Hendricks Avenue Elementary is among the district's more than 140 schools and programs that will be represented at the School Enrollment Expo. | Jacksonville Today
Published on November 13, 2025 at 5:01 pm
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Now’s the time to start thinking about where to send your kids in the fall of 2026, Duval Schools says. The district is hosting the School Enrollment Expo on Saturday Downtown to showcase its 140 traditional VPK-12 schools.
Students always have a seat available at their zoned neighborhood school, but because Duval is a “choice district,” students can opt to attend any school with space available.
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The School Enrollment Expo comes as families interested in a different neighborhood school or one of the district’s many magnet programs can begin to enter Duval Schools’ lottery process on Dec. 1. The lottery runs through Jan. 31, 2026. High schoolers who want to enroll in one of the district’s acceleration programs next fall will also need to apply between Dec. 1 and Jan. 15, 2026.
Regan Copeland, the district’s enrollment marketing director, tells Jacksonville Today the last time the district did a similar event was January 2020.
“We all get to come back together under one roof, finally, again and work on doing something that we don’t do often enough — and that is bragging about the incredible things that are going on in our schools, the incredible things our students are doing, our teachers are implementing,” she says. “We just don’t do enough of it, and so I think this is an exciting time.”
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Copeland said advisors will be on hand on Saturday to help new students register for school on site.
“We’re so huge as a city, and Duval Schools is so huge as an agency, so we’re doing our best to bring that down into a more palatable size, taking things one small step at a time for all families,” Copeland says. “We’re opening our arms and trying to do a great job of communicating how to navigate our system.”
The number of students enrolled in Duval’s district-operated schools has trended downward in recent years — as enrollment in independently run, publicly funded charter schools has risen. Because charters are not operated by Duval Schools, they will not be part of Saturday’s event. Five years ago, the district had almost 127,000 students enrolled, 85% of whom were in traditional schools. Today, more than 130,000 students are enrolled district wide but only 79% attend traditional schools. Because student funding follows students, and the district receives about $9,000 per student from the state, the loss of about 4,000 students translates to more than $36 million.
“As an A-rated school district, we believe many families will find their neighborhood school is the ideal choice for their child,” Superintendent Christopher Bernier said in a statement announcing the expo.
Catching the bus
Whichever public school parents choose, the district will be offering transportation to it.
This month, Bernier said at a town hall that the district will not eliminate magnet program busing for the “foreseeable future” — which he later defined as continuing busing through the 2029-30 school year. That means incoming high school freshmen can depend on it for all four years of high school.
Bernier heard community outcry after earlier suggesting the district might discontinue cross-county transportation to magnet schools. He said in January it could save $12 million a year to eliminate magnet busing.
“The amount of money that we were going to save just didn’t turn out to be as much,” Bernier said at the town hall at Riverside High School.
The district operates numerous magnet programs — some of which are located within neighborhood schools and others that are at dedicated campuses.
How to attend
The Enrollment Expo is from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday at the Prime Osborn Convention Center. Limited free parking is available on site, but the district recommends parking at FSCJ’s Downtown Campus at the corner of State and Broad streets or at LaVilla Middle School of the Arts, 501 N. Davis St., and taking a free shuttle ride — aboard a school bus. Or families can park in the Kings Avenue Garage or at the district’s headquarters, 1701 Prudential Dr., and ride the Skyway to the Prime Osborn for free.
The event is free and open to the public.
