Apply for schools in June with rental lease that starts in Aug?
Hi, we are moving to Berkeley this summer. My understanding is that we need to finalise a rental home before we can apply for elementary public schools. Some rental homes are only available starting in August. If we sign the lease for any of them in June, with the lease date starting in August, can we use the lease to apply for public school admission in June? Is the school admission system okay with the fact that we have a signed lease, even if the start date is a little later? Or will the school system not allow us to register our kids until the start date listed on the lease?
I have tried calling the number listed on BUSD website for this question but they don't pick up the phone. If you know a number they would pick up, please let me know.
Thank you!
Parent Replies
We went through this a couple of years ago and got our answers via email. BUSD will not let you enroll unless you are resident in Berkeley. If you had, say, a residence starting in June (a sublet, airbnb, etc.) and then the lease starting in August, they would make you register with all the proofs on your June address and *then* complete a change of address form and submit all the new proofs for your August address. Ridiculous, but that’s how it was when we asked two years ago (we were staying with friends from May-June and then starting a lease in June and they told us we’d have to go through all this paperwork to change addresses, prove we were living in each place etc.) In the end we simply waited until we had the lease and then registered. Friends of ours had leases starting the week before school started and things eventually worked out though their kids missed the first few days of school because their registration hadn’t filtered through/they hadn’t yet been assigned to a school. Good luck!
All Berkeley residents are guaranteed a spot in public school irrespective of when they apply. I know a reason folks apply early is to get their first choice .
Even after you have your lease (Group A), you still have to solve for the Group B (utility bill) and Group C (non-bill like bank statement).
I found email to be better when communicating with them (admissions @ berkeley . net).