Forest Hills — Parent interest spurred Forest Hills Public Schools to add a junior kindergarten program to its 2025-26 school year, said Superintendent Ben Kirby.
That interest was underscored when about 80 people ventured out during a Jan. 22 snowstorm to attend an informational meeting on the new program.
“There were a lot of stories of parents who wanted a program like this but had to go to other educational institutions to get that program,” Kirby said.
“It’s a matter of us trying to educate all of our Hawks, Huskies and Rangers as best as possible,” Kirby said. “So by adding that program, it allows us to get all of our students, or more of our students within our attendance areas, into our programs, and provide the education and the foundation that’s necessary for their success.”
Parents Make the Decision
Forest Hills parent Andrew Fisher said he plans to enroll his son, who turns 5 in August, in the junior kindergarten program.
“We had intended to put him into kindergarten as he already has done two years of preschool, but he’ll just be so young for that grade,” Fisher said. “I think having that extra year will really help him mature and be kind of ready to learn.”
Fisher noted an added benefit: the junior kindergarten program is offered at Knapp Forest Elementary, where his older child and other neighborhood friends attend.
Enrollment for the 2025-26 school year has opened for the district. The district’s junior kindergarten program will be open to students turning 5 between July 1- Dec. 1, 2025. It will be a full-day, Monday through Friday program, with locations at Ada, Collins and Knapp Forest elementary schools.
Students who participate in junior kindergarten will go into kindergarten the following year.
According to the Michigan Department of Education, children turning 5 on or before Sept. 1 may enroll in kindergarten, and parents of students turning 5 between Sept. 2- Dec. 1 may seek an early enrollment waiver.
Kirby was named FHPS superintendent in March 2024. During his interview, Kirby recalled, he noted the absence of a junior kindergarten program in Forest Hills, which he believed would benefit the community. Further research revealed strong interest from families and staff, prompting the district to implement it for the upcoming year.
“I think the big piece is just recognizing that (junior kindergarten) is an option and it’s not a requirement,” Kirby said. “It’s an option based on each individual’s needs,” he said, adding that the district will make a recommendation but the final decision of student placement will be the family’s.
Building Confidence & Skills
The junior kindergarten program provides time for eligible students to build the confidence and skills needed to be successful in school, Kirby said.
According to a 2023 report from the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, about 364 Michigan school districts and charter schools, serving 66% of elementary-age children in the state, offered transitional, or junior kindergarten. Other districts have called the program Young 5s or developmental kindergarten.
In that report, junior kindergarten administrators stated that the program gave students time for socio-emotional development and helped boost developmentally appropriate academic skills. About 90% of parents whose children participated in these programs said the program prepared their child academically for kindergarten.
“Students that haven’t had any kind of a school experience don’t really have an understanding of what it’s like to be independent, and their school readiness isn’t quite there,” Kirby said. “Oftentimes a younger child just needs the gift of time to continue to develop some of those skills, especially the confidence and social skills, which become so very important as they move throughout a school system.”
‘It’s a matter of us trying to educate all of our Hawks, Huskies and Rangers as best as possible.’
— Superintendent Ben Kirby
Many of the students now entering their first year of school were born during the pandemic. While not a factor in offering the junior kindergarten program, Kirby said there has been a common theme across the state and country of the pandemic’s impact on social and behavioral skills such as respecting, understanding and relating to others.
“(The junior kindergarten program) does give opportunity to support in a proactive way some of the types of the behaviors that we’re responding to and reacting to with our older students,” he said.
Since enrollment for next year has just opened, Kirby did not yet have any numbers to share, but said the district is dedicated to meeting the needs of all students. Currently, a junior kindergarten program is set up in each of Forest Hills’ three attendance areas, he said. Later this summer, staff will review the numbers to determine if adding classrooms or any other changes need to be made.
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