Early Entrance to Kindergarten and Grade 1

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EARLY ENTRANCE TO KINDERGARTEN & GRADE 1

District 45 follows Illinois law which specifies that a child must be five years old on or before September 1st of their kindergarten year or six years old on or before September 1st of their first grade year in order to be age eligible for enrollment (105 ILCS 5/10-20.12). District 45 considers early entry to Kindergarten and Grade 1 in alignment with the Accelerated Placement Act.

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Family Considerations

When considering requesting early entrance to Kindergarten or Grade 1, we recommend families reflect on their child’s academic and social performance throughout their academic careers and consider their children’s ages at different points in their school experience.

Requesting Early Entrance

Families must provide the following to the home school office:

Student’s birth certificate
Proof of residency

Upon submission of the required documentation, families may complete the request form directly or a school office may assist the family with completion. Central Office will monitor the request forms and schedule assessments with the Director of Student Services or another district psychologist. Following the assessment, a team made up of district administrators, the school principal or assistant principal, a Kindergarten teacher representative, and the child’s parents/guardians will convene to review the findings.

Application Open – January 1 – April 15
Parents/guardians wishing to apply for early entrance to kindergarten or first grade for their child must submit a request form no later than April 15 of the prior school year.

Complete the Request Form

Criteria for Early Entrance to Kindergarten

Month of Testing	90th percentile comparison age group for Motor, Concepts, and Language*
May to September	5.0 (5 years, 0 months)
October	5.1 (5 years, 1 month)

* Development of Motor, Concepts, and Language are assessed through the administration of the DIAL-4 by the District 45 evaluation team.

Month of Testing	90th percentile comparison age group for Self-Help Development and Social-Emotional Development**
May to September	5.0 to 5.5 (5 years to 5 years, 5 months)
October	5.0 to 5.5 (5 years to 5 years, 5 months)

** Self-Help and Social-Emotional Development are assessed through a Parent Questionnaire.

Criteria for Early Entrance to Grade 1

Please note that students who will not turn 6 by September 1 but who did attend private kindergarten are not automatically placed in Grade 1 upon enrollment in District 45. Students are required to have been taught by a certified teacher in their non-public preschool program.

Children eligible for Early Admission to First Grade must score a Total Achievement Composite of at least 130 (Extremely High) on the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test 4th edition.

This includes subtests in the areas of:

Word Reading
Reading Comprehension
Spelling
Alphabet Writing Fluency
Math Problem Solving
Numerical Operations
Listening Comprehension
Oral Expression
Phonemic Proficiency

Children with a first language of Spanish will be assessed using the Batería IV Woodcock-Muñoz. Children eligible for Early Admission to First Grade must score a Academic Skills Composite and Academic Applications Composite of at least 130 (Extremely High) on the Batería IV Woodcock-Muñoz.

This includes subtests in the areas of:

Identificación de letras y palabras/word reading
Analisis de palabras/word attack
Lectura oral/oral reading
Fluidez en lectura de frases/sentence reading fluency
Comprensión de textos/reading comprehension
Rememoración de lectura/reading recall
Problemas aplicados/applied math
Calculo/math calculations
Fluidez en datos matematicos/math fact fluency
Numeros matrices/number matrices
Expresión de lenguaje escrito/written language
Ortografia/spelling
Fluidez en escritura de frases/sentence writing fluency
Oral Language battery including listening comprehension and oral comprehension

This assessment will be administered by a District 45 staff member and reviewed by an evaluation team including district and school-based professionals.

Related Board of Education Policy

6:135 Accelerated Placement Program

7:50 School Admissions and Student Transfers To and From non-District Schools