The Mobile County school system opened its application period for magnet schools in January 2015, kicking things off with weekend open houses that let families tour campuses and submit applications in person.
Only Mobile County residents are eligible to enroll in a magnet school, and roughly 6,000 students are selected each year through a computerized lottery system. According to Marilyn Pace, supervisor of the magnet program, that number was expected to grow over the following few years. The expansion traces back to the school board’s decision to relocate the Chickasaw magnet program to the larger Eichold-Mertz Elementary, which added significant capacity to the system. Eichold-Mertz enrolled about 500 students at the time but had room for as many as 800, and the district planned to add roughly 100 students a year until the school reached full capacity, a gradual approach tied to how teacher funding is calculated from the prior year’s enrollment.
Mobile County operates seven magnet schools: Clark-Shaw Magnet School of Mathematics, Science and Technology; Council Traditional School; Eichold-Mertz Magnet School of Mathematics and Science; Old Shell Road School of Creative and Performing Arts; Dunbar School of Creative and Performing Arts; LeFlore Magnet High School; and Phillips Preparatory Academy. Three of those schools, Clark-Shaw, Council and Phillips, have earned the National Blue Ribbon School designation from the U.S. Department of Education, a recognition reserved for schools with consistently high academic performance or significant gains in student achievement.
Families interested in applying were invited to attend "see and sign" days, when volunteers, faculty and counselors were on hand to help with paperwork and answer questions about each school’s program. The deadline to be included in the first lottery drawing was set for late February, though the district continued accepting applications afterward, since additional openings tend to surface over the summer as families’ plans change.
Academic expectations at the magnet schools are demanding: students are required to maintain a C average, and the curriculum moves at an accelerated pace compared to traditional campuses. To help students keep up, the district offers intervention programs such as before- and after-school tutoring alongside enrichment opportunities in technology, laboratory science and the performing arts.
Pace described the lottery selection process as designed to be as fair and impartial as possible, run entirely by computer rather than manual selection. Families accepted through the lottery were expected to receive notification by early April, with additional offers continuing afterward as more slots opened up based on year-end academic performance, family relocations and transfer requests. Applications were available through the school system’s website, with additional information available by phone from the district’s magnet office.