The approved changes will begin in the 2025-26 school year. Students
entering 6th or 9th grade in 2025-26 will follow the new attendance boundaries. Students entering 7th and 8th grade in 2025-26 will be legacy students and will continue at their current boundary school through the end of middle school. Students entering 10-12th grades in 2025-26 will be legacy students and will continue at their current boundary high school through graduation.

Students with an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) assigned to general education classes will follow the same implementation rules. Students with an IEP assigned to an Exceptional Children’s specialized program are assigned by the EC Department and are not impacted by the boundary changes.

Enter your address in the School Locator tool to learn about your 2025-26 school assignment. If you have questions, please contact the Office of Student Assignment at (919) 560-2059.

If the boundary change places siblings at different middle or high schools and that presents a hardship for the family, you may request a transfer in accordance with Board of Education policy 4132. These requests will be considered in accordance with the policy and school capacity.

Students who are enrolled in a secondary application program for the 2024-25 school year will not be impacted and can continue enrollment per existing policies. District-wide access will continue for all high school magnet programs, and CTE Pathways will continue to follow current regional rules for access.

• District-wide access is being maintained for Durham School of the Arts, Shepard Middle School, Lakewood Montessori Middle School, and Ignite! Online Academy.
• District-wide access will be added to Lucas Middle School with new Montessori magnet programming being offered.
• District-wide access will be added for a middle school Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program at Brogden Middle School. This program is only accessible to students who have successfully participated in an elementary DLI cohort program or otherwise have Spanish and English language literacy at required levels.
• Regional access will continue for the year-round calendar at Rogers-Herr Middle School (eligible for families in the Southwest, Southeast, and Central Regions). The School for Creative Studies will transition to grades 6-8 only for a year-round calendar option with regional access (eligible for families in the North and East Regions). Students enrolled in 2024-25 can continue to attend SCS with transportation.
• Lottery-based access to Lowe’s Grove and Neal will end starting in the 2025-26 school year. Students enrolled by lottery in the 2024-25 school year will continue to receive transportation.

A boundary, sometimes called a base or attendance zone, refers to the geographic area in which students are automatically assigned to a nearby school based on their home address. A region, which includes several boundaries, is a larger geographic area that defines student eligibility for application programs.

Yes, these are the sibling priority policies:

• For year-round calendar programs, sibling priority will be available for both elementary and middle school lottery placements (as well as legacy high school students at SCS) to help families maintain a consistent calendar.
• Siblings that are multiples (twins, triplets, etc.) will have sibling priority for middle school.
• There are no other sibling priorities for secondary application programs.

Yes, these are the program link priorities:

• Students that attend a DPS year-round elementary school will have priority for regional access to a year-round middle school (those that reside in the North and East to The School for Creative Studies, those that reside in the Southwest, Southeast, or Central Regions to Rogers-Herr).
• Students that attend a DPS International Baccalaureate (IB) elementary program (EK Powe or Burton) will have priority for Shepard Middle School.
• Students that attend a DPS Dual-Language Immersion cohort program (or otherwise can meet the required levels of language fluency in both English and Spanish) will have priority to a DLI middle school program at Brogden Middle School (additional programming options may be added for middle school as the DLI programs develop).
• Students that attend a DPS Montessori program (Little River, Morehead, or Watts) will have priority to attend Montessori aligned programming at either Lakewood or Lucas Middle Schools. Families may choose one of the two programs for a priority link.
• Students that attend Shepard Middle School will have priority to attend the IB program at Hillside High School.

Two specific changes to access:

• The School for Creative Studies will transition from a 6-12 secondary school to a 6-8 middle school. DPS intends to support students enrolled at SCS in a high school grade-level in 2024-25 to continue at SCS until graduation. SCS is positioned to serve high school students through 2028.
• The school will transition from district-wide access to regional access for the North and East region. Students enrolled in SCS in the 2024-25 school year will continue to receive transportation regardless of their location in the district.

Two specific changes to programming:

• As a regional access school, SCS will align their elective programs to be more comparable with comprehensive middle schools while maintaining the unique music and video programs and a focus on creativity.
• SCS will offer competitive athletic programs similar to other comprehensive middle schools (these will be phased in over time)

As part of the plan to make all schools great schools under the Growing Together initiative, all secondary schools will be strengthening and aligning STEM and CTE programming. As a result, all middle schools will have relevant and aligned programming related to STEM. Neal and Lowe’s Grove will still have both STEM and CTE programming, just not lottery based seats.

Lucas Middle School will offer instruction grounded in Montessori principles. Here is a summary of the Montessori vision of adolescent education:

• Includes core academics, creative arts, leadership, community service, career exploration, economic awareness, technology, physical education, outdoor education, and field studies.
• Focuses on stewardship of the Earth and humanity, as well as students’ independent decision-making, problem solving, community building, and application of learning.