By Bill Husfelt, Superintendent, Bay District Schools
Bay District Schools has a robust school choice program, and I’m pleased to announce that the application window is now open (for more information about applying for school choice and registering for kindergarten, please see the graphic).
While I am an ardent advocate for all of our schools and for public education as a whole, I also support the concept of school choice. In a perfect world, all parents should be able to choose where their children attend school, and I know that many families put a lot of time and effort into researching the best schools for their children.
School choice, however, is 100 percent dependent upon availability, and it’s no secret that some of our schools are already at capacity due to new construction and development in their zones. That means, unfortunately, that some of our schools are closed to school choice simply because there aren’t any more seats available. If you log into Parent Portal to begin a school choice application and don’t see your desired school listed as an option, that’s because it’s already at enrollment capacity. The state sets very strict limits on class sizes, and we must follow those rules.
With that in mind, I do want to assure you that we do all we can to ensure that siblings are able to attend the same schools, and we remain 100 percent committed to supporting our military families when it comes to school choice. But, unfortunately, we can’t always approve all of the requests because some of our schools are already at capacity.
If you are interested in school choice, please do submit your application during the open enrollment window so we can take a look at your request and see how we can help. Once school choice decisions are finalized, there will also be a brief period of hardship applications for those whose school choice requests were not able to be honored. Again, we know this is a BIG decision for many families, and we want to do all we can to accommodate special requests.
Thank you for your continued partnership… we appreciate your support and encouragement more than you will ever know.
Stay safe and God Bless!
