It’s enrollment season, the time of year when schools are vying for the thousands of families and kids in Oakland.
While some school districts have simple zone systems in which students are automatically enrolled in their neighborhood school, Oakland has a choice system that allows families to apply to any school in the city. That can mean more work as families go on multiple tours and sift through information about dozens of school programs, specialties, and enrichment offerings — while trying to navigate what can feel like an opaque enrollment process.
The Oaklandside spoke to enrollment directors at OUSD and charter schools for this enrollment guide covering transitional kindergarten through high school. We walk you through enrollment priority categories, waitlists, after school programs, deadlines, and more.
When is the deadline to enroll?
For OUSD, the on-time application window closes on Feb. 8, 2026. Those who apply in that window will receive offers on March 5. All families entering kindergarten to 12th grade will receive an offer to a school, but transitional kindergarten slots are limited.
The deadline to accept on-time offers is March 25. A late enrollment period begins Feb. 9; waiting until then could mean that not all schools will have open spots left.
The deadline for applying to charter schools through Oakland Enrolls is Feb. 13. Offers are released on March 6, and late applications are accepted beginning Feb. 18.
Two Oakland charter school systems are not on the Oakland Enrolls platform. At Lighthouse Community Public Schools, the enrollment window closes on Feb. 6. The lottery is held Feb. 25 and families find out their status on Feb. 27. The deadline to accept enrollment offers is March 10. For KIPP Bridge schools, Feb. 11 is the deadline for on-time enrollment.
Offers will go to those who apply late once offers made in the initial round are accepted or declined.
Can I apply to both district and charter schools?
Oakland Unified School District operates 75 K-12 schools, plus eight transitional kindergarten hubs and one independent study school. All of OUSD is overseen by the superintendent, currently interim Denise Saddler, and the elected school board.
In addition, Oakland has 35 charter schools, which are also publicly funded and free to attend. Charter schools are typically operated by charter management organizations or nonprofits with their own school boards, whose members are appointed. Typically, the OUSD board approves the launch or expansion of charter schools and evaluates charter renewals every five to seven years. Charter schools have more independence than district schools in exchange for oversight and must appeal to the school board to stay open every renewal cycle.
The application processes for the two systems run in parallel and you can apply for both public and charter schools without impacting your odds for a place in either system.
Who has to fill out an enrollment application in OUSD?
Only students who will be going to a new school. If you’re continuing at the same school, you do not need to reapply. If your child is entering TK, kindergarten, sixth grade, or high school, or seeking to transfer into a new school, you need to apply.
On the first day of school at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, students receive backpacks full of supplies. Credit: Jungho Kim for The Oaklandside
How does enrollment work in Oakland Unified?
OUSD has open enrollment, so families can apply to any school in the district. OUSD uses EnrollWise as its enrollment platform at ChooseOUSD.org.
School offers are based on a family’s school ranking and district enrollment priorities. In the application, families are asked to rank each school they’re interested in; do not to rank any school you don’t want your child to attend. Once a family submits an application, it is assigned a priority, which determines who gets admitted first:
Continuing students
Foster youth
Siblings
Children of staff at the school
Residents of the school’s attendance zone (find your zone using this online map)
Children of OUSD staff
Preschool students seeking admission to an elementary school on the same campus
Oakland residents
Non-Oakland residents
Priority categories are verified within the application. For example, families of foster youth or children of OUSD employees will be asked to provide that documentation.
If there are more applicants than seats, applicants with the higher priority will be admitted. Among applicants with the same priority, seats will go first to applicants who ranked that school higher. If applicants with the same priority and ranking are competing for an insufficient number of seats, then each application is assigned a random number for order of admission.
“What’s nice about this is it’s not based on someone looking at an application and making a subjective determination,” Betlach said. “Someone can’t bend the rules, exert influence, or convince someone. That’s an important feature for equity and fairness in the system.”
How does enrollment work in charter schools?
Most Oakland charter schools are on the Oakland Enrolls platform at OaklandEnrolls.org. Oakland Enrolls allows families to compare schools and programs, read individual school profiles and apply to multiple schools in one place. Charter schools have priority systems similar to OUSD, which can be found on each school’s profile on the OaklandEnrolls website.
Two charter networks, Lighthouse Community Public Schools and KIPP Bridge Academy, are not on the Oakland Enrolls platform; families interested in their schools must fill out an application directly with them. Lighthouse Community Public Schools operates two TK-12 schools, Lighthouse and Lodestar, in deep East Oakland, and KIPP Bridge Academy has a TK-4 Lower School and 5-8 grade Upper School in West Oakland.
KIPP Bridge’s application is at bridge.kippnorcal.org, and the school’s admissions system is lottery based. Jamila Bowling, KIPP Bridge Upper School’s director of school operations, said having a separate application enables them to connect with families earlier. “Being able to apply directly with us gives us the opportunity to get a little bit more personal with families at the initial application phase,” Bowling told The Oaklandside.
Lighthouse uses the School Mint platform at Lighthouse.schoolmint.com and uses a priority system to guide admissions, with a high preference for students who are unhoused at the time of enrollment.
Students at Lighthouse Community Charter school sit on the rug in Rachel Albrecht’s first grade class. Credit: David Meza for The Oaklandside
In each of the last few years, Lighthouse has supported 40 to 60 homeless students, said Belen Orozco, the schools’ senior director of operations and enrollment.
Until 2021, Oakland’s district and charter schools used a single platform for enrollment. That year, the OUSD board passed an enrollment stabilization policy that directed more funds to the district’s enrollment office and separated OUSD’s enrollment platform from the Oakland School Finder website that brought all the public school profiles together. Shanthi Gonzales, the school board director who introduced the policy, argued that district funds should not go toward promoting other school systems.
