About 175 student registrations at Dublin City Schools are stuck in limbo because families haven't submitted required paperwork, and the Enrollment Center is fielding 10 to 20 new applications every day with less than three weeks until the first day of school on Thursday, Aug. 20.
Elizabeth Kefalonitis, the district's enrollment coordinator, said her team is working Saturdays and Sundays to clear the backlog before students walk through the doors.
"We've probably got our names on 175 of these, and we've looked at them, but we can't complete them until we have those missing pieces," Kefalonitis told DCS Today, the district's news platform, in a July 27 feature.
What families need
To complete enrollment, parents must submit:
- Two proofs of residency
- A birth certificate or passport
- A photo ID
- Immunization records
Some students may also need TB test results, custody documentation, or prior report cards.
Registration is completed online, and the district does not offer open enrollment. Students must physically live within Dublin City Schools boundaries to attend.
Redistricting questions flooding the office
The paperwork crunch comes as the district implements finalized attendance boundaries for the first time since Dublin Jerome High School opened in 2006. The high school redistricting redraws lines across Coffman, Jerome, and Scioto to balance enrollment as the district grows. An expansion at Dublin Scioto was built to accommodate about 600 more students, The Columbus Dispatch reported in September 2025 when draft maps were unveiled. Earlier elementary and middle school boundary changes affected roughly 1,360 students.
The new boundaries take effect this school year.
Parents have been calling the Enrollment Center asking which school their child will attend, but Kefalonitis said those assignment decisions fall outside her office's authority. She hears the same request constantly: families asking for exceptions to the new boundaries. Kefalonitis, who has been redistricted twice herself as a Dublin parent with children in the district, said she understands the anxiety but emphasized that every DCS school delivers a quality education.
Board President Amy Messick acknowledged the difficulty of the transition when the board approved new Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Schwanke on July 21, calling Schwanke "the right person to lead us through the implementation of our new attendance boundaries."
The countdown
The nearly 17,000-student district's summer registration pace will eventually slow. Kefalonitis said daily submissions typically drop to one or two per day by mid-September. But with less than three weeks until Aug. 20, her staff is in a sprint.
Families with incomplete applications should check their enrollment portal for missing documents before the first day of school.
