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Back-to-School Checklist for 51���� Parents in 2025

The transition from summer to a new academic year can be both exciting and overwhelming for families. For public school parents, a clear back-to-school checklist ensures that students begin the year ready to thrive academically, socially, and emotionally. This guide highlights the essential steps parents should take in 2025 to prepare their children for a successful school year.

1. Confirm Enrollment and School Calendar

Before shopping for supplies or signing up for extracurriculars, confirm your child’s school enrollment details. Double-check start dates, early dismissal days, teacher assignments, and district-wide breaks. Most public schools publish updated academic calendars on district websites in early summer. Staying informed helps parents avoid scheduling conflicts and ensures students don’t miss critical orientation days.

Pro Tip: Many schools now use parent portals like PowerSchool or Infinite Campus to share student schedules, transportation information, and announcements.

2. Health Requirements and Immunizations

Back-to-school season is the ideal time to schedule wellness visits and ensure children meet all state-mandated immunizations. Requirements may vary by grade level; for example, many states require Tdap and meningococcal vaccines before middle or high school entry. Parents can check local requirements through resources like the.

Additionally, confirm that the school nurse has updated records of your child’s allergies, medications, and emergency contacts. In 2025, many districts continue to emphasize mental health screenings alongside physical wellness, so be prepared

Implementing the College Board's pre-SAT programs in small, rural school districts can be a powerful way to enhance college readiness and access for students who often face unique challenges. As educators and administrators, understanding how to effectively integrate these programs is crucial for maximizing their benefits. In this article, we'll explore the steps needed to implement the PSAT Suite of Assessments and SAT prep with Khan Academy, addressing the specific challenges faced by rural schools.

Introduction

• The College Board offers a range of programs designed to prepare students for the SAT, including the PSAT/NMSQT, PSAT 10, and PSAT 8/9.
• These assessments, combined with SAT prep resources from Khan Academy, provide a comprehensive approach to college readiness.
• For rural schools, these programs can be particularly valuable, as they help level the playing field by providing access to resources that might otherwise be out of reach.

Preparing for the PSAT Suite of Assessments

Implementing the PSAT Suite requires careful planning and coordination. Here are some key steps to consider:

PSAT/NMSQT

• Test Administration: Schedule the PSAT/NMSQT during the school day, typically for juniors, to prepare them for the SAT and National Merit Scholarships.
• Digital Format: Utilize the digital PSAT/NMSQT to streamline the testing process. This requires ensuring that your school's IT infrastructure can support the digital format, which offers faster scoring and more flexibility in administration.
• Accommodations: Ensure that accommodations are available for students with disabilities, such as extended time or assistive technology. This may involve working with your IT team to

Is Student-Based Funding Coming to Georgia Schools?

As schools look at various options to improve school and student performance, one variable consistently comes to the forefront – money. While many educators assert that bigger budgets could solve many of the problems in education today, politicians at all levels agree that more money is probably not needed in the foreseeable future for most school districts across the country. In place of more funding, some areas are now looking at different ways to allocate the money that is currently available. Student-based funding is the new buzzword for school districts interested in getting the money to the schools and students who need it most. Now, Georgia is joining the student-based funding bandwagon.

What is Student-Based Funding?

Student-based funding is a method of allotting funding to school districts and even individual schools based on the needs of individual students. This contrasts with traditional school funding determined by educational programs, creating an average amount spent on every student within a given district. Proponents of student-based funding argue that traditional funding results in disparities throughout the educational system, as schools with high-need students are left wanting resources. Student-based funding aims to reduce those disparities without needing additional money, which educators regularly champion.

This video offers a discussion of student-based funding.

According to the Annenberg Institute for School Reform website, student-based funding begins by assigning specific weights to each type of

In response to numerous changes made to the Detroit 51���� system this year, thousands of teachers in the district have received “pink slips” telling them they can reapply for their jobs this summer. With more than 4,000 teachers now unemployed for the upcoming school year, many are predicting that chaos will reign when students return to classrooms this fall. At the same time, district officials are attempting to reassure students and parents that the decision to lay off teachers is the best way to ensure they have sufficient teachers – and the right teachers – heading up classrooms at the beginning of the 2012-2013 school year.

"In this short video, Atlantic associate editor Alia Wong traces the history of Detroit 51����s—from a model for urban education at the turn of the century to a failing, debt-ridden system today."

Changes to the District Prompt Layoffs

One reason for the mass layoff is the many changes the Detroit school system will face in the upcoming school year. A new system, the Educational Achievement Authority, has been put in place to deal with schools that are consistently unable to perform at state standards. Under this system, 15 Detroit schools are slated to switch districts for the next school year, removing those schools from the Detroit 51���� system. All of those schools were classified as low-performing, according to state standards. This change involves approximately

With the first day of school still a clear memory and fall holidays right around the corner, the focus of many school districts is on a single obscure event that typically falls during the months of September or October. Count day is the one day of the school year that means everything to schools in terms of the amount of funding they receive. For every student that can be accounted for on this special day, funds are allotted for that school. During a time when school budgets are stretched well past their comfort levels, it is no wonder that count day is becoming bigger than any other day of the year for some school districts.

This video explains how student attendance affects school funding.

Why Count Day?

According to the , count day is the day when all the public schools in the state total up all of the students attending their schools. The event also occurs in other states, like Colorado and Indiana. On this day, the number of students tallied adds up to direct funding for the school. For example, every student counted on count day in Colorado brings an additional $6,400 into the school in which he is enrolled, according to data in the . In the Detroit 51���� system, every student accounted for on count day means more than $7,000