{"id":87018,"date":"2026-01-15T00:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T00:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/87018\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T00:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T00:21:09","slug":"kindergarten-pre-k-registration-in-philadelphia-opens-soon-as-officials-urge-parents-to-sign-children-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/87018\/","title":{"rendered":"Kindergarten, pre-K registration in Philadelphia opens soon as officials urge parents to sign children up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s time to start getting ready for kindergarten and pre-kindergarten in Philadelphia.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Tony B. Watlington launched the annual &#8220;Thrive at Five&#8221; program at Horatio B. Hackett Elementary School Wednesday to encourage parents to sign their kids up for pre-K and kindergarten.<\/p>\n<p>If your child will be 5 years old by Sept. 1, this is the time to get registered for kindergarten.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The district said it has simplified the application process.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.philasd.org\/studentplacement\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">apply online on the district&#8217;s website<\/a> \u2014 you just need proof of address, proof of your child&#8217;s age and photo ID to prove that you&#8217;re the child&#8217;s guardian, Diane Castelbuono, the district&#8217;s deputy for early learning, said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If your child turns 3 years old this year, you can apply for free full-day pre-K classes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For pre-K, you can apply at any one of the 200 sites across the city, and you can select those sites and list your preferences 1 through 5,&#8221; Castelbuono said.<\/p>\n<p>The goal is to make sure children are ready for first grade and set up for future success, officials said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our pre-K program ensures that our students are ready to enter kindergarten, ready to learn, and our kindergarten program helps our students be successful,&#8221; Horatio B. Hackett School Principal Todd Kimmel said.<\/p>\n<p>Families agreed with that sentiment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was extremely important for my husband and I to enroll our daughters in both the pre-K and kindergarten program, really for that readiness for grade school and not only academically, but socially as well,&#8221; one parent who has a child in pre-K and one in kindergarten at the school said.<\/p>\n<p>The registration window runs from Jan. 20 through May 31.<\/p>\n<p>Parents are encouraged to register their children as soon as possible to ensure they have a spot.<\/p>\n<p>\n        More from CBS News\n      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s time to start getting ready for kindergarten and pre-kindergarten in Philadelphia.\u00a0 School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Tony&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,1998],"class_list":{"0":"post-87018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-philadelphia","9":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","10":"tag-philadelphia-news","11":"tag-school-district-of-philadelphia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}