If you’re looking to enroll a first-time student in Duval Schools or switch schools for this coming fall, here’s what you need to know, with a Feb. 29 deadline quickly approaching for school choice parents.

First things first

Whether you’re enrolling in your neighborhood school or you want to take advantage of Florida’s expansive school choice options, the district asks that you apply online by creating a student account that will ultimately assign your child a unique student ID number. Before beginning, you’ll need to assemble some paperwork to upload with the application, like a certification of immunization from your pediatrician and proof of residence, like a JEA bill. (These can be photos or digital versions of the documents, so don’t worry if you don’t have a scanner handy.) 

If this is your first district enrollment, the process has been streamlined this year. Parents and guardians can secure a student account online. They would then enroll their student online. The third step would be to create your own parent/guardian Focus account, which will be linked to the student’s account. (This is where you’ll receive updates about your child’s academic progress eventually.)   

For more on linking parent and student accounts, check out the district’s instructions for new students, defined as students who’ve never been enrolled in a DCPS school before, including all children entering kindergarten. 

District officials say parents and guardians could also visit any DCPS school and assisted through this process.

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Enrolling in your neighborhood school? 

If you’re planning to send your child to the school for which your home is zoned, and it’s not a magnet school, you can rest easy: Application packets are available online now. Check your school zone here and check the academic ratings of your assigned school here. 

Though physical documents can be uploaded online, parents/guardians must go to their child’s school to verify the information that was uploaded. The enrollment process is not complete until a parent/guardian has finished the process on campus.

Want further options? 

Check out the district’s school choice catalog for all offerings and how to choose a school. 

Students who participate in the school choice program must first enroll in their neighborhood school, then enter the school choice process. Once approved for school choice, a student’s enrollment would transfer from the neighborhood school to that school choice campus.

The deadline for students enrolling in other schools, including lottery-based magnet programs, is Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024. In their Focus account, parents can apply for up to two magnet schools/programs and a “special transfer” option. Don’t wait until the last minute — excluding optional school site visits (more on that later), the school choice application process typically takes as long as three academic days to complete.

Still have questions about the process? You can make an appointment for an in-person meeting at the district’s School Choice Office, at 4037 Boulevard Center Drive, First Floor, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on weekdays.

You can also call the district’s school choice hotline at (904) 348-7777 (But heads up: The wait time can be quite long at this time of year.) 

Or you can attend one of two virtual info sessions offered by school choice staff, at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 22, and noon on Tuesday, Feb. 27.

What’s available 

Outside your school zone, you can apply for a charter (a public school that’s privately operated and free from certain regulations but still accountable for kids’ academic progress) by contacting the individual school you like, or apply for a different traditional public school (what the district refers to as a “special-option transfer” school). These can be magnet schools or simply “choice schools,” meaning they are outside your home zone. Here are some more definitions of all the options. 

Magnet schools

Magnets can provide curricula and special programming that allow students to pursue a variety of interests, like the arts or science, or specialize in skills like college prep or leadership. 

Magnets schools — like R.L. Brown Gifted and Talented Academy Elementary School, Landon Middle School and Stanton College Prep High School — generally do not have a specific zoned attendance area, though some neighborhood schools are also “whole school magnets,” such as Mayport Middle and Ed White High, which serve both neighborhood and transfer students. Riverside High School’s Engineering Academy and the Highlands Middle School Leadership and Finance Academy are examples of school-within-a-school magnet programs that require special applications. 

If the number of students who apply for a school/program exceeds the number of spots available, admission will be done by lottery. 

For magnet schools, several “priority” factors can weight a student’s chances in the lottery: they live near the magnet school; they are the children of active-duty military parents; their sibling attends the school already; their parents get a principal’s signature for attending an open house; or they live in a low-income neighborhood that qualifies them for a Title I magnet school. Program continuity is also taken into account for students applying for middle and high school choice programs.

Some magnet programs, like accelerated academics and arts programs, require minimum academic achievements or auditions to be accepted.  

Again, parents can apply for up to two magnet schools/programs and a special-option transfer (non-magnet school outside their zone) within their Focus account. Parents will be emailed in April with where their student was accepted. Students placed with their second-choice magnet school will not be added to the waitlist for their first-choice school. School assignments will be finalized over the summer as families make their choices and spots open on waitlists. 

The school board will decide whether to consolidate dedicated magnet schools R.V. Daniels Elementary and R.L. Brown Gifted and Talented School on March 5. The district’s director of school choice, Jacqueline Kelley, says students who are affected by the consolidation — if it’s approved — would be able to enter the school choice process even though it’s past the deadline.

High school acceleration programs

Nine DCPS high schools provide accelerated programs including Advanced International Certification of Education (AICE), Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) programs.

The deadline for applying for those programs was Jan. 18, 2024. 

AICE: Fletcher, Mandarin, and Raines

AP: Atlantic Coast and Baldwin  

IB: Terry Parker, Paxon, Stanton, and Wolfson

Baldwin, Ed White, First Coast, Ribault, Riverside, Sandalwood, Terry Parker, Westside and Raines all provide an option to complete an A.A. college degree as part of the district’s dual enrollment program. And Andrew Jackson and Englewood provide an option to earn an associate of science degree.

Who should apply?

You need to apply for a magnet school or special option transfer school by the Feb. 29 deadline if:

• Your child is entering the school for the first time;
• Your child is in their last year of elementary school (5th grade) or middle school (8th grade) and is looking to make a magnet or special option transfer choice for middle or high school;
• Your child wants to transfer to a school outside your school zone for this coming fall.

Clarification: Duval County Public Schools streamlined its school enrollment process for this academic year. The enrollment steps remained the same, but their order is different for the 2024-25 academic year than in previous years.