Preparing for schooling starts long before children enter the classroom, so the Long Beach Unified School District is hosting its annual Early Learning & Kindergarten Festival over the next two months to get the entire family ready.

LBUSD has been hosting the festival for 15 years, and the first event of this year’s festival will be held this Saturday at Dooley Elementary School. The festival will also include a virtual session and another in-person event next month.

“It’s a very festive atmosphere,” said Kris Damon, LBUSD’s assistant director of early childhood and expanded learning opportunities program.

Damon added that events like this are rare.

“Some districts will have a one-time kindergarten information session,” she said, “but we’ve actually had a district from the Sacramento area come visit our Kindergarten Festival because they wanted to do something similar for their community.”

The Early Learning & Kindergarten Festival is presented in partnership with the Long Beach Early Childhood Education Committee and gets support from local agencies such as the Rotary Club, the Children’s Dental Clinic and the National Council of Jewish Women.

Each festival has the same sessions and workshops for guardians and their children including math, reading, early learning programs, school readiness, information about Spanish dual immersion programs for transitional kindergarten through eighth grade and how to apply through the school of choice process.

“A lot of families will come with both partners, and one partner will go to the district information session and the other partner will take the child to the hands-on session,” Damon said. “Parents should bring something to take notes and their child to participate in the interactive sessions. Both the math and reading sessions are geared towards parents to understand what pre-skills look like and can be part of your everyday interactions at home.”

LBUSD never held a virtual festival until the COVID-19 shutdowns forced them to do so, but Damon and the LBECEC are bringing it back this year in order to spread more vital information.

“We do it live on YouTube so parents are able to ask questions,” Damon said. “And because it lives on YouTube, we’ve had thousands of visits to that page where parents can access that information any time they needed, and we’ve had positive responses to that, so we’ll do it again.”

The festival had always been for prospective students ages 4 and 5, but now they’re expanding the age range to younger children as well.

“We just want to encompass the big picture of early childhood education,” Damon said.

There will also be agency tables at the festivals for groups like the Long Beach Public Library, the YMCA and others.

Parents who go to at least two sessions at the festivals will receive a free backpack and school supplies for their prospective students entering pre-k or kindergarten.

The first event will be held from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, Jan. 21, at Dooley Elementary School, 5075 Long Beach Blvd. There will also be a virtual session from 6 to 7 p.m. on Feb. 2 and a second in-person event from 9 a.m. to noon on Feb. 25 at Burcham Elementary School, 5610 E. Monlaco Road. Find more information here.