Back to school
The turn from summer
Summer was not a gap in the learning; it was the oldest classroom there is. Now the year turns, and this page holds the turn: the right first page for your child’s age, the district calendars as they are gathered, and the moves that work everywhere.
¿Empezando el año escolar? Ayuda en español, aquí.
Vào năm học mới? Trợ giúp bằng tiếng Việt, ở đây.
Sanad dugsiyeed cusub? Caawimaad af Soomaali ah, halkan.
In your language
The pages of this library are written in English for now, and their translations are with community reviewers before they land here. Two things already work in your language, today.
Ask the Librarian. Write your question in your own language and the answer comes back in it, with the English alongside for the school file and the front office. Twenty-five languages, and any other you name. Ask now →
The season packets print in any home. They are in English, and a family reading them with a translation app, a cousin, or the Librarian at their elbow still gets the whole year’s moves: Back to School, The Other School Supplies, The Meeting Season.
And when you want books rather than school-year help, the Open Shelf keeps them: libros en español · sách tiếng Việt.
These lines are a first pass, written by machine and waiting for the community reviewers who will make them right. The Librarian’s answers carry the same promise: immediate so nobody waits, with a human review whenever either side asks.
The right first page, by age
Starting school
PreK into elementary · around ages 4 to 6
The elementary years
Grades K to 5 · around ages 5 to 11
The middle school doorway
Grade 5 into 6 · around ages 10 to 12
The middle years
Grades 6 to 8 · around ages 11 to 14
The high school doorway
Grade 8 into 9 · around ages 13 to 15
The high school years
Grades 9 to 12 · around ages 14 to 18
- The welcome letter in your own voice: the year meets you knowing who you are
- From a home in another language: your second first language, named with pride
- My page, in my verbs: the one-pager is yours now
- You Were Never the Number: for the years you are in
- The S is for Student: the PTSA chair that is yours to sit in, and the seats with a real vote
Eighteen and beyond
Ages 18 to 22 and onward
Every station holds more than its first page: the whole map, and the Back-to-School packet, eight pages read aloud in three minutes each, one a week from late summer through the first conferences.
In every district, starting today
While the calendars below are gathered, three moves work in any district in any language. Ask the front office who your school’s family liaison is, by name; most schools have one, and the front office is always the right first call. Request an interpreter for any meeting when you schedule it, plainly and without apology; it is your right, and asking early is what makes it work. And send the one-page introduction the first week, before anything is needed, so the file meets your child in your words first.
Find your district, anywhere in Washington
Anywhere in Washington: give the finder your ZIP code, your city, your school’s name, or your tribal community, in any language, and it will name the district that serves you and the doors that are always true. Keep asking below; the conversation continues.
The finder says how sure it is and points to the district’s own site and OSPI’s directory for certainty; the front office is always the right first call. The conversation travels with each request from this device and is stored nowhere on our side; the library tallies only that its finder was used, and in which language.
For Native families: your doors run deeper than the district office, and they are yours by right. OSPI’s Office of Native Education supports Native students and families statewide. Many districts run a Title VI Indian Education program (ask the district office for it by that name), some communities are served by State-Tribal Education Compact schools, and your tribe’s own education department holds doors no state office does. And Since Time Immemorial, Washington’s tribal sovereignty curriculum, is required in public schools: any family may ask any school how it is being taught.
This library builds tribal community cards only in relationship, with each nation’s own hand on the card; until then, the doors above are named because they are public and true, and the finder can walk you toward them.
Back-to-school events, district by district
The rule of this shelf: an event appears only after a steward has verified it against the district’s own calendar, with the date checked, because a family who drives to a fair that moved is a family this page failed. The gathering is under way.
Seattle Public Schools
Being gathered for this fall. Until it lands here: the district’s own website and your school’s front office hold the calendar, and the office can say it in your language through the district’s interpreter line.
Highline Public Schools
Being gathered for this fall. Until it lands here: the district’s own website and your school’s front office hold the calendar, and the office can say it in your language through the district’s interpreter line.
Renton School District
Being gathered for this fall. Until it lands here: the district’s own website and your school’s front office hold the calendar, and the office can say it in your language through the district’s interpreter line.
Kent School District
Being gathered for this fall. Until it lands here: the district’s own website and your school’s front office hold the calendar, and the office can say it in your language through the district’s interpreter line.
Tukwila School District
Being gathered for this fall. Until it lands here: the district’s own website and your school’s front office hold the calendar, and the office can say it in your language through the district’s interpreter line.
Federal Way Public Schools
Being gathered for this fall. Until it lands here: the district’s own website and your school’s front office hold the calendar, and the office can say it in your language through the district’s interpreter line.
Holding a flyer for a back-to-school event or resource fair? Send it and we will verify and shelve it, in the languages it comes in: hello@goodprotocols.org. And the community resources page holds the organizations that walk with families all year: PAVE, Open Doors, Kindering, Neighborhood House, and more.