No line at Sage when at 1:30pm (well, had to wait about 30 seconds for one person in front of me). The principle at Sage said at the orientation last week that for kids signed up during the “first wave” (which ends June 15th), they haven’t had to turn anyone from the geographic boundary ever during the past 7 years. The only time they’ve had to is when kids are signed up in late summer. So I would interpret this as follows: move in and register by June 15th and you are almost (but not completely) guaranteed to get into your geographically assigned school, but after June 15th your chances go down as time goes on. By August you’ll likely get stuck wherever they still happen to have room in the district.

They do let you register without immunization being up-to-snuff – my kid’s immunization card isn’t up to date (I forgot it last time we went to the doctor, so kid IS up-to-date, but just the card isn’t). They photocopied the yellow card as-is and took all the rest of my paperwork with no problem – they just noted on my sheet that I was missing the last round of boosters. I headed over to the doctors office and I’ll have the updated card in about a week – but they said I had until school starts to get it in. I also didn’t have the medical form from the doctor or the “oral health” from the dentist. Again, they said we’re fine as long as I get them in by the time school starts.

I also didn’t have the exact items required for proof of residency. The sheet says they need a phone bill (not cell phone either) or water bill + lease or deed. We just moved in a couple weeks back (yes – we’re one of the apparently very few people who actually bought a new construction house in February). I had a copy of my deed and only a Time Warner Cable Internet bill printed out from the TWC website. We don’t have a land line (well, we have Vonage, so sort of a land line, but no bill yet), and first water bill hasn’t come. They took the web-printed TWC internet bill + copy of the deed with no problem.

So it was relatively painless – in and out in 10 minutes including the separate “line” (one person ahead of me) for the after school program registration. Of course filling out all the forms and hunting for birth certificate and immunization card is a bit tedious and you’ll want to have done that in advance.