Frequently Asked Questions

WHAT IS A SCHOOL ATTENDANCE AREA & HOW DO I FIND MY CHILD'S SCHOOL?

A school attendance area is a set geographic boundary for a school that is determined by the School Board of Trustees. Visit our School Assignments page to look up your address and determine your school of assignment based on address of residence.

ARE STUDENTS GUARANTEED ADMISSION AT THEIR SCHOOL OF ASSIGNMENT?

Students who live within the school attendance area get first priority for attending their assigned school if they register during the stated New Student Priority Registration timeframe. The New Student Priority Registration window for the 2025-2026 school year is Monday, December 2, 2024 (noon) - Friday, January 10, 2025 at 5:00 pm. However, if classes are already filled at the time of registration, the Enrollment Office will assign – also referred to as “overflow” – students to a school that has space available for the duration of the school year. Students are given priority to return to their school of assignment based on address of residence the following year or have the option to request a transfer to stay at the overflow school.

WHO DO I CONTACT IF I NEED TO DISENROLL MY CHILD(REN) FROM THE DISTRICT?

Fill out the School Disenrollment Form (English / Spanish) and submit it to your child's current school office staff to notify them that your child(ren) will be disenrolling from the District.

Note: disenrolling from the District drops the student from the school's enrollment. Should the student return to the District in the future, the student will have to re-register (see below).

DOES MY PREVIOUSLY ENROLLED STUDENT NEED TO RE-ENROLL?

Yes, you must re-enroll your child for school in the SMFCSD if your child was at one time enrolled in grades TK-8 in the SMFCSD, they were disenrolled at some point, and you now wish for your child to once again be enrolled in the SMFCSD.

CAN I DELAY MY CHILD'S REGISTRATION TO THE FOLLOWING SCHOOL YEAR?

No. New student registration applies only to the school year of registration.  If plans change, and the student does not enter school in the school year of registration, then the student must register for the following school year.  The previous registration does not rollover to the following school year.

MY CHILD IS TK-AGED BUT OUR SCHOOL OF ASSIGNMENT DOES NOT HAVE A TK CLASS - WHERE WILL THEY ATTEND SCHOOL?

Students enrolled in TK at a school that does not have a TK class will be placed at the next closest school with space in the TK class. This placement is temporary, just for the student's TK year. The student will be reassigned to their school of assignment for Kindergarten. Notification of the assigned TK school will be provided to parents/guardians in late May/early June.

MY CHILD'S ADDRESS OF RESIDENCE HAS CHANGED-WHO DO I NOTIFY?

Contact your child's current school office staff to notify them of your change in address. You will need to provide a new proof of residence to the school office staff.

If you have moved within District boundaries during the school year, your child may finish the school year at the original school. Present a current proof of address to the new school of assignment and the original school. You may request a transfer for the following school year for your child to remain at the original school. If the intradistrict transfer is granted, it is good through the highest grade at the school. Alternatively, you may enroll your child in the new school of assignment based on the new address of residence and start at the time of the change in address. 

If you have moved outside of District boundaries and wish for your child to continue in the SMFCSD, you may request an interdistrict transfer from the new district of residence within 30 days.

DO I HAVE TO REGISTER MY CURRENTLY ENROLLED AND ATTENDING SMFCSD STUDENT (GRADES TK-7) FOR NEXT SCHOOL YEAR?

No, students currently enrolled and attending school in the SMFCSD do not need to complete the new student registration process for the next school year. The new student registration process is only for those students who are not currently enrolled and attending school in the SMFCSD (grades TK-7) who will be entering the SMFCSD next school year. Currently enrolled and attending SMFCSD families will be surveyed in the Spring about their plans for their child(ren) for the next school year (information will be shared in the Spring).

MY CHILD IS IN A DISTRICT PRESCHOOL, DO I NEED TO ENROLL THEM FOR K/TK?

Yes, students living within District boundaries who are currently enrolled in a District preschool program need to register their child for Kindergarten or Transitional Kindergarten with the school of assignment when the family wishes for their child to enter those grades.

DOES EMPLOYMENT WITHIN SAN MATEO OR FOSTER CITY ESTABLISH DISTRICT RESIDENCY IF WE DO NOT LIVE WITHIN THE BOUNDARIES OF THE SMFCSD?

No. Employment within the boundaries of  the SMFCSD does not establish district residency for enrollment. A child must be physically living within district boundaries with their parent/guardian in order to enroll. Families that live outside the boundaries of the SMFCSD may request an interdistrict transfer from their district of residence.

MY FAMILY IS MOVING INTO THE DISTRICT IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS, CAN SPACE AT A SCHOOL BE HELD FOR MY CHILD?

Space is not held in advance of a family moving in the the San Mateo-Foster City School District.  The child must be living within District boundaries with their parent/guardian at the time of registration.

