Kindergarten Registration: The Paperwork Begins

The campaign began today. The campaign, that is, to convince my 5-year-old to stay home with me instead of going to kindergarten next year. She wouldn’t cave. Judging from the stack of paperwork required to register her, though, I’m not convinced that Bierbaum really wants her. 

I picked up the packet of forms required for kindergarten registration last week because registration starts today and goes through Friday. Forms can be picked up from your elementary school office and then parents can make an appointment to turn in the forms this week.

The requirements for registration are not really so bad. There’s a lot of information needed, but when I turn it around to think about what documents I would want the school to have about a population of more than 600 kids, it makes a lot of sense.

The whole process to get the forms filled out and the necessary documentation took me a couple of hours. I had to call my pediatrician’s office and have them fax immunization records, and then my husband took a shovel to the files in our basement and unearthed her birth certificate. The district also requires two items of documentation to prove residency, and the packet includes a list of acceptable items.

If you are running behind, and this is the first time you’ve heard that registration is this week, don’t despair. I, too, forgot about kindergarten registration until a coincidence brought it to my attention last week. I anticipated a major scramble, but the paperwork included mostly questions I know the answer to. Even so, I managed to absentmindedly put my name instead of my daughter’s in a few spots.

When you go for the appointment at the school, the receptionist will have you wait for a few minutes while they confirm that all of the papers are there and make copies of your child’s birth certificate and other original documents.

Included in the packet is the paperwork for full-day kindergarten. The district no longer offers full-day kindergarten based on first-come, first-serve basis. Instead, attendees are selected using a drawing. The packet also includes tuition costs and fee schedules for full-day kindergarten.

I’ve had a couple of questions when filling out paperwork. With so many parents opting out of vaccinations, how do they register for school? I asked the receptionist about this issue back in 2010 while registering my son, and she said that it didn't occur very often, perhaps because it’s generally known that vaccinations are required to attend public school.

This year, my question was rooted in laziness. I was sure that, because I had another child at Bierbaum just 19 months older than my new kindergartener, I could skip some of the paperwork. Nope, the receptionist said. She explained that opening a student’s file is similar to initiating a patient’s file at a doctor’s office. Each student is an individual and the folder follows him or her through their years at the school.

Come back later today for more information on how to register your child for kindergarten or check out the Mehlville School District website.