Kindergarten Registration Process Begins Today

Parents in West Deptford can begin to make appointments to register their child for kindergarten on Tuesday morning.

Kindergarten Registration Process Begins Feb. 19

Parents in West Deptford can begin to make appointments to register their child for kindergarten on Tuesday morning.

Registration for kindergarten in West Deptford may not be until April, but parents will need to make their appointments to enroll their child very soon. Starting on Tuesday, Feb. 19 at 8 a.m., parents can call the West Deptford School District's curriculum office at 856-848-4300, ext. 3214 to make an appointment to register their child for kindergarten at any of the three elementary schools. Registration for new kindergarten students for the 2013-14 school year will take place on April 9, 10 and 11. However, parents must make an appointment in advance to register their child on one of those days. After making an appointment for registration, parents will be mailed a packet with all of the information about the registration process. All of …

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Vignettes

Want to Hear Something Really Scary About West Deptford?

From pumpkin patches to zombie nights, the township is alive with fall festivities.

The signs are lurking around every corner, ready to pounce with a shouted, “Boo!” My kids have dotted the lawn with silly gravestones, and a plastic count with graying fangs greets us at our front door. There are cobwebs on my neighbor’s bushes and toilet paper floating in their trees.  Ah, yes, 'tis the season. The haunting season. Actually, I don’t know when Halloween became a season. When I was in my “trick or treat” stage, Halloween was just one day—one very long day, marked with treks around our neighborhood, our friends’ neighborhoods, our grandparents’ neighborhoods and then, finally, whatever neighborhood had the latest curfew. We’d wear out sneakers and burst the seams on pillowcases in our never-ending pursuit of a full-size …

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Former Grads Help Out Newcomers at West Deptford's Safety Town

Graduates of the program return to guide younger generations through their lessons in Safety Town.

Big Wheels aren’t just for fun any more. Welcome to West Deptford’s Safety Town, a free summer program where parents can gain piece of mind knowing their young ones are taught about real world dangers and how to avoid them. Big Wheels are teaching tools here, and Red Bank Elementary School is a miniature suburbia, where the kids can ride through streets, practice stopping at stop signs and watch for pedestrian traffic—courtesy of fellow classmates. But that’s not all these kindergartners will learn while attending Safety Town. Students can expect to find out things about health, fire safety, playground safety, bicycle safety and more. Guest speakers are also brought in, such as local police officers to talk about “stranger danger.” The …

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West Deptford Pen-Pals Go High-Tech

To help connect different classes in Red Bank and Green-Fields, teachers used video-chatting software for pen-pals to ask each other questions.

Kristy McGlinn’s second-graders at Red Bank Elementary School and Lauren Uzdavinis’s fourth-graders at Green-Fields Elementary have been pen-pals for the entire year, writing back and forth the old-fashioned way. On Thursday, the students went a little more advanced than traditional pen-and-paper, video chatting in their first Skype session, and were able to finally see each other and ask questions about Green-Fields, where the second-graders will be attending next year. With West Deptford set up in grade-level schools, incorporating Skype–a program that allows for free video-chatting between users–for the class buddies between the grades is something the school district hopes will ease the transition between buildings for the students. “…

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Solar Energy Debuts at Red Bank Elementary

A windfall for the district, the project will save on utility costs and generate revenue.

For the 300 students who attend the Red Bank Elementary School, the sun's light is doing more than just brightening their classrooms–it's running their computers and lighting the hallways, thanks to the addition of new solar panels on the school's roof. In addition to clean energy, the panels will generate $25,000 per year for the West Deptford School District in the form of utility cost savings and revenue, according to Superintendent Kevin A. Kitchenman. The price tag on the solar panel project was $295,000, but the school district didn't pay a dime. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection funded the project with money received as part of a settlement with Sunoco, which operates the Eagle Point refinery in West Deptford …

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