Community engagement at a Houston school highlighting educational diversity.
The Houston Independent School District (HISD) has reported a significant decline in K-12 school choice lottery applications for the 2025 academic year, with over 16,000 submissions in Phase 1. This marks a decrease from 19,525 applications the previous year. Despite this drop, certain schools like Pin Oak Middle School and Bellaire High School remain popular. Concerns about changes in HISD following a state takeover may be contributing to the decline, alongside forecasts of reduced student enrollment. HISD continues to emphasize the importance of tracking family engagement in school choice.
The Houston Independent School District (HISD) reported a notable decline in K-12 school choice lottery applications for the 2025 academic year, with over 16,000 submissions made during Phase 1 of the lottery. This number accounts for approximately 9.1% of all students enrolled in the district, marking a decrease from 19,525 applications or 10.6% of enrolled students the previous year.
The top schools attracting the highest number of applicants in 2025 included Pin Oak Middle School, Bellaire High School, and Lamar High School. Families can apply for their children to attend up to ten different programs outside of their zoned campus, which encompasses magnet schools and specialty programs. Due to limited space, a lottery system is employed to determine student placement.
Among the elementary schools, Travis Elementary School topped the list with the most applicants, being a Vanguard magnet school requiring students to be designated as gifted and talented for admission. Other popular elementary schools included Twain, Harvard, River Oaks, and Kolter, all with a minimum of 570 applicants.
In the middle school category, Pin Oak emerged as a leader with over 890 applications, followed by Lanier, Hogg, Pershing, and Meyerland Performing and Visual Arts. Notably, Pin Oak Middle School operates as an application-only campus with a foreign language magnet program.
For high schools, Bellaire received the most applications, along with Lamar, Carnegie Vanguard, Heights, and DeBakey High School for Health Professionals, each attracting at least 1,000 applicants. Bellaire High School also features a world languages magnet program.
Combined campuses with high applicant numbers included T.H. Rogers School, Rice Middle School, Mandarin Immersion Magnet School, Wharton K-8 Dual Language Academy, and Briarmeadow Charter School, each receiving more than 700 applicants. T.H. Rogers School, which serves students with serious disabilities, led combined campuses with 1,700 applicants.
The drop in the number of applications was significant, with HISD experiencing a decrease from the previous year’s total of 77,691 applications to just 62,658 this year. Bellaire High School reported a 30% decrease in applicants, while Lamar High School and T.H. Rogers School saw declines of 23% and 29%, respectively. Conversely, DeBakey High School recorded an increase in applicants, rising by nearly 9%.
Concerns among parents regarding changes in HISD following a state takeover have been cited as contributing factors to the decline in applications. HISD is also forecasting a reduction in student enrollment of at least 6,500 for the upcoming academic year, which could lead to the closure of several campuses.
HISD emphasizes the importance of tracking the number of families utilizing the school choice process rather than simply counting applications as a metric of success. Despite the decline in total applications, 91% of those who received offers in Phase 1 were accepted into one of their top three school choices, showing a slight improvement over the previous year.
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