William Tell Elementary hosts winter carnival to welcome future kindergartners

William Tell Elementary used a winter carnival to introduce future kindergartners to the Tell City campus and make the move into school feel less intimidating for families. The school’s May 28 live-feed posts showed staff leaning into outreach with repeated references to the WTE Winter Carnival and their excitement about meeting incoming students.

That kind of hands-on welcome matters at a time when schools are preparing to close one year and build enrollment for the next. For children, seeing the building, meeting adults and walking into a friendly setting can turn kindergarten from an unknown into something familiar. For parents, the event offered an early look at how William Tell Elementary is approaching that transition with personal contact rather than a packet of paperwork.

The school sits at 1235 31st Street in Tell City and serves students in PreK through sixth grade. Indiana GPS lists 744 students enrolled and a 57% free and reduced lunch rate, a snapshot that shows many families in the building benefit from accessible, school-based support. Indiana GPS also tracks kindergarten readiness as a headline indicator for William Tell, which makes early family outreach especially relevant for children who are just starting their school careers.

William Tell Elementary also promotes itself as one of southern Indiana’s only STEM-certified elementary schools. The school says its program includes a K-6 hands-on science curriculum, a VEX Robotics program and a free after-school program. Those offerings, combined with a public event designed for younger children and their parents, show a school trying to connect academic identity with everyday community trust.

The Tell City-Troy Township School Corp. has also expanded how it reaches families, including a new app that provides documents, events, news updates and emergency notifications. For parents trying to plan ahead, the district says William Tell Elementary can be reached at (812) 547-9727. The broader message from the carnival was straightforward: before kindergarten begins, the school wants children to recognize the building, know the faces inside it and start the year feeling like they already belong.