Major change in South Florida school choices for 2017
A new state law that becomes effective on January 1, will enable South Florida students to attend any public school on the region, if space is available at the school a parent would like to send their child.
Prior to this, parents were restricted to sending students to public schools designated by the residential address of the students. However, it was found that several parents tried, and succeeded, in circumventing the system by using the address of friends and relatives to send their children to preferred schools outside of these parent’s residential school zone.
A possible downside of the new law is that parents or students will not be eligible for transportation by county school districts if students attend school in another county.
Jamaican-American Delores Lewis, whose children attend high school in Coral Gables, Florida, said she is “overjoyed” with the new arrangement. “I wanted my kids to attend a school with less of a Spanish influence than they are receiving at their current school in Miami. I have found such a school in Southwest Miami, and the kids, and my husband and myself are very happy with this.”
On the other hand, another Caribbean-American parent Lilly Mckenzie who lives in North Miami, has been trying to have her two Middle-school sons transferred from a school in Miami Gardens to another in Miramar, but the schools she has in mind have no space to accept her sons. “Mckenzie said, “I have no problems in transporting the boys to and from school, but they won’t be able to transfer for the next semester, as the schools I want them to go have long waiting lists.”
The Broward County school district have announced a policy indicating it will not enroll students from outside the school district to any school where enrollment is 102 percent or more of capacity.
List of schools with available capacity in Broward County will be released by the end of November, and applicants can be submitted to these schools as of December 1.
While schools in the Broward County School district have been receiving admission requests from parents and students in Miami-Dade, parents from Broward County are also trying to transfer their kids to schools in Palm Beach County. However, the Palm Beach County School District recently announced it will make the list of schools with available space for students seeking to transfer from outside the district in January, but new applications will not be accepted before April, 2017.
The Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County school districts will offer the priority for transfer to new schools to students residing in the county rather than those from other counties, depending on space availability.
