September 14, 2023

Dear School District of Philadelphia Families,

I am excited to announce that the school selection process for the 2024-2025 school year opens tomorrow, Friday, September 15, 2023 at 4:00 p.m. The School District of Philadelphia school selection process allows students currently in pre-kindergarten through 11th grade to apply to attend any District school, with available space, outside of their neighborhood or catchment area for the following school year.

As we shared last month, there are a number of changes to the school selection process that are designed to make it more equitable and easy to navigate. We have also developed some helpful resources to assist you throughout the school selection process.

Learn More About School Selection

• Application Assistance Labs: The School Selection team is offering Training and Application Assistance Labs at schools across the city for families during the application window. Please visit the school selection website for the hours and locations of upcoming labs.
• How-To-Guides: The How-To-Guides arestep-by-step documents that describe various actions that families will need to take when completing an online application. The guides can be found here.

• School Selection Town Halls: To learn more about the overall school selection and application process, you may watch the most recent school selection townhall recording here.

Learn More About Criteria-Based High Schools

• Criteria-Based High School Open Houses: Visit schools in-person, meet the staff, and learn more about the school culture. View the list of upcoming open houses here.

• 2024-2025 High School Directory: The 2024-2025 High School Directory is also available,whichprovides a complete list of the various high school programs and experiences within our District and their locations. Students from 8th through 11th grade can search the directory to find the academic, school specialty, athletic, extracurricular and Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs available at each high school across Philadelphia.

In addition to making use of the above resources, I encourage families to review the updated criteria for the criteria-based schools here and some of the actions you can take to prepare here, before submitting applications. Becoming familiar with the process and the criteria will help you make informed decisions when applying to schools during this year’s school selection window, which will close on Friday, October 27, 2023 at 11:59 p.m.

Additionally, we invite you to find answers to your additional questions at the School Selection website. For more information, please email schoolselect@philasd.org. We ask for your patience as we are experiencing higher than normal call and email volume at this time of the year.

Thank you for choosing the School District of Philadelphia for your child’s education. We are committed to partnering with you to prepare them to imagine and realize any future they desire.

In Partnership,

Tony B. Watlington Sr., Ed.D.

Superintendent

The School District of Philadelphia