The parents of kindergarten students at an Elwood, New York, school are being told by school officials that their children need to spend more time on college and career preparation.
Principal Ellen Best-Laimit of Harley Avenue Primary School canceled the annual kindergarten play, according to New York Post. Best-Laimit and four kindergarten teachers said the play was a distraction from the school’s main ambition in a letter sent out to parents.
“The reason for eliminating the Kindergarten show is simple. We are responsible for preparing children for college and career with valuable lifelong skills and know that we can best do that by having them become strong readers, writers, coworkers and problem solvers.
“It is most important to keep in mind is [sic] that this issue is not unique to Elwood. What and how we teach is changing to meet the demands of a changing world.”
When the letter garnered international media attention and inspired a Change.org petition calling on the school to go on with the play, school superintendent Peter Scordo said in a statement that “the traditional kindergarten performance requires multiple days away from classroom work for preparation and execution.”
“Our educators believe that the traditional kindergarten performance requires multiple days away from classroom work for preparation and execution, and together with the lost instructional time this year due to poor weather, is not the best use of the limited time we have with our youngest learners,” he said.
You can watch a news clip, below from UPI.
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