How is Pennsylvania's school system?

Is the School System unfair about not permitting my youngest daughter to not attend school?

• My daughter was placed back again on the waiting list for Head Start this summer. Now, I would like for her to attend public school. The public school that I wanted her to attend, told me that they could not let her attend, because she is not potty trained. I wanted my daughter to go to school so badly, because I feel like she could gain so much by being in school. My youngest daughter is four years old and she would have been attending preschool this term. As a mother and a parent, I really feel that my daughter can progress so much from being into school. I can teach her many things at home, but by her being into preschool, would make a tremendous difference in her learning abilities. Plus, she will also learn how to effectively interact with children her very own age. I would like to know if there is anything that I can do about this situation? I am unemployed due to having a back condition. I can't afford to place my daughter in a Day Care and my husband can't afford to pay the fees either. The ABC Voucher Program at our local DSS office, does not have any funds right now for my situation. Only for TANF Program/Welfare.(Which I am unable to do being that I have a back condition that would interfere with me working). I really would like for my youngest daughter to be into school right now. I feel that she would benefit more by being in school, whether she is potty trained or not, I not asking the school to babysit her, I just want her to be able to learn. I can understand their policies, but having my daughter into school, would really be better for her.

• Answer:

  Short answer: If your district offers 4K to the public AND your child meets the age cutoff, they would generally need to serve your child. If your child did NOT meet the age cutoff, keep reading. First, a bit of background information: Head start is the public option before compulsory age, unfortunately, this does run on waiting lists. 4 year old kindergarten is where most K-12 districts pick up the public instruction, even though students are only required to attend in Kindergarten, broadly speaking. This is left to the states... may need a bit more information for that one. IF your child turned 4 this summer, rather than recently, she may be 4K eligible and it wouldn't be right for them to reject you. To address your question directly, "Preschool" in terms of the K-12 education system is generally shorthand for "early childhood" which legally means "early childhood special education" and is not terribly well explained to the public in many cases. In each district I have been a part of, unless you have another circumstance you are concerned about, children who are not 4K eligible based on age only receive school based services to address needs dictated by a disability. Therefore, if your child was not 4 in time for the cutoff and want to attend school, there would be no non-disabled, appropriately developing peers (dictated by age) for the child to gain incidental knowledge from. Therefore, it would not be an appropriate setting and may actually do your child harm. Let me be clear: early childhood programs are not a reasonable replacement for day care: your child can learn a LOT of incidental knowledge from peers, which can be bad if this is not developmentally appropriate (speech patterns, behaviors, etc). This would NOT be the case however, if your child had a speech or language impairment, or was developmentally delayed and required specific school services to address needs to help ready them for school or address a specific disability. If not, please see the closing to my last paragraph. Please work to gain playdates with peers, provide lots of language activities, have them label things with you on commutes, work with crayons, and start having them ask, in detail, to get their needs met. Ask their preference on things... etc. I did address a few questions here..., please post more if this does not make sense. Good luck.