girl with finger paint on hands

We know some families have questions regarding the age for admittance to Kindergarten in the Blaine School District. There has been heightened interest in this topic during COVID, as some families consider keeping their children home instead of enrolling in Kindergarten. We support our families in deciding what is in the best interest of their children, and we want to share information to help you make an informed decision regarding when to enroll your student for school.

We believe it is very important for students to have the opportunity to learn in classrooms with peers who are their same age. In any given early learning space, even with a same age cohort, there is, on average, a nine-year developmental age span across the class. We recognize that for any grade level, we will see a difference in both academic and social emotional skills from one student to the next. 

What we don’t want is for a child to not be challenged by being in community with children significantly younger, because this can also have a negative impact on their growth. Age bands are a strategy that helps support this gap. It is for this reason that we work hard to support all students in their age/grade level band, no matter their academic ability. We believe that as educators, it is our job to meet students where they are at and to provide the necessary support and instruction to help them succeed. 

We believe that birth date does matter and we recognize that nothing in education is clearly black and white, so we work to make the best educated decisions when situations fall outside of the expected windows. 

With this in mind, we want to share with you our expected window and age bands for registration into school moving forward:

2022-2023 School Year (next year)

For the 2022-2023 School Year, students with birthdays from September 1st, 2016 through August 31st, 2017 will be enrolled into Kindergarten.

For the 2022-2023 School Year, students with birthdays from September 1st, 2015 through August 31st 2016 will be enrolled into First Grade, regardless of prior school experience.

We want to see every student in Blaine reach their full potential, and we are committed to providing quality educational experiences to every student. We would love to see every student who is of Kindergarten age have the opportunity to be enrolled in a Kindergarten class and to begin building the foundations of their educational experience. We hope that this gives you the information you need to make an informed decision about when to enroll your child into school. We are still accepting kindergarten enrollments for the current school year. We look forward to seeing your children in class.