for everyone? We certainly did! About six years ago, the kindergarten teachers at Isanti Elementary (now called Isanti Primary) put an idea on the table for consideration: plan and implement a program called Kindergarten Entrance Week (KEW) for the first week of school.

The KEW program involves scheduling new kindergarten students and their parents to come in, by appointment, on one day during the first week of school. Children come with their parents, so no transportation is required. Each family is given a 90-minute appointment. As each teacher has two classes, they schedule between five and seven students to come in during each 90-minute slot; each day is divided into  two 90-minute periods. With our enrollment, it takes four to five days to schedule in all of the families.

Once the students are here the 90-minute appointment is scheduled as follows. (This process is repeated twice each day.)
1.    The parents deliver the students to their classrooms and then leave to meet with the principal, social worker and school nurse. This meeting lasts about 45 minutes.
2.    Students meet with their teacher and approximately five-six other students during this first 45 minutes.
3.    Parents rejoin their children in the classroom for the second 45 minutes. They might participate in an activity and also tour the school.
4.    As parents and children leave for the day, they may visit with a school bus driver and/or take a short bus ride together.

You might ask, “Aren’t the children disappointed not to be able to attend school when other students start?” Well, this concern did come up, once. We found that better and earlier communication with parents has helped so that everyone understands when school will officially start for kindergarten students and how KEW works. We have learned that the earlier and clearer our communication with families, the better! This way parents can prepare their children for the big “first day!”

The benefits of this program have been overwhelming. As the principal, I have the opportunity to meet each kindergarten parent face-to-face and share important information with them. The social worker also gets to meet each parent and share information about her program offerings, as well as information about how our school can help deal with family issues. The school nurse meets each family and takes care of immunizations, early childhood screening, and other health issues before that first day.

From the teachers’ perspective, they have a chance to visit with and observe their new students in a small group. They also have an opportunity to see the parents interacting with their children.

For the children, the official first day of school becomes less daunting as they have already met some new friends, explored their room and the school, and gotten to know their teacher a bit.

We are extremely happy with our program and welcome questions about it from anyone who is interested.