In accordance with Act 853, the Louisiana Public School Choice Act, and the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) policy, Bulletin 111 – The LA School, District, and State Accountability System (B111), the Lafayette Parish School System must establish a procedure to offer School Choice to the parents of K-12 students zoned for and enrolled in schools receiving the letter grade of “D” or “F” based on the most recently calculated and available School Performance Scores (SPS).
Parents of K-12 students who wish to transfer must visit www.lpssonline.com to complete a web-based application. The application will be available August 3, 2015, until midnight on August 12, 2015. Pre-K students are not eligible for transfer under this procedure. Applications MUST be completed in their entirety to be considered.
Lafayette Parish School System administration will evaluate schools’ eligibility to receive transfers and available space. Once staff have identified schools eligible to receive students, they will prioritize the requests for transfer in accordance with the Louisiana Public School Choice Act.
Staff will contact parents and offer specific slots for K-12 transfer. Upon accepting a transfer, parents must, in person, within 5 school days, withdraw their students from the sending school enroll their students in the receiving school, providing all required documentation.
Students transferring from D and F schools in the Lafayette Parish School System shall be provided bus transportation.
Students transferring between schools in the LPSS under the School Choice plan shall be enrolled in the receiving school until completion of the last grade the receiving school offers unless
- The parents of the transferred students elect to return to the sending school, in which case there will be no additional opportunity to transfer;
- The family of a transferred student relocates to another school attendance zone; unless the school to which the family relocates is in the LPSS and rated “D” or “F”; or,
- The student is withdrawn from the receiving school for any reason other than extended illness or placement at a discipline center.
Parents of students zoned for and enrolled in schools outside of the LPSS receiving the letter grade of “D” or “F” for the most recent school year may apply for transfer to an LPSS eligible receiving school. School choice transfer requests from students residing outside of the LPSS attendance zone will not be considered until all “in district” transfer requests have been met. Students will be prioritized using the same methods as LPSS students.
Due to the complexity of these processes, once all requests for transfer are granted or once all receiving “slots” are filled, students newly transferred into the district will not be considered for school choice transfers until the beginning of the following school year.