A child must be at least 5 years old (for DCS, by September 30 of the year they start school) to enter kindergarten or 6 years old to enter first grade. Compulsory school age, or the minimum age in which a child must be enrolled in and attend school, is age 6. A family can choose to wait until a child turns 6 before enrolling the child in kindergarten.

We are pleased that you have chosen to enroll your student in Dublin City Schools. The district enrolls all new students, including kindergarteners, using an online application called Registration Gateway. Please visit our Enrollment Process page for instructions on using Registration Gateway to enroll your student. To learn what documentation is needed for enrollment, visit our Required Documentation page.

Note: Preschoolers currently enrolled at Dublin City Schools DO NOT need to enroll again. Please let the staff at Dublin City Schools Preschool know that you want your child enrolled to kindergarten and they will process the enrollment.

Kindergarten Information Night is scheduled for Tuesday, April 18, 2023 from 6:30-7:30 pm at each elementary school.

Kindergarten at Dublin City Schools is half-day (AM or PM). AM kindergarten runs from 9:10-11:50 am and PM kindergarten runs from 1-3:40 pm.

In early August, you will be notified by email of your child’s kindergarten assignment (AM or PM).

ALL Kindergarten students are offered bus transportation at the mid-day.  If students are eligible for a neighborhood bus, they are transported both ways. Our Transportation team will be present at each school's “Meet the Teacher” open house sessions (usually the week school starts) for any questions regarding transportation.

Our Immunization Requirements form includes all immunizations required for school attendance.

To exempt a student from the immunization requirements, families must submit a completed Immunization Exemption form. The Immunization Exemption form can be found on our Medical/Health Services Forms page.

We recommend working on the following skills with your kindergartener to help prepare them for school.

• Count objects to 100 and read numbers in the world around us

• Learn to say their full name and write their first name

• Name objects with a specific attribute, for example name something blue in your house or something that is shaped like a square

• Listen to a story and retell it in your own words

• Put a puzzle together

• Tie shoes, button buttons, zip zippers, snap snaps

• Say the alphabet and practice capital and lowercase letters

• Play rhyming games

The Ohio Department of Education also has several great resources available on their website for kindergarten readiness.

Getting Ready for Kindergarten

Kindergarten Readiness Assessment FAQs

Yes. Ohio law requires children in this state go to kindergarten. Districts cannot admit a child to first grade who has not completed kindergarten unless the district has admitted the child for early entrance to first grade, which means skipping kindergarten.

A home-school student is not a district student. While a family may choose to home school a child at any age, it must notify the district of residence of the decision to home school a child only if that child is of compulsory school age. Still, a family can notify the district it is homeschooling a student when the student is age 4 or 5, if it chooses. Once the family notifies the district that it plans to home school a student, the district will consider that student to be of compulsory school age.

For example, if a child turns 5 in October and has been registered for home school as a kindergartener, the child must be registered as a student (home school or otherwise) again in the following school year, even though the child will not quite be 6 years old. At the end of kindergarten, the parent must give the district a written document or test score to show the child’s progress and readiness to move to the next grade level. If the parent chooses to enroll a child in a public or private school, the written document or test score may be used to determine the child’s grade placement.

Early admission, or early entrance, occurs when a district evaluates a child who is not yet old enough to enter kindergarten or first grade and admits the child to either grade early because the child is capable of succeeding in one of these grades. When granted early entrance to first grade, a child does not attend kindergarten.

All public schools are required to adopt acceleration policies, which are policies for advancing children to the next grade early. These include policies for granting kindergarten-aged students early entrance to school. For information about Acceleration and Early Entrance to Kindergarten at Dublin City School, visit our Gifted Services Acceleration page.