CAN MY TK-AGED CHILD ENROLL IN KINDERGARTEN? CAN MY KINDERGARTEN-AGED CHILD ENROLL IN TK?

No. The San Mateo-Foster City School District follows the date of birth criteria for entry into Kindergarten and TK set by the state of California. Students who turn 5 by September 1 are eligible for Kindergarten. Please visit the Universal TK Expansion page for the planned expansion of TK to all 4 year-olds by the 2025-2026 school year.

WHICH SCHOOLS HAVE TRANSITIONAL KINDERGARTEN (TK)?

Schools offering TK for the 2024-2025 school year: Audubon, Baywood, Beach Park, Brewer Island, Fiesta Gardens (transfer only), Foster City Elementary, George Hall, Highlands, Laurel, Lead, Meadow Heights, North Shoreview (transfer only) Parkside Montessori (transfer only), and Sunnybrae.

If the Transitional Kindergarten class is full at the time a new student registers, the new student will be temporarily placed at the next closest school with space in the TK class for the remainder of the 2024-2025 school year. This is referred to as an overflow placement. The student will return to the school of residence for Kindergarten in the 2025-2026 school year.

IS A TRANSFER REQUEST THE SAME AS SCHOOL REGISTRATION?

No. Transfer requests are submitted only when a student wishes to attend another school in the District or attend one of the District-wide magnet schools.  A transfer request is not a school registration and is not a guarantee of enrollment.

A student must be either currently enrolled and attending school in the SMFCSD, or be registered for the upcoming school year, in order for a transfer request to be processed.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SCHOOL OF ASSIGNMENT AND A MAGNET SCHOOL?

The SMFCSD offers a combination of schools of assignment and Magnet schools.  Schools of assignment have residential boundaries and students are assigned to them based on their address of residence. In order to attend the school of assignment, students must complete the new student registration process; no transfer request is necessary.

The District offers district-wide magnet programs that do not have assigned residential boundaries. Admission into one of these schools/programs is by transfer request only. These schools are College Park Mandarin Immersion, Fiesta Gardens Spanish Immersion, North Shoreview Montessori, and Parkside Montessori. All students who wish to attend these schools must request a transfer.

WHAT IS A VALID TRANSFER REQUEST?

Valid transfer requests will be processed only if:

1) the request is for a District-wide magnet program (College Park, Fiesta Gardens, North Shoreview Montessori, Parkside Montessori, Abbott Middle School Spanish Immersion Program, Bayside Academy Mandarin Immersion Program).

or

2) the student has a site-based priority to a school in the District

WHAT ARE THE SITE-BASED PRIORITIES?

• Continuing 5th/8th grader - former residents of the school’s attendance area who have moved into another school’s attendance area within the district and wish to finish their 5th or 8th grade year, provided space is available
• Child of District employee - child of a District employee who works 20 hours a week or 50% of 1 FTE
• Sibling - siblings of students concurrently (at the same time) enrolled on an approved intradistrict transfer
• Overflow - students overflowed to another school who want to remain at the overflow school
• Continuing - students who move to another attendance area within the district and wish to remain at their current school
• Preschool Students – preschool students who live within the district and attend a feeder SMFCSD preschool program (Language Immersion or Montessori) five days a week
• Neighborhood - 1/3 of the seats for the incoming Kindergarten and TK classes at College Park, Fiesta Gardens International School, North Shoreview Montessori, and Parkside Montessori shall be set aside for in-district students from the historic neighborhood

HOW DOES THE TRANSFER PROCESS WORK?

• Transfer requests are submitted either online or by paper form.
• Families may request up to two (2) schools. Choice #1 is weighted higher than Choice #2. Priority is applied to Choice #1.
• Transfer requests received by the posted deadline will automatically be entered into the lottery for that school.
• Transfer offers are made via email and will have a deadline to either accept or decline the transfer offer.
• If there is no response by the stated accept/decline deadline, the transfer offer is cancelled and the transfer will be offered to the next student on the waitlist. 
• Once granted and accepted, a transfer is good through the highest grade offered at the school.

WHEN IS THE TRANSFER LOTTERY DEADLINE?

The transfer lottery request window for the 2025-2026 school year is December 2, 2024 (noon) - January 10, 2025 by 5:00 pm. Transfer requests must be received by the deadline in order to be entered into the lottery for the school/program requested.  Transfer requests received after the deadline of 5:00 pm on January 10, 2025 will be added to the waitlist in the order the request is received.  Only transfer requests that are submitted by the lottery deadline will receive notification of waitlist placement.  Please visit the Transfer Request Process page for more information.

HOW AND WHEN WILL I BE NOTIFIED OF MY TRANSFER STATUS?

All transfer requests for the 2025-2026 school year received by the deadline of 5:00 pm on Friday, January 10, 2025, will receive an email confirmation and be entered into the lottery. Once lotteries are run, parents/guardians will be notified by email of their child's transfer request status on Monday, February 10, 2025.  

