Option Schools and Programs

Learn more about Schoolmint.

New APS families interested in applying to an option school are also encouraged to register for their neighborhood school.

• If a space in an option school is offered to a family, the registration documentation provided will be transferred to the option school.
• If a student is placed on a waitlist for an option school, registering at their neighborhood school guarantees the student will have a space for the upcoming school year.
• Early neighborhood school registrations support APS with staffing projections and resource allocation.

Use the School Boundary (Attendance Zone) Locator to find your neighborhood school.

Registration can be completed online, at the neighborhood school or at the APS Welcome Center.

New Families (students who live in Arlington but do not attend an APS school)  interested in applying for H-B Woodlawn must apply to the Non-APS seat allocation.

View a short video on the lottery process. 

If more applications are received than there are seats available, APS will conduct a random, double-blind lottery to determine admission.

• Families will be notified of a seat offer or waitlist number by email and/or text on the date lotteries are run.
• Families must confirm or decline attendance to the school or program within two weeks of notice for the first round of offers, then one week for successive round.
• If families do not accept or decline their seat by the deadline, their seat will be given to the next student on the waitlist.
• If families apply to more than one school/program, their application will go into all lotteries simultaneously. 

Waitlists

Students who applied, but were not selected through the lottery process, will be placed in numerical order on a waitlist.

Applications received after the deadline are placed at the bottom of the existing waitlist for the upcoming school year.

• When students on the waitlist are offered a seat, they have a one-week window to accept. If the seat is not accepted within the one-week window, the offer will be rescinded and offered to the next student on the waitlist.
• Option seats are continuously filled throughout the school year as seats become available.

Elementary:

Siblings who will be concurrently enrolled at the same elementary school will receive priority in admission.

Middle and High School:

Sibling preference is not currently offered at the middle and high school levels.

Transportation is available for students attending option schools/programs who live outside their school’s walk zone (View school bus eligibility maps).

• All transportation for option schools and programs is provided via hub stops. Hub stops are central locations—such as a community center or school—where students from several neighborhoods meet to catch the bus to their school and may be a longer distance from a student’s residence. Learn more.

K-12 neighborhood schools and option schools are free for all students to attend.

Early Childhood option schools/programs may have fees based on a sliding scale.

Learn more on sliding scales here.

The Options and Transfers Policy (J-5.3.31) and Policy Implementation Procedure (J-5.3.31 PIP-1) outline the process determined by the School Board that APS follows to ensure equitable access for all students to the available option school/programs and neighborhood transfers.

View application data for option schools and programs.

Where can we find the lottery application?

The application for School Mint is found at:https://apsva.schoolmint.net/

If we previously made a SchoolMint account last year, do we need to make another one this year? We didn’t enter the school system but applied to pre-K programs and were not accepted.

You should not create a new SchoolMint account if you have a SchoolMint account from a previous year. Please use the same account to apply for option schools and programs this year. You can reset your password by clicking “forgot password” and following the prompts if you have forgotten it.

Do I need to apply online? Is there a paper application available for option schools?

There is no paper application. All families interested in applying to an Option school or program must submit their application online through SchoolMint. If you need help with the application process, the APS Welcome Center is here to help.

What does the double-blind lottery mean?

A “double-blind” lottery is the system APS uses to select students and offer them a seat in an option school, program, or neighborhood/targeted transfer. In this system, neither the people running the lottery (APS) nor the participants (applicants) know who will be chosen. This helps ensure that the selection process is entirely unbiased and random. It’s like drawing names out of a hat, but with extra steps to ensure everything is fair and no one can influence the outcome.

If we don’t live in Arlington and apply from outside the district, will this impact our chances of being accepted into an option school? For example, would we have a lower rank, or do Arlington residents receive higher priority or preference?

Regarding applying to option schools/programs, no priority is given to Arlington residents over applicants currently outside the county.  However, if offered a seat and the seat is accepted, students must register and submit the required documents, including Arlington home address documents, by the end of June. If the student does not register, they could lose their seat.

Are the preferences reviewed for the waitlist applicants or before the lottery?

Priorities are reviewed and verified before running the lottery.

If you are geographically closest to one of the option schools (versus your assigned elementary school), does this give you any preference for the option school?

For countywide options, schools and programs, geographical proximity is not a priority or preference.

Can we apply to any option school within APS, or are we limited to where we live?

• K-12 Countywide programs are open to anyone to apply.
• For the dual language immersion programs at the elementary level, families can only apply to their designated school based on the boundary locator.
• For PreK, Primary Montessori applicants can apply to the Montessori Public School of Arlington and the satellite location assigned to their neighborhood school.
• PreK families applying for the Virginia Preschool Initiative (VPI) program can apply to up to four sites: their neighborhood school, one dual language program, ATS, and Campbell. CPP Programs are located within neighborhood schools.

How do we register for a school tour?  Will those instructions also be posted?

Each school has an information session. During the information sessions, the focus is on specific program information. Please see when the information sessions are for each program or school at https://www.apsva.us/schools-programs/family-information-sessions/

How does the lottery work with priority buckets? For instance, is 1 priority bucket satisfied before another bucket is looked at, or is it a weighted lottery where a higher priority bucket is given a higher “chance” at a seat?

