Deer Lakes School District said it is seeing a historically low number of students signing up for kindergarten because of the coronavirus pandemic.
As of Thursday, 65 students had registered for kindergarten classes at Curtisville Primary Center in West Deer, down roughly 35% from the 90 to 100 who have usually signed up by this time in the year.
“We definitely saw a decrease, or like a stop in the registrations, whenever the closures began,” said Principal Jennifer Cavalancia. “Typically, we would get several new enrollments each week for the upcoming year and then once the school closures began we’ve had very few new enrollments.”
Gov. Tom Wolf in March ordered all schools close to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, and earlier this month said schools would remain closed for the remainder of the 2019-20 academic year.
The district has rolling kindergarten registration, but its big push occurs in January and February.
When students aren’t registered on time, it can impact decisions for classroom materials, staffing and other resources at a school and district level.
Curtisville has seven kindergarten classrooms. The number of students in each class varies on enrollment.
“What we know about the community at this time is that there should be more people registering, but my fear is that people are holding off on the registration process because they’re unsure of what fall of 2020 looks like for schools,” Cavalancia said. “The sooner that we know who they are, the better prepared we’ll be to work with their children.”
Deer Lakes is one of 43 public school districts in Allegheny County that participates in the Hi5! initiative. A partnership between the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, Trying Together and the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania, Hi5! promotes on-time kindergarten registration, transition plans and awareness.
Emily Neff, PK-3 public policy manager/kindergarten transition program director at Trying Together, said other county school districts are reporting lower-than-average kindergarten enrollment numbers in the midst of the pandemic.
“Many districts shared the concern that their registration numbers were lower than normal at this time of year,” Neff said.
Cavalancia said one of the biggest concerns she and teachers have is getting children comfortable with the kindergarten program now that everything is being handled virtually. Because of the pandemic, students and their families won’t be able to attend activities usually held to expose them to the school building and staff, such as in-person screening and orientation in May.
Cavalancia plans to meet with families online instead.
“There are some things we want to do with them, but we need to know who they are so that we can make those connections,” Cavalancia said.
Immunization and dental records, as well as copies of a students’ birth certificate and proof of residency are required for them to attend kindergarten. Cavalancia said parents usually collect and turn those things into the district as they receive them before the first day of school. The most important thing right now is for families to let the district know they plan on sending their child to school, she said.
“If we know who they are sooner, we can begin to build that family engagement relationship with them and also help to prepare for their entry into the school year,” Cavalancia said.
For more information on registration, visit: http://www.deerlakes.net/KindergartenPage.aspx