Families that submit a transfer request after the deadline will be placed on the transfer request list in the order the transfer request was received. Transfer requests received after the posted deadline will not receive notification or update of waitlist status.

More information:

• Plan to attend the school of assignment unless you receive communication that the transfer has been granted.
• Transfer requests are granted only if there is room in the school and grade level requested.
• Only transfer requests that are submitted by the lottery deadline will receive notification of waitlist placement.
• A transfer request is not a school registration and is not a guarantee of enrollment.
• All transfer requests expire the Friday before the first day of school.  Transfers will not be granted after that day.  There are no mid-year transfers.
• Transfers can be granted after the lottery if space becomes available.  The last day a transfer can be granted is the Friday before the first day of school.

Student Services will annually review the enrollment capacity at all school sites to determine space availability for purposes of enrollment and transfer requests. Available space is determined by program capacity, staffing entitlement, program considerations, and facilities. Student Services will annually establish and publish enrollment cut off dates for the purpose of determining district enrollment priorities.

Transfer Requests are approved based on the following descending order of priorities:

1. Continuing 5th and 8th Grade Students – former residents of the school’s attendance area who have moved into another school’s attendance area within the district, provided space is available.
2. District Employees – children of district employees who have requested attendance through the Employee Preference transfer process.
3. Siblings – siblings of students concurrently enrolled on an approved intradistrict transfer.
4. Overflow Students – students overflowed to another school who want to remain at the overflow school.
5. Continuing Students –  students who move to another attendance area within the district and wish to remain at their current school. 
6. Continuing Interdistrict Transfer Students – students living outside the district currently enrolled in one of the district schools with an approved interdistrict transfer and requesting to continue at the same school, providing they continue to meet transfer student criteria.
7. Preschool Students – preschool students who live within the district and attend a feeder SMFCSD preschool program five days a week (Language Immersion or Montessori).
8. Neighborhood Students - 1/3 of the seats for the incoming Kindergarten classes at College Park, Fiesta Gardens International School, North Shoreview Montessori, and Parkside Montessori shall be set aside for in-district students from the historic neighborhood
9. New Intradistrict Transfer Students – students who live within the SMFCSD who are requesting a transfer to attend a District-wide magnet school.
10. Interdistrict Siblings – siblings of interdistrict transfer students concurrently enrolled in the district.
11. Elementary to Middle School Interdistrict Transfer Students – elementary students on an interdistrict transfer requesting an ongoing interdistrict transfer to a district middle school.
12. Out-of-District Preschool Students – preschool students who live outside the district and attend a feeder SMFCSD preschool five days a week.
13. New Interdistrict Transfer Students – all other out-of-district transfer requests.

SIBLINGS

Siblings of concurrently (at the same time) enrolled students attending a school on an intradistrict transfer will receive sibling priority in the intradistrict transfer lottery at the requested school if space is available. If requesting concurrently and one sibling is approved through the lottery process, additional siblings will have sibling priority added to their transfer request.

SAN MATEO-FOSTER CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT STAFF

Children of district employees working 20 hours or more per week or at least 50 percent of 1.0 (one) FTE at the time of application and during the year for which the application is made will receive priority in the transfer process provided they submit a transfer request by the posted transfer deadline and space is available. Employment status must be verified annually.

For a full listing of intradistrict transfer regulations, please see SMFCSD Board Policy 5116 .1 and Administrative Regulations.

District-wide magnet schools meet the same challenging standards as all other schools in our district and in the state of California. Our district-wide magnet schools emphasize a particular theme, giving their students the opportunity to acquire skills that will help prepare them for success in the future.

College Park Mandarin Immersion (K-5)	North Shoreview Montessori (TK-8)
Fiesta Gardens English /Spanish Immersion (TK-5)	Parkside Montessori (TK-8)

 

WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR ENTRY INTO THE LANGUAGE IMMERSION PROGRAMS AND MONTESSORI PROGRAMS?

Students need to be assessed before a transfer can be offered for College Park Mandarin Immersion, Fiesta Gardens Spanish Immersion, North Shoreview Montessori, or Parkside Montessori for grades 1-5 and 6-8.  Kindergarten/TK students do not need to be assessed.

Students requesting the Bayside Academy Mandarin Immersion Program must have completed the elementary immersion program at College Park.

Note: Students assigned to Bayside based on address of residence must request a transfer to attend the Bayside Mandarin Program if that is one of the programs they wish to request.

• BP 5111 Admission
• AR 5111 Admission
• BP 5111.1 District Residency
• AR 5111.1 District Residency
• BP 5116 School Attendance Boundaries
• BP 5116.1 Intradistrict Enrollment
• AR 5116.1 Intradistrict Enrollment
• BP 5117 Interdistrict Attendance
• AR 5117 Interdistrict Attendance
• BP 5118 Open Enrollment Act Transfers