Kindergarten FAQs

Yes. Lakota is proud to offer all of our early learners an all-day kindergarten environment. 

Yes. Lakota continues to offer its half-day option for parents and students who prefer it. Requests for half-day will be accommodated through AM kindergarten. Schools offering AM kindergarten will be finalized each year once registration is complete and based on interest level. Half-day kindergarten will focus on academics to ensure these students are prepared for first grade. Please note these students will not participate in daily specials.

Use Lakota’s interactive map to enter your address and view a listing of all the Lakota schools associated with your attendance zone. The following is a listing of all Lakota early childhood schools. 

All-day kindergarten classes meet from 9:10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Half-day kindergarten classes meeting from 9:10 a.m. to 11:55 p.m.

School fees are established in the spring for the following school year. Visit the student fees page for more information.

On average, there are 25 students per kindergarten classroom. 

You can best prepare your child for kindergarten by reviewing the following concepts: 

In rare instances young children are already reading, counting, and categorizing, are developmentally advanced in thinking skills, language acquisition, and quantitative reasoning, and may be ready for early entrance into kindergarten or first grade. These children also need to be advanced in personal development and emotional maturity. 

Early entrance is a form of grade acceleration. A parent may request early admission to kindergarten if the child turns five after the district's deadline for kindergarten entrance. Any student turning five on or after Aug. 2 AND on or before Dec. 31 is eligible for the assessment process. 

The application for the following school year will be available on Lakota's Acceleration & Advancement webpage in early February with testing occurring in late May or early June. Requests submitted after the stated deadline will only be honored for those newly enrolled into the district.

If enrolling a first grade student who did not attend a public or chartered non-public school for kindergarten, the Ohio Department of Education & Workforce requires that the parents/guardians provide confirmation from their kindergarten provider that the teacher met the certification requirements outlined by the Ohio Department of Education. 

The required documentation is the kindergarten teacher’s state teaching certificate or license. Families are responsible for obtaining the required documentation. Enrollment into first grade may be delayed until confirmation is received.

Beginning Feb. 1, incoming kindergartners can pre-register during the spring for the following school year. Early kindergarten registration extends through April 1. Your child must be 5 years old on or before August 1 of that year.

The registration process, which includes uploading required documents, is completed online. New parents are invited to any one of the available kindergarten information nights scheduled during early registration, as well as a "Welcome to Kindergarten" series. Visit the kindergarten registration page for complete details. 

Yes. To complete the enrollment process, you are required to provide your child's most recent record of immunization at the time of registration. We realize that summer birthdays may require more vaccinations, but the updated record can be brought to school once school begins. Ohio Revised Code and Lakota board policy state that any child who has not met enrollment requirements must be excluded from school.

All Lakota kindergarteners receive bus transportation. Bus route information is available in early August. At that time, you will be able to view your child's bus and teacher assignments for the upcoming school year on the registration page of Home Access Center (HAC). A link will be prominently posted from the district’s homepage when the information is available.

All students in Grades K-2 must submit a Transportation Form each year. Please visit the Alternative Transportation webpage for the specific deadline you must meet to receive transportation on the first day of school. 

While this form is completed through the online registration process, early childhood school students (grades K-2) are asked to complete the printed form as well. All alternative transportation plans are automatically cleared at the end of each school year and must be resubmitted each year. 

Home Access Center (HAC), accessible via OneLogin, is a communication tool to help keep students and parents up-to-date and in contact with their teachers throughout the year. Use HAC to find daily assignments and scores, report cards, attendance, and more. Families new to the district will receive their usernames and passwords by mail from their schools. 

Home Access Center is also available in a mobile app, allowing you to view all information from any mobile device. Visit the HAC landing page to learn more about how to take full advantage of this tool. 

Lakota is proud to offer a powerful mass notification system for delivering important school and district news and announcements via email, phone, and text message. 

Once your Home Access Center (HAC) account is established, parents and guardians are invited to log into School Messenger to select your preferences for receiving general, emergency and weather-related alerts. For your username, use the primary email address associated with your personal HAC account. For convenience, email addresses and phone numbers will be automatically loaded from your HAC account, so future updates to this information must be made within HAC.  

Click here for more information on how you can sign-up, view or change your communication preferences.