5 Ways to Improve Kindergarten Roundup with Online Enrollment

Give parents the convenience to enroll kindergarteners from the comfort of their own home

The annual kindergarten roundup is an exciting time that offers your first chance to welcome new students and their parents to the school or district, see their new classroom, and get acquainted with staff.

But for many families, kindergarten roundup can be both confusing and time-consuming when it’s combined with a paper-based enrollment process. When that’s the case, parents are typically welcomed with a large stack of hard-to-decipher forms to fill out and return on a deadline, along with requirements like birth certificates, proof of address, and more.

At the same time, your district would probably like to avoid printing and postage costs, and time spent processing paperwork, re-entering data, and contacting parents for missing information or hard-to-read handwriting.  

With a modern, online enrollment system, you can offer families an easier process to get started. Switching to a secure online process provides an intuitive, welcoming experience. Plus, because the data entry occurs online, families can complete their forms in advance of the roundup, while your staff saves time on manual data entry.

An online enrollment product that’s integrated with your student information system can streamline and simplify the entire process and offer a host of benefits for families, staff, and your school or district.  

1. Ditch Outdated Paper-Based Enrollment Processes 

While some K-12 schools still rely on traditional paper-based registration, online systems are rising in popularity in public, private, charter, independent, and faith-based schools. Online enrollment improves efficiency, accuracy, and information security, while reducing printing and postage costs. Likewise, staff are under less strain, and the data they gather can be customized to best suite their school and district.

Online enrollment saves families time in multiple ways. Dynamic forms ensure that they only see questions that are relevant to them. Plus, they don’t have to fill out stacks of paper, print out any other required forms, and hand-deliver them to the school. 

“There’s a lot of essential information we need,” says Luciana Kelaiditis, District Technology Personnel at Illinois’ Reed-Custer Community School District #255. “We needed so much information that it created a sizeable envelope that cost more than a regular stamp to mail. Just mailing out forms alone was an entire day-long project for secretaries. But moving to online PowerSchool Enrollment, that task and the costs were gone.” 

Paper-based registration is antiquated, and that’s not the first impression any K-12 district wants to make with new kindergarten families. Online enrollment offers families a convenient, stress-free process they can complete on their schedule.

2. Collect Accurate, Secure Data Easily 

When your staff has to re-enter every kindergartener parent’s handwritten forms into the student information system, there’s a lot of room for questions and errors. But with a secure online enrollment system, you can reduce the possibility of errors with required fields, typed-in information, and data “polish” and format validation capabilities that can ensure consistency in how addresses, names, and other information are saved. 

Kelaiditis says, “When we introduced the data polish feature to our secretaries, they asked, ‘Will it really do that?’ They were amazed because so many times there are minor things like capitalization differences, and they had to go in and manually fix all of those. With PowerSchool Enrollment, you not only get good quality data, but you get uniform data.”

Districts can choose to offer a variety of language options to serve all your families, who can then complete online enrollment forms in their preferred language.

“I used PowerSchool Enrollment to enroll over 200 kindergartners in one day,” says a Data Support Specialist in at Georgia school district. “I’m so excited about how much time was saved, which will prevent the delay we typically experience with getting students registered. Using PowerSchool Enrollment eased the lives of parents and district personnel.” 

PowerSchool Enrollment can adjust the online registration form so that kindergarten families are only asked to complete the fields that apply to them—lowering the chance that relevant information is omitted, or that unnecessary forms are filled out.

3. Get To Know New Kindergarten Students

Registration form customization is a key feature of online registration. Imagine a process that allows for queries about personal preference to help teachers prepare for each student’s first day. Having a little personal knowledge like a child’s favorite color, favorite snack, or pets at home makes a world of difference in giving children a fun and welcoming kindergarten experience.

“I’ve seen whole pages dedicated to personality questions about incoming kindergartners,” says Tyree Hall, PowerSchool Solution Strategy Director, who works with K-12 districts across the U.S.

By using personality information like this, schools are more prepared to match students with teachers and in student groups where they will likely fit best. This can help kindergarten roundup go more smoothly and ensure that students get the most welcoming and enjoying experience possible when beginning this exciting new chapter of their lives.

4. Open Lines of Communication with Families 

Connecting with kindergartener families is another benefit of switching to online enrollment. Using the administrative toolset in PowerSchool Enrollment, you can send bulk email communications quickly and easily.

Parents can also schedule appointments and set up meetings through an online enrollment system. That way they can easily meet with their child’s teacher for registration events like an initial interview or document review. This lets them choose a convenient time without having to call an administrator or wait on hold—a few clicks and it’s done. 

5. Connect Data Securely to Other Edtech Products 

Potentially, the most convenient, beneficial part of switching to online enrollment is integration with other edtech solutions, such as your SIS. When enrollment information is collected, it can then be reviewed and sent directly to your database where it’s securely shared across other systems. It’s an easy, labor-saving process all the way around—for families, teachers, and administrators. 

“The beauty of PowerSchool Enrollment is that you can tie specific fields in PowerSchool SIS to specific questions in Enrollment,” says Kelaiditis. “For state reporting, the state asks for a lot of specific information that we’ve built right into Enrollment. Now, instead of us having to track down information when we submit state reporting, we add a question to the Enrollment field and then we just have that information when we need it.” 

Less Stress. More Smiles.

Make the most of kindergarten roundup so you’ll have more smiling faces when school starts. Forget stacks of forms, printing and postage costs, and phone calls from frustrated parents trying to decipher the forms you mailed them.