Kindergarten I believe is not mandatory in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, or it wasn't 10 years ago at least. A kid does not need to be enrolled in public school until they are 6 in PA. If they are homeschooled, they don't need the yearly evaluation until they reach 8 years old. Maybe now it is different in the public schools with kindergarten since they require most kindergartners to be able to read when they finish the year. One of my other friends in NY is a public school Kindergarten teacher. She said when no child left behind started, they got rid of all the play kitchens and other toys from her class. She said Kindergarten became more like first grade at that point.
I went to kindergarten...for 2 weeks.
We moved to No Cal from Alabama in ‘68 towards the end of the school year. I made the age cutoff limit (on the younger end) by a few days, so my folks decided to enroll me to sort of get used to it for those 2 weeks, then they would just have me do the whole kindergarten year the next school year and that way I would get the whole experience and would be with kiddos more my age.
When school got out after those 2 weeks the teacher told my folks that she thought I was plenty ready to just go ahead and move on to 1st grade the next year, so off I went...
As a result, I went through the entire rest of my schooling considerably younger than most of my classmates, and a year-ish younger than more than a few.
I didn’t even turn 18 until almost 5 months to the day after I graduated from HS...the drinking age was 18 here back then, so almost all of my classmates were old enough to buy booze for a good chunk of our senior year...!!!!!
I do remember a bit about kindergarten and enjoying it, but, not a whole lot...
I definitely remember more about first grade. Even though I can’t remember my teachers name, I can picture her like it was yesterday...and she also played the autoharp and sang to us. I remember 1st grade being pretty darn fun...!!!
ETA...
And, for anyone unfamiliar with an autoharp...