The Gwinnett County Board of Education has in place a process that allows students to transfer from their assigned school to another school within the district. This process includes permissive transfers, childcare/hardship transfers, medical/legal transfers, as well as the transfer of children of employees and current high school students rezoned to a new high school.
In 2009, the Georgia Assembly passed HB251, which is often referred to as the “choice” bill. The Georgia Board of Education approved an amendment to Gwinnett County Public Schools’ IE 2 Partnership Contract waiving this requirement for Gwinnett County Public Schools, acknowledging that the district already maintains a streamlined permissive transfer process for parents to request student transfers between schools within the district. In the spirit of HB251, Gwinnett County Public Schools shares the following information with its community about its permissive transfer process:
For additional information about GCPS’ permissive transfer process and the form to request a transfer, contact the local school your child is zoned to attend.
GCPS (Gwinnett County Public Schools), like many other districts across the State and nation, has designated attendance boundaries for each school within our district. The Permissive Transfer Process allows students to transfer from their attendance zoned school to another school in the district that is on the permissive transfer list.
House Bill 251, commonly referred to as the Public-School Choice Framework, required all districts to establish and adopt a universal, streamlined process by July 1, 2009, to facilitate school choice transfers. Because GCPS already had a school choice framework in place, our Permissive Transfer Process, we elected to continue with our process and received a waiver from House Bill 251 under our Investing in Educational Excellence (IE2) partnership contract in 2009. IE2 is now referred to as the Strategic Waivers School System (SWSS) contract.
No. We have not changed the Permissive Transfer process. Families may request permissive transfers to the schools on the district’s permissive transfer list
The GCPS Permissive Transfer process has not changed. Permissive transfers may be approved if the request is made to a school on the designated transfer list. There may be some exceptions to this rule (i.e., a specific grade level is over capacity) but, in general, permissive transfers submitted to approved locations should be granted.
Permissive transfers are approved annually for students. A renewal application must be submitted each year for approval.
Building capacity is the primary consideration for schools being identified as a permissive transfer school. This is especially true as we continue to be mindful of class sizes and school safety. Each semester, we analyze several factors including available space, student enrollment, projected/anticipated growth, etc. From that analysis, we update the list of schools that are eligible to receive permissive transfers for the upcoming semester.
Due to these factors, we are unable to grant multi-year permissive transfer approvals as some schools are added and/or are removed from the approved list as Gwinnett County continues to grow and evolve. As a result, there are situations where students on permissive transfers may have to return to their attendance zoned schools
Permissive Transfer requests are not automatically granted for siblings due to some of the considerations regarding available space, student enrollment, etc. This may also be true if siblings would be attending the same school as a specific grade level may be at or above capacity and no longer able to accept additional students.
Per Procedure P. JBCD, Employees of Gwinnett County Public Schools, who work 20 or more hours per week, may take their children to a school within the cluster in which they work. Employees must also fill out an Application for Student Transfer Form. Employees from out-of-county may not bring their child to a school in the cluster where they work and then request a transfer to a different school in the county outside that cluster.
If an employee moves his/her child into a cluster where they work and subsequently makes a job change for career advancement or because the employee is transferred, the child may remain in the cluster where presently attending or accompany the employee to his/her new location for the remainder of the current school year only. If this change occurs after the last day of the school year for students, the child must attend a school within the cluster in which the parent works or their districted school. GCPS employees can apply for permissive transfers for their children to attend any school on the permissive transfer list if they live in Gwinnett County.