Some ignorant questions about Montgomery county K

[Anonymous]

My daughter will be starting K this coming fall, and I am completely clueless about what to do. How do we register her for kindergarten? I went to the school's website (Ashburton), and I see the dates for K orientation in April. Do we just show up and register there? Does she go to the orientation or is it just for parents? Is it really 2 full days (i.e. we need to take 2 days off work)? When do we need to start looking into aftercare (or am I already late for that)?

[Anonymous]

Ha! I had the same questions last year. Here is what I learned:

Each school does it a little differently.
You only need to set aside a half day.
Some schools let you pick your time slot, some assign you.

[Anonymous]

No, it is not 2 full days. There is usually one session per day, and you only will attend one. At the schools around where I live, the children do attend, and they are in one room having fun while the parents are taken to another room for information. They usually give you a packet of information to fill out. Call the school to find out the details.

[Anonymous]

Ours only lasted an hour or two. You call the school to register and make an appointment. Kids in one room..drawing a picture..writing the alphabet or whatever they can do. Parents in another hearing how great the school is and joining the PTA

[Anonymous]

Agree that you should call the school and find out. Most will send home a packet of info for you or at least send you some details of what you need in order to enroll (birth ceriticate, proof of residency, immunizations, etc). Every school does it a little differently. I've done it with two schools. The first had a sort of rolling day, where we signed up for a certain time and cycled through some activities/info session, and the other had simply a morning session and afternoon session each day.

[Anonymous]

Call your school. Tell them you have a kid who will be in K next year. Ask them how to get her enrolled. They will tell you! But please wait until next week at the earliest. And don't be surprised if they ask you to call back in another month. You'll need to fill out several forms with pretty generic stuff. One will be a health record (immunizations, etc.)

Our school has 2 days set aside for Orientation, but you only attend 1 session. Each day has about 4 or 5 sessions. See if the school will let you pick your session on the phone, rather than having them assign one for you.

[Anonymous]

Parent at Ashburton. Agree with the previous posters: Call the school office, they will schedule you for a time and mail you a packet. The orientation in April is one session of about 90 minutes. It includes time for your child to have a brief assessment on his/her own with the K teachers, and for you to meet school staff, and concludes with a school tour led by two 5th Graders. Also, there's an option to tour a school bus. Some of the kids are pretty freaked out at first about separating from parents for the short eval. session, but it works out.

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much for the advice! When should I call? A month or so before the orientation?

[Anonymous]

I would call now, they might have some parent meetings before the orientation for the kids.

[Anonymous]

My child is going to Ashburton this year as well. I called the school directly today and they offered me three time slots: April 25 at 11:30AM and April 26 at 11:30AM and 1:00PM. They also took my child's name, my name, our address and informed that all the necessary forms would be sent by mail.

[Anonymous]

Just a heads up about k orientation. There is no school that day for kids currently in kindergarten. So, if your school is large enough for two days of K orientation, that means that next year, your kid will have two days off from school. That can come as a shock to working parents.

[Anonymous]

You should call now. Definitely do not show up at the orientation. Your school may also have parent sessions before the orientation. Ours does and the last one is coming up.

As for aftercare, usually at the K orientation the aftercare people will be there and you can get the information on how to register then. You could also ask about this when you call.