The Park City School District is offering open enrollment for all four of its elementary schools this fall in an effort to boost declining enrollment numbers, giving families living outside district boundaries the opportunity to send their children to a Park City elementary school.
“We’re hopeful this is going to balance some of our classes,” explained Superintendent Lyndsay Huntsman. “We’ve seen projections that over the next five years, Summit County kids ages 5 to 14 are expected to see a decline of just over 400 kids in that age range, so we wanted to get ahead of that and go ahead and open our boundaries for kindergarten through fifth grade.”
Huntsman said the elementary schools try to stick to a student-teacher ratio of 23-to-1, and the district accounted for families moving in over the summer when calculating how many open spots to extend to people outside the district’s boundaries. The internal team working on the initiative ultimately settled on 150 available seats across the four elementary schools, but not each school has the same number of openings.
For example, Huntsman said McPolin Elementary School has the most seats while Trailside Elementary has the fewest.
“We have a team that will review the applications and place individuals appropriately, so there is some work that needs to happen on the back end prior to the first day of school to ensure that families that did apply and are approved are registered and ready to go on day one on Aug. 18,” Huntsman said.
The application window opened Monday morning, and Huntsman said the district has already received 30 applications from interested families. There is a $5 processing fee associated with the application, and it’s a first-come, first-serve situation until all seats are filled.
Huntsman said she’s hopeful the district will keep open enrollment in subsequent years if the program is successful this fall and there continue to be available seats. She’s also interested in opening enrollment for the middle schools and Park City High School, but she wanted to hold off for now to give the district time to settle into its realignment after Treasure Mountain Junior High’s closure.
She added that it’s difficult to predict when or if schools will need to close in the future, but this is an effort to offset declining enrollment and keep the doors open in the long run.
“That is certainly one of the reasons why we made this decision to open enrollment now, versus waiting and being reactive. We wanted to be proactive,” Huntsman explained. “It allows us to fill available capacity and also let more families access our amazing education that we’re able to afford families here in Park City.”
Huntsman said she hopes open enrollment helps families across Summit County, too. She pointed out Silver Creek Village as a neighborhood that’s closer to Park City elementary schools, but it’s zoned for students to attend the South Summit School District.
She also affirmed that open enrollment will not affect the enrollment process for families already living within the district boundaries.
This isn’t the first time the district has opened enrollment to families outside its boundaries, but it’s been a few years since the opportunity was last offered, Huntsman said. She estimated the previous open enrollment period was before the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
Families who have applied should start hearing whether they’ve been accepted as early as next week. The application is available online at pcschools.us/enrollment/open-enrollment-2025-2026-school-year-k-5.