It's seven months until school starts, but 506 Palo Alto children have already registered for kindergarten this fall.
One day in February, parents lined up at the Palo Alto school district office to enroll their children in school. Based on the numbers, the district predicts a fall kindergarten enrollment of about 743 students.
That figure is very close to an updated projection made by demographers last month, which predicts a fall kindergarten enrollment of 732 students. This year, there are 793 kindergartners. Eight schools have three kindergarten classes.
Registration remains open, so between now and September the numbers are likely to change a lot. Students who registered this month should be assigned to a school by May 15.
At this point, district officials don't think they will need to add any more classroom space for kindergartners like they did this year at several schools.
Children who registered last month have priority for being placed in their neighborhood school next year. If a school gets more kindergartners than it has space for, priority will be given to children with siblings at the school and the remaining students will be selected by lottery.
The district is divided into three clusters--north, south and west. All have three neighborhood schools apiece. Hoover and Ohlone, both alternative schools, serve children who live throughout the city.
When a school in a particular cluster is full, new students are moved to another school within the cluster, so that the child is, ideally, still able to walk to school. The district makes an effort to keep children in their clusters if at all possible.
--Elizabeth Darling
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