Parents of children set to enter kindergarten in the fall could run into roadblocks due to a recently approved state law.
The law standardizes the cutoff date for kindergarten enrollment in public schools across the state. Before, school districts could pick their cutoff dates as either Aug. 1 or Sept. 30. Now it must be the first day of school.
That means fewer children statewide will be able to enroll in kindergarten in the fall. In Cleveland, parents and caregivers won’t know for at least another month whether their child can enroll because the school board hasn’t approved the district’s calendar for next school year.
Another potential wrinkle is that the district is cutting seats in its pre-K program that could be open to students who don’t make the kindergarten cutoff or who want to enroll in pre-K for the first time.
Before the change, in Cleveland, students were able to enroll in kindergarten as long as they were five years old by Sept. 30, now it’s the first day of school, which shifts year to year. This year, the first day of school for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) was Aug. 12.
Statewide, around 5,000 fewer students will be able to go to kindergarten next year as a result of the law change, according to an analysis by the Ohio Legislative Services Commission. It is also estimated to reduce state spending on public education by nearly $50 million because state aid is mostly calculated on a per student basis.
CMSD families are choosing schools right now. So what does this change mean for them?
The state change creates uncertainty for CMSD families because the district hasn’t determined what the first day of school will be. Families with students who have birthdays in August and September can’t be sure they will be able to start kindergarten next year until that date is confirmed.
CMSD CEO Warren Morgan presented a draft school calendar at the Dec. 9 school board meeting. It proposes Aug. 28 as the first day of school for kindergarteners and Aug. 24 as the first day of school for all other students.
The calendar and start date needs to be approved by the school board, which will take at least a month because rules require a 30-day window to hear student, parent, staff and community feedback before voting.
In the meantime, the online portal for families to pick schools for next year opened on Jan. 5 and will remain open until Feb. 27. When asked about the change, CMSD spokesperson Jon Benedict said that, “when in doubt,” families should make a choice in the portal.
If parents and guardians think their student will be five by the first day of school, they should make a choice but be aware that, if the proposed start date shifts, students might not be able to start kindergarten.
CMSD will offer fewer pre-K seats next year
The change in state law comes at the same time that the district is reducing seats in its preschool program as part of its school consolidation plan. That has some teachers worried that families will be stuck without access to pre-K for their children — and other families without a kindergarten option in the district either.
Currently, the district has 2,214 pre-K seats and is planning to have 1,742 available seats for preschool next year — close to a 500-seat decrease. District leaders say that the planned decrease is based in part on this year’s preschool enrollment, which is 1,415 students across the district.
This year, the enrollment process for CMSD preschool had a number of hiccups due to changes to the state’s child care benefit application; teachers reported emptier-than-normal classrooms. By contrast, in the 2024-2025 school year, 97% of the district’s 2,149 preschool seats were full, according to statistics shared by PRE4CLE, an organization dedicated to expanding high-quality preschool options in Cleveland.
Of the pre-K seats available next year, more might be designated for preschoolers with special education needs — students CMSD is required to provide pre-K to. The Cleveland Teachers Union has calculated that the shift from general education classrooms to co-taught preschool classrooms could result in around 700 fewer general education preschool seats.
President Shari Obrenski sees the reduction as an effect of the district leaders mainly focusing on K-12 students in general education settings when they put together the consolidation plan.
“I was concerned prior to the vote on the facilities plan, that the facilities plan was not fully addressing all of our children,” Obrenski said. “It was not addressing our special education kids, and it certainly wasn’t taking into account preschool.”
District leaders have said they are prepared to change the plan for preschool if needed.
“If we have an influx of [pre-K] students that is higher than our historical trend, we will of course look at opening up more seats if necessary,” Anna Turner, deputy chief of Teaching and Learning, wrote to Signal Cleveland. “We are basing our capacity off of our current enrollment of [pre-K] students.”
