After a three month delay, parents of next year's Kindergarten classes should expect to hear about individual assessment results next week

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Whether it's the first time or the fifth time you send your child off to Kindergarten, it's always a nerve wracking experience. For parents across New Brunswick, the preparation for the 2008-2009 school year has been different from most.

In preparation for next year, all preschoolers across the province were invited into their local schools for testing to see where each of them had strengths and needs. While parents were initially told that the results would be compiled and released very quickly, three months later parents are still waiting to hear from their school districts.

"One area that caused the delays was the size of the testing," explains Karla Webster, Transition to School Coordinator for District 2. "In our district alone there are 900 children entering school next year. Also, once all of the information was correlated, the company coordinating the assessment felt strongly that they needed to do another data analysis on children born in the same time frame - so children born in January or February were compared to other children born in January or February and so on."

"It was all done trying to make the information as accurate as possible," she says. Even with the wait for results stretching from days to weeks to months, the reaction and concern from parents has been surprisingly calm.

"We've had less than 15 calls from parents regarding the delay, which surprised me because I was expecting more," says Karla. "In some cases, I'm sure it's one parent making the contact for several, and communicating whatever information they find to their friends. I think people have been quite patient realizing it's the first year for this program. Also, because it is the first year we've done this we've been trying to be consistent all across the province with the information that we're putting out to parents.

"We're going to be sending a very clear letter with the results so that parents can really see what each domain is, see sample questions and to understand where their child falls within the scores. "

While the school district is unable to give a firm date about when parents can expect the results, they are forthcoming and should be made available in early May.

"Once parents receive the results, schools will then contact them to arrange the next step in the school preparation process. All children are invited for kindergarten orientation, so every child will come in to their local schools on May 26th," says Karla. "The children will get a chance to be in the classrooms and on the bus and the parents will get to meet the principals. The children should be invited in a minimum of three times during their preschool year."

Some children will be invited in for several shorter sessions to give them an extra boost.

"We're inviting children in who scored in a certain range to give them a little bit more experience prior to starting school," says Karla. "It's also a chance for parents to see what kinds of activities they can do with their children."

With the pre-kindergarten assessment slated to be a regular part of programming, Karla says the growing pains have been obvious, but worthwhile.

"In the first year of a program, you're finding your way in a sense because you really see what works and what doesn't work," says Karla.

"It's not just about the assessment, I want the kids to be excited about coming to school."