Enrollment open at 170 schools for out-of-boundary students

Parents who aren’t thrilled about their neighborhood school have dozens of other schools in the Broward district to pick from for next year.

About 170 schools will accept students from beyond their boundaries.

About half of the district’s A schools have room to take additional students, while about 70 percent of B schools and about 90 percent of C schools are accepting applicants. All D and F schools have availability.

Just about 12 percent of the schools open for enrollment are A schools.

This may be slightly disappointing for some, such as Pompano Beach parent Kelly Keller, who had hoped to send her two youngsters to Cooper City Elementary. The school does not have room for outof-boundary students next year.

Broward County Public Schools has long allowed parents to shop around for schools that are not filled to capacity. They can only accept students that they have room for, so schools that receive too many applicants select them though an elec- tronic random system.

Schools also accept students for specific magnet programs if there is room, and most require the students to meet required minimum grade point averages and test scores to qualify. Magnet programs offer indepth education on specific areas of student interest.

Twenty-six of the schools accepting out-of-boundary students for next year are only taking magnet program kids, while 136 are accepting applications for any students.

A few technical schools and the Nova schools, which have a separate application processes, are also accepting students. The Nova schools are four highly-rated schools that have no boundaries; every student must apply to get in.

Parents have until Feb. 8 to file

requests.

It’s more difficult to grab a seat at some of the highest-performing schools because their communities are so dense with families that there is seldom room to add students from outside their boundaries.

Parents, though, choose schools for many reasons other than letter grades. In fact, some of the most popular schools for transfer students this year have Cs.

This year, more than 700 students at J.P Taravella High in Coral Springs came from other schools’ territories through the general school choice application process. It’s a C school, but its theater program draws students from all over the county, said Leslie Brown, the district’s chief portfolio services officer.

Coral Springs High, which has attracted almost as many, collects businesssavvy types. The number of students landing industry certifications there continues to grow, she said. And at Plantation High, another C school, an aviation and aeronautics program draws interest, Brown said. About 500 attend through the general school choice program.

“What we do see is a lot of grass roots, student-tostudent, parent-to-parent sharing the good news about these schools,” Brown said.