For the first time, parents with kindergarten-age children in Chinook’s Edge School Division will be able to register their youngsters online starting this week.
The culmination of a several years of planning, the new online system has been tried out in three area schools over the past several months and has now been expanded division-wide starting on Jan. 21.
The new system will streamline the kindergarten registration process and make better use of staff resources, says superintendent Kurt Sacher.
“Our first goal and our first hope is that this is the first contact so many parents have with our jurisdiction and we want to make it easy for parents,” said Sacher. “In today’s day and age everything is done online. This co-ordinates several department so (parents) have just one entry point.”
“And there is a spinoff benefit for us in that there is less data entry for our staff and we think it will reduce some of time there, so our people can spend their time on some other things in our schools and jurisdiction.”
There are about 930 kindergarten students registered in Chinook’s Edge this school year.
In order for the kindergarten student registration system to be brought online, principals and administration support teams needed to learn and embed several online practices over the past few years, said Karyn Barber, associate superintendent of system services.
The online registration forms will be looked after by office staff at each school, with principals retaining their traditional role of approving registration for all students coming into their school, she said.
Ted Harvey is the technology director with Chinook’s Edge.
“We are confident our families will be pleased with this process,” Harvey said. “It simply makes it easier for parents to enrol their kids and they can do it anytime, anywhere.
“The process provides the opportunity for them to arrange an appointment to meet the principal, too, because a digital calendar will come up as part of the online registration.”
Registration for all grades in Chinook’s Edge can now be done online.
