White County Schools have opened online registration for pre-k and kindergarten students across the district.
Elementary Instruction Supervisor Angela Fresh said a page on the district’s website will walk parents through the registration process. Fresh said families should register for pre-k as soon as possible because the district only has five pre-k classrooms that can take twenty students each.
“They can register and then what they do is they turn in like their birth certificate, their health and immunization paper, their proof of residence, their income documentation,” Fresh said. “And then the state also has an income eligibility form that they require.”
Fresh said the process for kindergarten registration is simpler as the income forms are not required. Fresh said the district is also holding an event on April 8 where families can go to their local school to meet faculty, see the building, turn in paperwork, and ask questions about the registration process.
“I think it’s very important to get that interaction with other students, to be able to learn things that maybe you’re not learning at home,” Fresh said. “So I think that pre-K gives them the opportunity to be more successful when they go to kindergarten.”
Fresh said a family can send their student to a pre-k class that they are not zoned for if the local option has already filled up. Fresh said families with lower income levels get the first opportunity to get their student into a pre-k program.
“All of our teachers are, of course have degrees in early childhood education so they know what students need to prepare them for kindergarten so that they can have the best outcome,” Fresh said.
Fresh said the district’s pre-k programs end up nearly full most of the time.
