Elizabeth Public Schools Calendar 2026-2027

Elizabeth Public Schools has more than one K–8 route. Its current directory separates twenty neighborhood schools from six magnet schools, alongside three early-childhood centers and eight high-school academies. Combining the neighborhood and magnet schools into one undifferentiated group hides a major part of the district’s structure: some children follow an address-based K–8 path, while others enter a specialized school through a separate process.

The magnet layer begins well before high school. Each of the six campuses uses its own admission rules. One clear example is iPrep Academy School No. 8, which runs a kindergarten registration lottery. Other magnet or gifted programs publish their own application information. A family interested in these schools must examine the particular program and entry grade instead of assuming that every K–8 school is assigned by residence or that every magnet uses the same lottery.

A second formal choice point arrives in eighth grade. Elizabeth asks students to register their high-school selections among eight named academies, each organized around a distinct academic or career emphasis. The process is not merely course selection inside one comprehensive high school; the selected academy is the student’s high-school institution, with its own campus identity and program.

Its structure has three possible layers: early-childhood placement, a neighborhood or magnet route through the earlier grades, and a structured high-school selection process. Address explains only part of the system. Families need to distinguish routine registration from magnet admission and then prepare again for the eighth-grade academy decision.