MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Many parents and grandparents stopped by the Shelby County Schools administrative building Friday to drop off completed applications for optional schools.
Friday at 5 p.m. was the deadline to submit priority applications with bar-codes on them.
“I’m proud, though. I’m ready for her to go,” mother Francesca Jackson, who came to turn in her daughter’s application, said.
Parents had been camping outside of SCS before administrators began handing out the bar-coded applications Monday.
SCS confirms it handed out about 2,500 of those applications to parents.
About 1,000 parents entered their bar-code online to apply.
Others are turning in their applications in person or through the mail.
The applications are processed according to the order of their bar-code, so long as they are submitted by the deadline.
There are 47 optional schools that offer specialized programs.
“I want her to be in an optional school where she can explore different things and learn more things, you know, for her future,” grandmother Janice Pope said.
She’s hoping her daughter will be able to attend Maxine Smith STEAM Academy. SCS said that school is a popular request, as is White Station Middle School.
SCS said parents can continue to apply to enter their children in optional schools throughout the school year.
This deadline only applies to the bar-coded applications that function like tickets.