thinking of moving back to USA. How does it work transferring to elementary school?

[ilovemydogandMrObama]

DH is going to be made redundant in 2013 so a bit of time to plan. I am American and DCs are dual, so no problem there, but am wondering how it will work transferring to an elementary school? DD1 will be 7 and in year 3, DS will be 5 and in Year 1.

Will they be put according to age?

Which state are you going to move back to?

Would either be California or Washington (state)

As you know, every state has their own policy as to when the school year starts, and what are the cut off dates and even different policies regarding their decision in which class to place your child.

We've experienced moves between Michigan, Arizona, Germany and UK....

At the end of the day, in the States they looked at birth date to determine in which grade level the student would have been in their state. Then they asked for background schooling info from current school and country, and then discuss their decision with parents, and are open for further discussion and see if parents are happy or where possible worries would be.

It is all very clear-cut as the policies are in place.

I'd recommend looking at the education department webpages of those states. Then call their customer/parent service line and they can exactly tell you where they would place your children.

Age 5 is the Kindergarten year, but it would depend when his birthday is. Cut off days vary from state to state.

California has moved to 1 September as cut off, certainly for the 5yo & maybe for the 7yo's year group. I think Washington has 1 Nov as cutoff, but are moving to 1 Sept soon. But you know they easily skip them or hold them back depending on ability. So you'd just have to rock up to where you want to live & start asking.

If you look for MN username = SofiaAmes she has recent-ish experience of moving her kids from UK to LA.

Here they put them in according to age. Our district opted to move the cut off to age 5 by September first for K instead of moving it a month each year till it would be Sept 1st. Dd is now in 2nd grade.
Just turn up in the schools office they have all the paperwork to enroll, depending on where you would be, some school districts still have over subscribed schools, ours was till the housing crunch now theres room for anyone any grade.

Hi ilove. I moved my dc's back to the usa when dd was almost 3 and ds was almost 5. This was 7 years ago and the cutoff was December 5. Both dc's have fall birthdays so ds entered Kindergarten at age 4 and dd did as well 2 years later. I did not realize that most people held their boys back and did not start them that early in kindergarten so ds is 6mo to a year younger than most of the boys in his year. That was an issue in terms of maturity for most of elementary school. Ds is very bright so academically it mostly didn't matter, but he was definitely ready for reading later than his peers. I moved him to a small private school for middle school where there is a wide variety of ages (the kids vary from structured backgrounds to steiner/even-more-out-there-than-steiner educations, so ds' age no longer matters. For dd there was a less obvious difference, partially because fewer girls are held back and partially because of her personality.

Having said all of that, you will probably find that your dd will be fine going from Year 3 to Grade 3, but you may want to consider having your ds repeat 1st grade...You should plan on visiting the school and seeing what the school work is like and what the other kids are like. The teaching styles are quite similar between the uk and usa these days (at least in my experience)....way too much teaching to the test and way too much emphasis on getting wriggly kids (especially boys) to sit still. Generally the schools have cutoff dates for the start of school, but if you are transferring from another district/country they will not necessarily base the placement on age, but rather on what the child can do academically. Here are the California State standards. Your kids will be entitled to a place at your local public school, so pick where you live well. Unless there are good charter school options in your area (here in los angeles we have lots of fabulous charter schools, but you do have to plan in advance .... get on the lottery list).

OK, now on to the bit that you do need to worry about in advance....vaccinations are mandatory and not quite the same as what is required in the UK, so you need to check on the requirements and make sure that your children have had the missing ones (chicken pox, pneumococcal and HepB as well as a TB test come to mind as ones that are not necessarily regularly done in the uk). Vaccination requirements are here.

Please feel free to contact me through mumsnet if you do end up making the move and want more specific help.

You don't need vaccinations in regular public (state) schools in California, you can sign a waiver.

I'm in San Diego if you are interested in that area. I have two kids in school, one public, one charter (public sort-of)

You can sign a waiver, but they really put you through the ringer. Most schools will not simply accept a waiver without question. They will question you about it and the waiver is for moral or religious grounds and I don't believe there is an option for medical grounds which means you would have to lie if that's why you are not getting the vaccination. Much easier to just get the vaccinations and make sure you have the evidence.

We've been in three different schools and two different preschools that were fine with us flipping the card over and signing. A total of 22 years of education between the two of them and no problems.

California does allow medical as well as personal belief or religious. Personal belief is just that you believe that it is better at this time for your child not to be vaccinated.

They can question you all they like, all you have to say is that state law allows it in California and flip the card over and sign. This is not true in all states but is in California unless you are in private school...??

I've just flipped the card over and signed off on vaccines too with no questions asked. Mine have a some missing vaccines for varied reasons and you don't have to reveal the reasons.
They aren't supposed to ask, because it could be very personal reasons for the refusal of vaccines. So it's none of their business. California is very big into personal rights it seems.

I don't want this to turn into a battle over vaccination pros or cons, but if you are not anti vaccine, please do not consider going without the required vaccinations -- CA and WA are in the throes of a serious pertussis outbreak at the moment.

Check out what is required and get them up to date.

Some states allow both a religious and a philosophical exemption. Some allow only religious.

On the question of what grade to enter the children, I would hold a boy back, depending on month born though, and let a girl continue. A lot depends on individual maturity and not just academic attainment, especially as the years go on, puberty hits, and social and emotional terrain becomes rocky. In the case of a child with a birthday that would make him or her one of the youngest in the cohort I would be inclined to let them repeat a year.

If your DCs have had a BCG then the tuberculin skin prick test will not work accurately.

I guess it depends on your school district. My ds had had the bcg as a baby, so I signed a waiver for the tb test. I was interrogated by the school nurse on multiple occasions about it. However, being a believer in vaccinations, I don't agree that "it's none of their business." Anyway, it seems to me that the op has disappeared anyway, and there is lots of information on this thread (and lots of others) about the preparations needed to move from the UK to the USA.