Last Friday afternoon, Superintendent Marcus Chambers announced the opening of a new OCSD Registration Portal for the 2020-2021 school year. Through the portal, parents can complete most of the registration process online from home.

The School District has used paper registration packets in the past, but the Superintendent made the call to move in this direction in order to help support families.

“There is a lot of uncertainty right now with COVID-19 and what things may look like this summer”, said Chambers. “With parents not able to come to the school for lengthy meetings to register their students, we thought it appropriate to bring the process to them. Whether it be a young family in Crestview with their first child entering school in Kindergarten or a military family coming to us from out of the country, we believe this will help connect families to Okaloosa schools.”

The registration process requires families to select a school of enrollment based on their address. The School Site Locator helps parents find their zoned school. Parents may, however, request enrollment for their student at a school outside of their attendance zone if the school has available seats. A list of those schools can be found at https://www.okaloosaschools.com/schools/coe.

Parents will still need to eventually come to the school to provide signatures and other required documents including address verification, but the portal will allow them to complete most of the registration process offsite. It will also assist the district in planning for the upcoming school year.

“We believe there are 2,000 more kindergarten students who need to be registered. We have an idea where they will be attending, but the registration information is specific and translates into teaching positions, so it’s critical that we are accurate here.”

said Superintendent Marcus Chambers

Chambers acknowledges that there is uncertainty about what school will look like in the fall.

“School Districts, not only in Florida but across the country, are looking at recently released CDC guidelines on re-opening next fall”, he said. “Part of our process in meeting this challenge will be to survey our parents to learn as much as we can about their concerns and preferences. That survey will come out prior to June 1st and will be critical in determining what Okaloosa Schools will look like in August.”

Students who currently attend an Okaloosa County school are automatically enrolled for next school year and do not need to register through this portal. For more information, families can call the school at which they are seeking to register. School contact numbers can be found at www.okaloosaschools.com in the Schools link.

The Registration Portal can be found at the District’s website, www.okaloosaschools.com in the Parents/Students section and on individual school websites.