Are offers made on a first-come, first-serve basis?
No. All applications submitted within the on-time application windows will go through the same process based on priorities and ranking.
What if I’m waitlisted?
If a school has more applications than seats, applicants will be placed on a waitlist. In OUSD, if you receive an offer from the Number 2 or Number 3 ranked school on your application, you’ll automatically be placed on the waitlist for your top choice or choices.
Once you accept an offer, any lower ranked schools will come off your application, but you’ll remain waitlisted for your higher ranked schools.
As families accept or decline their seats, additional offers may be made to those on waitlists. This tends to happen during subsequent rounds of offers in the late spring and summer as families are making final decisions about where to enroll their kids.
Which schools get more applicants than seats?
OUSD publishes demand rates for its schools, comparing how many applications a school receives for transitional kindergarten, kindergarten, sixth, and ninth grade compared to how many seats are available.
For the 2025-2026 school year, schools that were oversubscribed for kindergarten were:
Acorn Woodland Elementary School
Chabot Elementary School
Crocker Highlands Elementary School
Glenview Elementary School
Hillcrest School
International Community School
Lincoln Elementary School
Melrose Leadership Academy
Peralta Elementary School
Piedmont Avenue Elementary School
Reach Academy
Redwood Heights Elementary School
Sequoia Elementary School
Thornhill Elementary School
Schools where applications exceeded seats for sixth grade were:
Claremont Middle School
Coliseum College Prep Academy
Edna Brewer Middle School
Hillcrest School
Life Academy
Melrose Leadership Academy
Montera Middle School
And among high schools for ninth grade:
Coliseum College Prep Academy
Life Academy
Oakland Technical High School
Transitional kindergarten slots are not guaranteed, and many schools were oversubscribed. But a number had extra seats available last year:
Brookfield Elementary School
Burckhalter Elementary School
Carl B. Munck Elementary School
East Oakland PRIDE Elementary School
EnCompass Academy
Franklin Elementary School
Fred T. Korematsu Discovery Academy
Fruitvale Elementary School
Grass Valley Elementary School
Highland Community School
Hoover Elementary School
Horace Mann Elementary School
La Escuelita Elementary School
Lockwood STEAM Academy
Madison Park Academy
Manzanita Community School
Oakland Academy of Knowledge
Piedmont Avenue Elementary School
Prescott Elementary School
Think College Now Elementary School
Betlach, the district’s enrollment executive director, cautions parents against trying to “game” the enrollment system and instead evaluate schools based on what they have to offer and rank schools that are the best fit — and then keep an open mind.
“We definitely encourage folks, if you ranked that school third and you put it on your application, accept it,” Betlach told The Oaklandside. “Particularly for little ones, I can’t imagine going through the spring and thinking, ‘Where’s my kid going to kindergarten?’ The idea of a first choice sometimes takes on this mythic quality in parents’ heads. As they get to know schools, these differences are not as extreme as they make them out to be.”
What if I don’t come off the waitlist for my first choice?
OUSD will continue making offers every two weeks from March 31 through July. For more assistance, parents can make an appointment online to visit the district’s main enrollment office or its satellite offices.
What about before and after school programs?
New to OUSD’s enrollment process this year is the ability to apply to extended learning programs using the same platform you’ll use for your school application. In the past, families had to apply to after school programs directly through the operating agency. Now that process has been folded into EnrollWise. Extended learning program offers will be made in April, Betlach said — meaning families no longer have to wait until the summer to learn whether they have an after school spot.
Students who are continuing on at their same school will still need to apply (or reapply) for their afterschool program, which is a three-click application on the same platform, Betlach said.
Students play kickball in the after school program at Manzanita Community School. Credit: Amir Aziz/The Oaklandside
For charter schools, enrollment in before and after school programs typically happens after families have been offered and accepted a seat.
What’s the best way to learn about schools?
Most schools offer tours for prospective families where they can learn about the program, meet staff, and current parents. Both district and charter schools encompass a range of programs, specialties, sports and extracurricular offerings.
Rather than trying to determine the objective “best school,” families should figure out what the best fit is for their particular kid, Betlach and other enrollment directors told The Oaklandside.
“Talk to your child,” said Daisy Padilla, a senior director with Oakland Enrolls. “What are some things that interest them? Are they interested in sports or debate? Do they want to go to college? Look for schools that offer A-G classes. Really do the work to learn more about what schools have to offer and how it fits best for your students.”
OUSD lists school tours on its website. Oakland Enrolls is holding a charter school fair on Jan. 31 at Lazear Charter School on 29th Avenue.
What if I miss the deadline?
After the on-time application windows close, late application windows open. Schools first make offers to students who submitted applications during the on-time window. If seats are still available at a particular school during the late application period, you may be offered a seat.
Who can I talk to for help?
OUSD has enrollment staff available to answer questions at enrollment@ousd.org, and families can text, call, or leave a voicemail at 510-879-4600 to get a response.
Parents can also visit the district’s main enrollment office at 746 Grand Ave. from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday to Friday, or one of the district’s satellite offices, open two days a week, at Elmhurst United Middle School at 1800 98th Ave.; the Havenscourt campus at 8701 International Blvd., the Marcus A. Foster leadership center at 1011 Union St.; and Urban Promise Academy, at 3031 E. 18th St.
Oakland Enrolls encourages families to visit the Jan. 31 charter school fair, where parents can learn about schools, meet staff, and apply on the spot. Enrollment staff at various charter schools are also eager to help families through the process.
“We’re here to assist them,” Orozco, the senior director of enrollment and operations at Lighthouse. “Sometimes the process might not be as easy, so we’re here to support them throughout.”
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