Open enrollment application process for LAUSD begins today

Applications for open enrollment transfers in the Los Angeles Unified School District for the 2010-11 school year will begin today.

According to the LAUSD's state-mandated open enrollment policy, students anywhere in the district can apply to any regular, grade-appropriate Los Angeles public school with designated open enrollment seats.

By today, all schools will have reference lists in their main office with the names of the campuses with open enrollment seats available in 2010-11, as well as the number of seats available at each site.

The deadline for applications is June 1.

While the final numbers are still being determined for the coming year, the LAUSD expects about 10,000 seats to be available at some 250 schools. Last year, the District had 9,500 open seats at 186 schools.

The LAUSD does not provide bus transportation for the open enrollment program. District officials suggested that parents take into account the drive between their home and the schools to which they hope to transfer their children.

Open enrollment transfers are granted on a space-available basis only. No student living in a particular school's attendance area will be displaced by a student requesting an open enrollment transfer.

A new application must be submitted when an open enrollment transfer student is ready to move from one school level – from elementary to middle school, for example – to the next.

Because of limited space, enrollment at the next school level in the regular feeder pattern is not guaranteed through the open enrollment process, and the student must reapply and be selected in a random drawing if space is limited.

When the application is completed with the signature of the principal, or a designated alternate, for information purposes only at the current school of attendance, the application can be dropped off or mailed to the requested school site.

Parents or guardians may apply for open enrollment transfers to as many schools as they wish. If they are applying to send several children to the same school, they must complete an application for each child.

After June 1, schools with more applications than seats available will hold random-selection drawings on June 4 to determine who will get invitations to enroll.

Schools where applications have been submitted will notify parents/guardians of drawing locations and times. Parents and guardians may attend the drawings if they wish.

After all open-enrollment seats at a school are allocated, the drawing will continue with the remaining applications. The applicants' names will be put on a numbered waiting list in the order drawn.

If a student in the initial group decides not to enroll, then everyone moves up on the waiting list. If one sibling's name is drawn for a transfer, then all siblings who applied to the same school will be granted transfers also.

The district asks that parents who have applied to, and received enrollment invitations from, more than one school notify the other schools when they have made a decision about which school their child will attend. That will enable the school to make another seat available.

For schools with open enrollment space remaining, the deadline to apply will be Friday, Sept. 24. Parents may apply to those schools as long as seats are available, even if their children were not chosen to attend other schools under the earlier open enrollment application process.

Once the September deadline has passed, no new applications will be accepted for the 2010-11 school year.

Open enrollment transfers are valid until a student completes the final grade level at the school where the transfer is granted. Students must reapply if they want to transfer to a different school, including matriculation from one school level to the next.

For more information about open enrollment transfers, parents can call
the Office of School Operations at (213) 241-5337. Information is also posted at http://www.lausd.net.