Vermont Public High School Choice

If the student is a minor or under guardianship, the parent/guardian completes and signs the application. If the student is 18 years old or older and not under guardianship, only the student is required to complete and sign the application.

A student shall be in good standing at a school and in grade 8-11 when they submit an application for an ensuing year.

Contact information for students and parents is needed, and the student’s first choice – and second and third, if any – of Vermont public high school he or she wants to attend.

A sending high school board may limit the number of students allowed to transfer to another VT public high school; the limit must not be fewer than five percent of resident enrolled students or 10 students, whichever is fewer. That limit cannot exceed 10 percent of all resident high school students or 40 students, whichever is fewer. When calculating the number of students who are allowed to transfer, schools include those who have already transferred to other schools and who have not graduated.

The board of a VT public high school district is required each year, by February 1, to define and announce its capacity to receive students into their school through VT public high school choice. While there is no formula, schools consider program capacity, class, grade, school building, measurable adverse financial impact, or other factors, but they may not limit capacity based on the need to provide special education services.

A VT public high school district accepts applications for enrollment until March 1 of the school year preceding the school year for which the student is applying. Based on the transfer limits described above, the high school district will notify each student of acceptance or rejection of the application by April 1 of the school year preceding the school year for which the student is applying. If more students want to transfer than there are places available, a nondiscriminatory lottery is held.

An accepted student shall notify both the sending and the receiving high schools of his or her decision to enroll or not to enroll in the receiving high school by April 15 of the school year preceding the school year for which the student has applied.

After sending notification of enrollment, a student may enroll in a school other than the receiving high school only if the student, the receiving high school, and the high school in which the student wishes to enroll agree. If the student becomes a resident of a different school district, the student may enroll in the high school maintained by the new district of residence.

If a student who is enrolled in a high school other than in the school district of residence notifies the school district of residence by July 15 of the intent to return to that school for the following school year, the student shall be permitted to return to the high school in the school district of residence without requiring agreement of the receiving district or the sending district.

The connection is that a student may be allowed to transfer from a school – either because there were fewer students who applied than the transfer limit, or because the student was chosen through a lottery – and the student’s enrollment at the other school will be decided by that school’s capacity limit. As described above, if more students seek enrollment than there are spaces, a lottery is held. 

Yes, the law states that preference is given to the transfer request of a student whose request to transfer from the school was denied in a prior year.

 Students are required to accept or decline the school choice offer by April 15 of the current year.

No. Once a nonresident student is enrolled in the receiving high school, they remain enrolled unless: the student graduates, the student is no longer a Vermont resident, or the student is expelled from school in accordance with adopted school policy.

A student will not pay any tuition, fee, or other cost to their choice school that is not also paid by students residing in the receiving district.

Unless the sending and receiving schools agree to a different arrangement, no tuition or other cost shall be charged by the receiving district or paid by the sending district for a student transferring to a different VT public high school. However, a sending high school district is responsible to pay any special education costs or career technical education costs for resident students.