Yes, once all students from the top-tier (#1) priority category are offered seats, the system offers students in the lower-tier priority categories.

If submitting applications for more than 1 option school program, will each school be notified of the offer/waitlist position on the same date?

Via SchoolMint, the Welcome Center will both send out offers and, for students who have yet to receive an offer, notify them of their waitlist position.  This will happen on the same day the lottery is run, typically in February.

What if I get offered seats at multiple schools?

If you are offered seats to multiple option schools or programs, you will need to accept one by the given deadline. Once you accept an offer, all other offers will be automatically withdrawn.

If you decline a seat offer,  can you reapply for another school year?

If you decline an offer, the next person on the waitlist will be given the seat. If eligible, you are welcome to apply for the option school or program the following year.

Please explain the options if you apply to two schools. If you get an offer from one, can you see where you are on the waitlist for the other?  How does that work for accepting a seat?

You can view your waitlist number in SchoolMint. If you accept a seat offered, your student will be removed from all other waitlists.

If my student isn’t accepted to the same school her sibling attends, does she get assigned to a neighborhood school?

Every student is guaranteed a space in the neighborhood school designated by their home address. Registration is required beginning February 2025 for the following school year.

If the language spoken at home by the children is Spanish, should that be noted on the application?

APS asks the following questions to determine applicants’ primary language:

• Is Spanish the primary language your child speaks at your home?
• Please consider: does your child think in Spanish?
• Does your child communicate with you and any siblings in Spanish?
• Is Spanish the language that your child uses most frequently to communicate?

This question must be answered only on the Escuela Key and Claremont applications because they are Dual Language Spanish immersion programs.

What platform will we use to register our students?

APS uses different platforms for option school lottery applications and to register/enroll in APS.

1. Application Process and Platform: Families who want to register for an option school or program need to first apply through SchoolMint. Once accepted into an option school or program, new K-12 families to APS can proceed with registration at their accepted school.
2. Enrollment/Registration Platform: Arlington Public Schools uses Synergy® Student Information System (SIS) for school enrollment/registration. Learn more. 

Can we enter a child in the lottery for kindergarten at an option school when they are 6? Or do they have to be 5 to enter the lottery for kindergarten?

If your child is currently enrolled in kindergarten and will be six (6) by September 30, you should apply for first grade.

If your child will be six (6) years old by September 30 and has yet to complete Kindergarten, you cannot apply for an Option School or program for Kindergarten through SchoolMint. However, we can help you with this process.

Contact the Welcome Center to make the necessary adjustments in SchoolMint at 703-228-8000 or submit a question online..

Will there still be two lottery pools for DLI schools? Native English and Native Spanish?

There are 2 lottery pools for Kindergarten and First Grade, Non-Spanish Speakers and Spanish Speakers.

If a student is currently at their neighborhood middle school and applying for H-B Woodlawn for 8th grade, which neighborhood school should we put on the application, elementary or middle school?

You will enter the current neighborhood middle school.  Keep in mind that HB only has open seats at 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades if/when students leave the program.

How many seats are allocated to H-B Woodlawn for Middle School? Are the spots allocated per elementary school?

Please see seat allocation for the HB Woodlawn program for the 2025-2026 school year here:  https://www.apsva.us/school-transfer-data/#H-B-grade6to8

We live in Arlington, and our child is in a private school for 6th grade this year. Would they count toward the number of spots available for their neighborhood school or would they fall into the “outside APS” grouping?

For HB-B Woodlawn, you would need to apply through the “Out-of-APS” allocation, for which one seat is open at both the 6th-grade and 9th-grade levels.

Out-of-APS families (living out of Arlington) can apply to both language immersion schools?

Families applying to a DLI program from outside APS need to apply to Escuela Key, unless they can show that they will be living at an address that corresponds to Claremont.

Will tours be offered at the high schools for a visit or open house?

Each school has an information session. During the information sessions, the focus is on academic programming. Please see when the information sessions are for each program or school at https://www.apsva.us/schools-programs/family-information-sessions/  

Is bus transportation provided for option schools, in particular high schools?

APS is using hub stops for option schools to shorten trips to and from school and improve efficiency and reliability. Read more about hub stops.

Learn about CPP. Learn about Primary Montessori.

Submit the following documents when applying online:

• Copy of original birth certificate
• Copy of Identification card of either parents/ guardian

Tuition Sliding Scale 2024-25

Process for Virginia Preschool Initiative (VPI ) Applications

• Required Phone Screening: to Determine EligibilityCall 703-228-8665 (English) or 703-228-8000; option 1 (Spanish).
• In-person appointment for Eligible Families: to submit required documents and complete the application with APS staff.
• Application Submission: VPI applications can only be submitted with APS staff during the in-person appointment. Submission through SchoolMint independently is no longer an option.

Learn about VPI.

The funds that support VPI have various criteria that must be taken into consideration before offering acceptance to any child. To be considered for VPI, families must complete a phone screening to determine eligibility and submit the required documents.

Please take a look at the checklist.

English |Español

• Proof of the child’s age and legal name
• Proof of Arlington County residency
• Proof of parent identity and relationship to student
• Proof of income