Understanding School Enrollment in Central Park
So, you’re thinking about making a move to the Central Park Denver neighborhood… or maybe you already live here and your kiddos are approaching school age. Now what? You’ve got to navigate the often confusing and overwhelming process of school enrollment. What the heck is School Choice? Enrollment Zones? Boundary Schools? Well, you’re in luck! I recently sat down with the expert in everything related to Denver school enrollment, and the founder of Preparing for Denver Kindergarten, Keely Buchanan. You can see our video below and keep reading for more info.
Enrollment Zones
Denver Public Schools has multiple enrollment zones for elementary and middle school. If you live inside the Central Park enrollment zone, you are guaranteed a spot at one of the SIX CP enrollment zone elementary schools starting in kindergarten, but not necessarily your first choice or the school to which you live closest.
School Choice
School Choice consists of two rounds. Round 1 opens in January and closes in February the year you will attend (this applies to ECE – through 12th grade).
Round 1
Round 1 Choice is made up of two elements:
1. A Randomly Assigned Lottery Number
2. That lottery number is used inside your school’s Admissions Priority Group. Each school has it’s own Admissions Priority Group based on things like siblings of admitted students, students of employees, socioeconomic diversity, etc.. The school fills seats in order of Admissions Priority Groups and fills each group in order of lottery number.
Round 1 is also when you are assigned Waitlist numbers.
PRO TIP: Look up the Admissions Priority Groups for each school in CP each year
Round 2
Round 2 opens after Round 1 has completely closed. Round 2 is designed for people who maybe moved to the enrollment zone after Round 1 has closed or for families who want to try to get into a school that they didn’t list on Round 1. Round 2 is first come, first served inside of Admissions Priority Groups.
Round 1 results typically come out in April, whereas with Round 2 you get your waitlist number immediately, so you want to complete Round 2 as early as possible on the day it opens. Waitlists for K-12 stay open until the end of September. So, depending on the specific school, you could be called off the waitlist as early as the spring or summer, but much of the movement happens in the fall, even after school has started.
ECE
ECE, or Early Childhood Education, refers to public preschool. Not all schools offer ECE. For example, ECE3 is only offered at Willow Elementary in the Central Park Enrollment zone. ECE slots are limited and hours tend to be shorter than private preschool, so it is important to have private preschool backup options.
Resources
Navigating the School Choice process can be overwhelming. Luckily, there are some great resources to guide you through the process!
Preparing for Denver Kindergarten website https://www.preparingfordenverkindergarten.com/
Preparing for Denver Kindergarten – Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/Preparingfor…
Keely Buchanan: (303) 638-2894
Round 1 – Choice and Enrollment https://schoolchoice.dpsk12.org/schoo…
Denver Public Schools – School Finder https://dps.schoolmint.net/school-fin…
