Kindergarten Enrollment & Readiness

Kindergarten Jump Start is a week-long learning experience to help incoming kindergarten students and their parents be ready to start school. This program is free and open to all incoming students who are registered for kindergarten at a Highline elementary school.

Jump Start will be held virtually for the 2020-21 school year in order to ensure the health and safety of all.

Jump Start helps children familiarize themselves with their new school, kindergarten teacher, classmates, and daily schedule before school starts in September.

During Jump Start, each school hosts a family meeting to learn about the school, meet teachers, and find out how to support your child’s learning.  

Students must be registered for kindergarten to attend Jump Start. To enroll in kindergarten, please visit our enrollment page.

Once online kindergarten enrollment is complete, families will receive specific details regarding Jump Start from their respective schools. For families who have specific questions about their child’s enrollment or Jump Start, please contact your neighborhood school directly.

The Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS) is a transition process that helps to ensure a successful start to the K-12 experience and connect the key adults in a child’s life.

Three Components

• Family connection welcomes families into the Washington K-12 system as partners in their child’s education.
• Whole-child assessment gives kindergarten teachers information about the social/emotional, physical, cognitive, language, literacy and mathematics development of the children in their classrooms, so they may tailor their instruction to the individual needs of each child.
• Early learning collaboration aligns practices of early learning professionals and kindergarten teachers to support smooth transitions for children.

Resources

• What is WaKIDS? (PDF) English | Spanish – a one-page document that provides an overview of this program.
• Family Brochure (PDF) is an invitation for families of students who are participating in WaKIDS this year to get involved in the program and find out what to expect.

Parents and families have a very important role as their child's first teacher. Children learn in different ways and at different rates. They come to school with varying skills. 

We encourage our families to work with their students at home. To help, we've created the Kindergarten Readiness Guidelines which highlight some of the skills children need to be prepared for kindergarten. These guidelines are a parent resource designed to help families prepare children for school.

This document does not need to be completed and turned in at the school, but rather is for parents to keep as a guide to kindergarten readiness.

Kindergarten Readiness Guidelines

English

Amharic

Arabic

Ethiopian

Korean

Marshallese

Oromo

Russian

Spanish

Somali

Tigrigna

Ukrainian

Vietnamese

If you have questions about the document, please contact Kathy Emerick.

ReadyK! is a transitional kindergarten program for children who have not had access to high-quality early learning experiences. 

ReadyK! students will start school in January, rather than waiting until September. The program will be located in various schools across the district. In fall students will return to their home school for their kindergarten program. 

To enroll, students must:

• Be age-eligible to begin kindergarten for the upcoming school year. Students must turn 5 years old by August 31.
• Demonstrate need as determined by our Ready K! screening tool.
• Lack access to a high-quality early learning experience.

2021 Ready K! applications for screening will be available to families November 2020. If you would like to learn more about this opportunity, please contact our Ready K! team at 206-631-3396 or ReadyK@highlineschools.org