Update: holding my breath!
Went to an open house for my top choice of private school for next year, and it turns out that right now they have a mid-year opening in K. They sounded cautiously open to discussing taking Hanni early (she'll be 4y8mo in Jan). I have a meeting with them on Thursday.
This school just seems awesome. It's tiny -- 48 students for K-6 -- with just four "classes" that are roughly grouped by age/ability (e.g. this year there's a K-1 group and a 1-2 group, and then a 3-4 group and a 5-6 group). Every kid gets to work at their own ability level, so they have kids in "2nd grade" working on the 4th grade math book, or whatever. They offer a rich program in the arts, writing, science.
And best of all from my perspective, they have successfully created a culture of "nice kids go here." They expect families to be self-selecting for this value when they enroll, they work hard to build community once the kids are there, and if a kid is an ongoing problem they are asked to leave.
Just hearing this made me want to cry with relief. I had a long conversation with Hanni's preschool staff, and they were so nice and sympathetic about the situation, but it was all about "helping the kids work through this" and "they get through it eventually" and "we have a particularly challenging group of kids this year" and even "Kid X has been picked on by her older sister and is working through her issues." I can totally see their point of view, in that they are a feeder school for the public schools and larger private schools and they have lots of families with siblings who are passing down the Lord of the Flies ethos. If they tried to expel every kid who was bringing that into the preschool they'd be out of business. But that doesn't make it RIGHT. And that's where they almost had me. They almost had me buying that viewpoint that this is just the way it is at this age and they are all learning how to manage these issues etc.
But then I look at Awesome Little Private School, where no one has siblings in public school, and where they have successfully managed to keep out the Lord of the Flies. And I think, YES. It CAN be this way, I could take Hanni completely out of that environment at a single stroke, and there is nothing "unnatural" or "unrealistic" about it.
Trying not to get too invested in this scenario. Hanni may bomb the assessment -- I'm going to be bringing her along to the meeting and they're going to be looking for whether she's ready for K in social-emotional terms. Honestly, she's a totally normal 4.5 year old in emotional development. She may just not be ready.
Thanks so much everyone for listening, and thanks for all your great replies.
