Student Assignment Policy

BPS has adopted a Home-Based student assignment policy to assign students to kindergarten through grade 8. All of our high schools remain citywide options for our students.

The Home-Based plan uses a student’s home as the starting point.

• BPS will offer a customized list of school choices for every family based on their home address. It includes every school within a one-mile radius of their home plus, as needed, nearby high-quality schools based on BPS's School Quality Framework (SQF) system of measurement. This ensures that every family has access to high-quality schools, no matter where they live.
• The list may also grow, as needed, to include additional programmatic offerings and to ensure we can offer every child a seat in a school on his or her list. These are called “Option Schools.”
• Families may also select any citywide school. And some families may have regional options, as well.
• Most families will have somewhere between 10 and 14 school options on their choice list.
• The Home-Based plan uses an algorithm, similar to a lottery; therefore we can’t guarantee an applicant will be assigned to one of his or her top choices.
• Due to limited seating, we cannot guarantee an assignment to K0 or K1.
• Students who apply for grades K0, K1, K2, 6, 7, and 9 in January have the best chance of assignment to their top choice schools.

Supporting English Language Learners and Students with Disabilities

The Home-Based plan creates community clusters of school options to ensure that students can enroll in schools that offer quality programs closer to home.

English Language Learning students have access to schools on their home-based list as well as program options in their wider cluster.

Depending on their needs, students with disabilities may be able to choose seats from the home-based list, or they may be assigned to a program within the cluster in which they reside if their Individualized Education Program calls for specific services or levels of services.