At last week’s school board meeting we took time to recognize the work done by the staff in our New Student Welcome Center, or, as it’s more commonly known, the registration office. In August they registered more than 1,000 new students, and also handled changes on more than 2,000 students who were already registered. Every one of those actions involved working one-on-one with a parent  in person. Then they worked late into the night to enter it all into our computers.

At one time a parent would register a child at the school he or she would be attending. We now have a centralized registration office in the Fairfield School District, because as the laws and regulations that pertain to registering for school have grown in complexity it helps to have employees who deal with it every day and become expert at handling all the potential intricacies involved.

Pat Glauer is the head of the registration office, a position she’s held for six years. She has a full-time staff of just two individuals, Kellie Dixon and Vicki Trout. Kellie has worked there full time for three years, and before that subbed for our district in clerical positions for many years. Vicki has worked for the district for four years, the last two in the registration office.

During the registration crush they’re assisted by two other district employees. Martha Molina, who speaks English and Spanish fluently, is an aide in ESL classrooms during the schoolyear. And Funmi Williams, one of our bus drivers, also helps in August. Funmi, remarkably, taught herself Spanish and now speaks it fluently. Having these bilingual employees has been a tremendous help in our registration office.

During the height of the registration rush, they put in heroic effort and hours. The office maintains a “no-wait” policy, which means if any of these employees are at their desk entering registration information into the computer, and a parent comes in the door and up to the counter, someone gets up immediately to help them. Of course, if all five of them are already at the counter helping parents, then sometimes waiting is inevitable.

They do it with a smile on their face and a wonderful caring spirit. Family lives are often complicated, and the paperwork required to verify residency, custody, vaccinations, previous school records, etc., can be daunting and often, to parents, frustrating. Working through this with parents with empathy and patience is what makes these employees so valued.

As we’re registering new students, others are withdrawing from the district. Our net increase this year in enrollment is about 250 students. In most recent years we’ve seen net increases of only about 50 students. We had to quickly hire two additional first-grade teachers because of the big jump in enrollment.

We welcome all our new families, and we’re glad their first interaction with our district is with the employees in our New Student Welcome Center. It’s a great place to start.

Published in the Fairfield Echo, Sept. 17, 2009.