eventerone

Hi,
We are going to move to NJ in summer 2016 and I started to look at schools for my children. I would need an Elementary School ( they are 4 & 6 years old) but a good Middle school in the area as well for later on.
Has anybody got experience in good Elementary Schools in NJ. We are looking at Bergen County/ Mountain Lakes area.
How easy is it to get the children into a school?
The other question is, what class should they go in. Based on UK school system or US system, as the UK is obviously a year ahead. Thanks

Pulaski

Schools are assigned based on address, very rigidly. Once you have an address the school which is assigned for that address will take your child, .... subject to he/she having had the specified vaccinations.

You can try talking to the school about the appropriate year, but it is likely that the assignment will be made based on age of your child at or around the end of August. Some have managed to get their child into a year ahead of the age band for their child, but as far as I can tell, most have not.

eventerone

Brilliant, thanks for the reply. I guess I find out the specified vaccination from the school. Is it just the normal basic vaccinations, any ideas.

Pulaski

Look for the local school district ("school board") web site for the town/city as the vaccination requirements are set at the district level.

penguinsix

Hep B and Chicken Pox are two not on the normal NHS schedule that are required in NJ

http://nj.gov/health/cd/documents/k12-parents.pdf

Sliv

We are moving to NJ in February 2016 and have a 2,4 and 7 year old. I just looked at the Summit board of education requirement and it showed chicken pox and Hep B as others have suggested, just booked ours in for their vaccinations.

Only issue I have is our 7 year old had chicken pox aged 3, I didn't call the doctor at the time though as it was obviously that. So now I don't know how to prove he had it!

kodokan

My kids' schools in Arizona and Ohio, and the Civil Surgeon who did our green card medicals, have all been happy to take a verbal history of chickenpox on trust, with no proof required. They seem to realize that in non-vaccinating countries, it would be unusual for a school-aged child NOT to have had it. That, and it would be a bit odd for a parent who's obviously pro every other vaccination to be making a stand on just this one.

The school district here in Ohio also insists on a negative TB test for any kid who's been outside of the US for more than 90 days in their lives; they actually seemed much more bothered about this than the vaccinations.

Edit: is it this Summit school district? Looks like NJ insists on the TB test too, for kids arriving from other countries. http://www.summit.k12.nj.us/Other/Fo...HandDraft9.pdf

Sliv

That info is really helpful. Is the TB test something I should organise here? Or in US? I'm conscious we would probably want to get our eldest into school within 2 weeks of arrival, is that possible with that TB test?

kodokan

It's a skin prick test - a tiny amount of... ummm... some substance is injected in the forearm, then the child has to return 48 hours later to have the arm inspected for a reaction.

Here, you could get it done by making an appointment/ walking into one of the many testing labs dotted about the place. There's usually little or no waiting time to make appointments, say for later in the week, or walk-ins can take maybe an hour (based on experience with annual job-related lab screening in Arizona).

I don't know whether it would be covered on your health insurance or not; maybe if it's something mandatory for school..? i don't think it's that expensive a test - the entire green card medical was only $125 per person, including that.

I imagine the NHS would want paying, like with optional vaccinations for foreign holidays.

Sliv

Fantastic thank you, we are visiting NJ in a few weeks time so I will ask about then.

mum 2 3

Hi

We moved to NJ 3.5 years ago (Mountain Lakes). School required the Hep B, accepted we had had Chicken Pox. No TB proof required. We have had it recently for the Green Card process but not before.

Although the schools official line is that you can't look round the school (even the relocation advisors tell you this), you probably can. If you can get past the receptionist to the Head or get in touch with the Superintendent of Schools you may be able to have a look around. They understand that an international move is different to a local one. We didn't, but I was happy that plenty of people from all over the world move to the town for the schools, so they have to be doing something right.

For the school year choice that may depend on if you plan to stay. I had a child who had just finished Year 3 in the UK. Academically I could have put him in Grade 4, but he has an August birthday and is not mature for his age so I chose to put him in Grade 3 (where he is still one of the youngest). I also had twins who had just finished Reception as the oldest (September birthday) the cutoff here meant they went into 1st Grade. Again this has worked out, but there are lots of people who would have held them back and there are kids in their grade up to 2 years older and some kids in the grade below who are a year older. I read other peoples stories and quite a few moved them down after a while, or wished they had gone with age not previous academic history. Some school areas may have more of a play based Kindergarten, but here they will be pretty much expected to read and write on entry...

The hardest thing might be to find a rental you like in the school district you want. There are plenty of good schools and areas, but not too many rentals. I had a shortlist of 6/8 towns I would have moved to but when I came over to look at rentals there were only 3 possibles in 2 towns. I used GSMLS (on the advice of our relocation realtor) to look for properties then the realtor could send me the extra info they can see.

Good luck.

penguinsix

We discuss the age/grade question in the WIKI but there was also a thread that dealt with it a few years ago that is very helpful.

Education: What do I need to enroll the kids in school? : British Expat Wiki

http://britishexpats.com/forum/loung...school-643985/

I'm in Hong Kong now and my son goes to an American school and our neighbor, the same age, is in a British school. Although one is "Year 2" and the other is "Grade 1" the homework they do is essentially identical. In fact many of the online resources are the same, with the kids competing against each other from both American and British curriculum. I think my son's American school taught math at a slightly faster pace and the British school focused on reading, but overall it's really age-based not 'Year' based.

But take a look at the thread