If you have a child who’s going to start kindergarten next fall — or maybe is still a year out, but you’re already thinking way ahead — there’s an event tonight you won’t want to miss. The 10th annual West Seattle Kindergarten Fair, 6-9 pm in the Brockey Center at South Seattle Community College (which, yes, if you haven’t been there, IS in West Seattle). Organizers gather principals, teachers, and parents from public and private schools around West Seattle, so you can talk with them to find out more. Kay Yano, a WSB’er who’s been in kindergarten-choosing shoes, confirms it’s a don’t-miss:

With the confusion and abundance of information that School Choice often brings, it is worth going to the Kindergarten Fair just in order to have all the options in one place at one time and to clarify which schools you have to go visit in person. I know that you made mention of it in the calendar of events, but it is really such an important event for those parents of 4 and 5 years olds that I thought that I would bring it to your attention. It is also early enough in the year that not everyone who is facing Kindergarten in the fall is quite focused on that decision yet to have even looked for something like the fair. It is put on by the Co-op Preschool Program that is based out of the SCCC Campus, but it is free and open to the public. It is also at a different time than it has been in the past, it has always been on Saturdays, and people may not be looking for it to happen on a weeknight, so it might sneak by them accidentally and a reminder would probably be helpful.

I went when my daughter was a year out from Kindergarten, and it was TOTALLY OVERWHELMING, and I left informed and exhausted, but it gave me info to chew on for a year before I really had to make my decisions, and then went again when it was getting to be choice time when she was 4. I love the school that she attends and that was really where I clarified much of my thinking about what we as a family needed out of a school.

If you haven’t been to SSCC before, here’s a map to its location in east West Seattle. WSB school resources: List of all public and private West Seattle schools, with web links and maps, here; school discussion opportunities in the forums here.