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In the UK, children start school at 5 but there I an optional additional year beforehand that we call "nursery" or "pre-school". I'm presuming this is the same kind of thing you're talking about? If so, I had intended to send E to the local school for her nursery year but its only mornings (5 mornings a week) and I work FT so she is going to have to stay at the daycare setting.

in CA we have the option of transitional kindergarten for those kids that miss the cutoff by a couple months. i'm still debating on whether to send dd to that or preschool. the only problem with TK is that its a halfday program in our school district so i'd have to find an after school program for her. we'll revisit this in a couple years but i am loving the idea of saving some $$. we'll def send her to K once shes eligible the next year tho. luckily ds won't have the TK issue and we can send him right into K.

$250 a week or district kindergarten my taxes already pay for?.....the latter for sure

@mamabolt: half day here too

DS will do the 3rd year in his Montessori classroom, which will be his Kindergarten year at the school. However, because of his birthday, he could do kindergarten again the following year at the public school-- the public school wouldn't consider him a 1st grader. So, it seems to us that it makes sense to keep him in his current school in order to keep his academic momentum. But also, the school is quite affordable and goes up to 8th grade, and the public schools here aren't good. So if we stay in the area, it's entirely possible he'll stay at the school long term.

Definitely public. I'm a public school teacher and every year we get a couple kids in first grade that went to private K and they are always behind. Plus why pay for daycare when public is available? Our K is full day in Texas.

My DD did private Montessori K and entered public school in 1st grade. She was way ahead of her peers in reading and math. We mainly did it because she's the youngest in her class. She didn't have any issues being new- it was harder on me. We plan to do the same for my DS.

Not sure yet! We are in a Montessori program so the Kindergarden year is the 3rd year of the program. I think we will decide toward the middle of next school year on whether or not we will enroll in public K or continue with Montessori.

Our daycare/pre-school doesn't have a kindergarten option, but even if they did we would send him to public school. The elementary school is literally less than a 5 minute walk from our house (instead of a 15-20 minute drive) and we'll want to drop the tuition, especially since we'll have two kids soon. The kindergarten is full-day, and my mom will watch him after school until I get home from work.

Our preschool has a 5's option and that's where my son is this year, instead of being enrolled in public K. The thing is it doesn't count as kinder, so he'd have to go to Kinder next year anyway, he couldn't skip and go to first grade...not that I would want him to.

We can't do public school because they let out at 2:30 and I might as well not go to work if I have to pick up DS that early. No one else can pick him up for us, unless we find a nanny. So the simpler option is to keep him in private day care. We'll probably switch him to one where part of the tuition is covered because they're in the government pre-K program.

We aren't in this situation exactly, but our Montessori daycare goes up to age 6, and we have the option to send our DD to pre-K at age 4 (although she is an Oct kid, so she will basically be 5). Our city has a lottery for schools, so we are going to see which school she gets into for pre-K and then decide. There is wide variability in the schools in our city, so it will probably come down to whether or not we feel comfortable sending her to the school she is assigned to. We are already planning to probably move if she doesn't get into a good school, so that gives us an extra year to sell our house and find a new one.

Our daycare feeds into pre school then private k-8. Not sure if we are going to do public or private elementary school yet.

Ours does not, but if it did I would send to public kindergarten for sure.