Check your emails! The Choice program lottery results will be sent to your inbox at 4:00 pm today.
The Palm Beach County School district opens their Choice program application each year from November – January for in-house and choice programs in over 100 elementary, middle, and high schools across the county. Programs such as Dual Language, International Baccalaureate, and Culinary.
As always, there are few key points and dates to remember. The most important is April 16th.
Families who have received a seat, first or the rare second choice, will have only until April 16th to accept or decline the seat. If a seat is neither accepted nor declined by April 16th, end of day, the seat will automatically decline for the applying student.
If the seat is declined, the student should plan on attending their zoned school, per the school district. There will be another opportunity but few seats will be allocated during this period of open enrollment called Controlled Open Enrollment, which is also conducted by lottery.
If a family declines the first choice seat, the student will not be able to automatically accept the second choice seat. The second choice becomes null and void once a first choice seat has been awarded. This is a common misnomer and should be stressed to those unfamiliar of the lottery process.
Parents should be aware also, by accepting a seat, families are also engaging in a contract with the school in which students are expected to perform, participate, and adhere to the school's code of conduct. Understanding the policies of the school before accepting will be worthwhile to avoid headache if a problem may arise.
Many of families will find their student in what’s called the "wait pool." The wait pool means they are kept on a waiting list for their first choice school program, meaning there were more applications than seats available. Numbers for more popular school programs could hold wait lists of 100’s of eligible students. Depending upon the student’s number on the waitlist, a seat may still be assigned to wait-listed students over the summer. Which means, keep the faith!
During this emotional roller coaster of acceptance or decline, families statistically decide to move over the summer break.
This is merely to accommodate this decision to be in a different school zone if their student was not accepted or to move closer to the school of the seat acceptance. As a real estate agent with school-age children, I completely understand the needs of my client’s school needs. Genesis Residential, a licensed brokerage firm, specializes in transferring families, renting or buying, to the school zone that best fits the needs of their students.
For for FAQ information about the Choice program please visit: The PBC School District Choice Programs website
