To All Families Planning to Enroll in HISD in the 2024-2025 School Year:

We are excited to announce some important updates to the School Choice Application and Enrollment process for the 2024-2025 school year. This information applies to current families as well as families interested in applying to HISD.

1. Thank you to the more than 11,000 families that provided feedback on the school choice enrollment and application process. We value your input, and it shaped the application and enrollment process for next year.

• Parents value high quality choices and do not want them to be limited. All schools, including magnets, will be included in the choice process, and parents will continue to be able to rank up to ten school options on their application.
• Parents had positive perceptions of the school choice application and lottery. HISD will make no major changes to the application, the lottery, or transportation supports.
• Parents want improved communications to learn about schools and to understand how the process works. We will train all campus leadership in the school choice process, provide parent training options, support parent visits to schools, launch ongoing family enrollment events and completely review the School Choice website and HISD SchoolFinder. We will also continue to get feedback on how to continuously improve.
• Pre-K families prefer the opportunity to enroll in Pre-K at the campus where their student will attend elementary school. HISD will provide families with a zoned Pre-K option. In most instances, parents will no longer need to apply to the lottery for their student to attend Pre-K in their zoned school. Families may still choose to do enter the choice process if they prefer not to attend their zoned Pre-K campus.
• Parents expressed that late notification and extended timelines was a source of frustration and stress. HISD is condensing the timeline and is committed to notifying parents earlier than last year. The timeline for SY24-25 is now available below.

2. The School Choice Application and Enrollment timeline for SY2024-25 is now available:

*The list of NES schools for the SY24-25 will be communicated in February, before the Phase 1 application deadline closes.

3. The deadline to request for your student to be tested for gifted and talented abilities is December 8th.

If you would like your student to be tested to see if they qualify as gifted and talented, you must do so by December 8th using the GT Testing Request Link. The purpose of Gifted and Talented (G/T) testing is to identify students who demonstrate exceptional abilities and provide them with appropriate educational opportunities to nurture and develop their talents. This is an entry requirement for K-12 students interested in attending HISD's Vanguard magnet programs in the 2024-2025 school year.

4. Save the Date: We will host the following community events in December to help parents understand and use the School Choice Enrollment and Application Process:

• Tuesday, December 19th – In-person event (time and location coming soon)
• Wednesday, December 20th – Virtual events
  • Option 1: 4:00pm – 5:00pm (registration link coming soon)
  • Option 2: 5:30pm – 6:30pm (registration link coming soon)