How Districts Can Comply With Nevada’s New Open Enrollment Law
Nevada’s 2025 open enrollment law, AB 533, sets a statewide expectation: families should be able to apply to public schools outside their zoned assignment through a transparent, fair, capacity-based process. For districts, the work ahead is both operational and communicative. This brief outlines what the new law requires from Nevada school districts and how Avela can help you deliver a compliant, family-friendly intradistrict open enrollment experience at scale.
What the New Law Requires from Nevada School Districts
1) Adopt a compliant districtwide open-enrollment policy
District boards of trustees must adopt formal policies and procedures governing open enrollment. Policies must align with state requirements and will be reviewed for compliance by the Superintendent of Public Instruction. In short: every district must codify how open enrollment works, from applications to selections to appeals.
2) Make most public schools open to non-zoned students, when space exists
District open-enrollment policies must allow students to attend schools outside their assigned zone, as long as there is capacity at the grade level. The law requires districts to open enrollment across district schools except magnet schools, career and technical academies, and dual-enrollment high schools.
3) Publish clear, accurate vacancy and capacity information
To support family choice and statewide transparency, districts must publicly share school capacity and vacancy information on their websites. This includes having a reliable method to:
determine capacity by school and grade,
track open seats throughout the process, and
update public-facing vacancy lists quarterly – and 90 days before an open enrollment window
4) Run an annual application window with explicit timelines
District policy must specify:
the date open-enrollment applications open each year, and
the deadline for “on-time” applications.
Families only apply if they are requesting a school outside their zone – no additional steps should be required for zoned enrollment.
Additionally, applications must be made available in the five most common languages other than English primarily spoken in households in Nevada, which must include Spanish and Tagalog.
5) Ensure eligibility rules are non-arbitrary and non-discriminatory
District policies may not exclude students for arbitrary reasons, including using home address as a basis for ineligibility. Approvals and denials must follow transparent criteria consistent with state “can’t consider” factors:
The academic, artistic or athletic ability of a student
The participation of a student in any extracurricular activity or the skill of a student in such an activity
Whether a student is a student with a disability
Whether a student is an English learner
The address at which the student resides
or, whether a pupil has previously been subject to any disciplinary action.
The board of trustees of a school district may deny the application of a student who, in the school year for which the application is submitted or in the immediately preceding school year, was suspended for 10 or more days or expelled.
6) Use a fair selection method when demand exceeds capacity
When a grade level at a school has more applicants than seats, districts must:
prioritize students coming from zones of low-performing schools (bottom two state performance categories from the prior year), then
apply a neutral process, such as a lottery, for remaining slots.
7) Prohibit tuition or additional fees for open-enrolled students
District schools cannot charge tuition or extra fees to students attending through open enrollment.
8) Notify families and schools of approvals
Policies must require timely notification to:
the student and parent/guardian, and
the principals of both the sending and receiving schools
whenever an application is approved.
9) Provide a clear appeal pathway
If a student is denied, families must have the ability to appeal the decision to the district superintendent. Districts must provide a reason for each denied application and define and publish the appeal procedures.
10) Report open-enrollment outcomes annually
Each district must submit an annual report to the Superintendent of Public Instruction summarizing open-enrollment activity, including:
number of applications received,
number approved and denied, and
(aligned to the law’s data-tracking intent) reasons for denials.
11) Transportation is optional, but state support is available
Districts may decide not to provide transportation for open-enrolled students. However, Nevada has created a state grant program to support transportation for students leaving low-performing zoned schools when districts do not offer busing. Districts participating in the grant program must have compliant intradistrict open enrollment policies in place.
Bottom line: districts must operate a transparent, capacity-based, no-fee open-enrollment system with clear timelines, fair access, priority for students from low-performing zones, an appeal process, published vacancies, and annual reporting.
How Avela Helps Districts Stay in Compliance
The new AB533 law creates new operational demands, especially around capacity transparency, equitable selection, documentation, and reporting. Avela supports districts by turning those mandates into a process that is accurate, auditable, and easy for both staff and families.
Capacity and vacancy transparency, automated
With the modern, map-based school search tool Avela Explore, Avela helps districts define and manage capacity by school and grade and keeps vacancy lists current. This supports the law’s requirement for public vacancy reporting and reduces manual seat-tracking errors.
A family experience that reduces friction
Intradistrict open enrollment works best when families clearly understand timelines, capacity lists, and next steps. Avela’s simple, multilingual application experience with Avela Apply lets families request a school outside their attendance zone without confusion or paperwork headaches. Districts get clean, complete submissions every time.
A compliant annual application and lottery workflow
Avela provides a single, district-branded application experience that matches your on-time and late application windows. When schools are oversubscribed, Avela supports fair selection processes with Avela Match – including priority sequencing for students from low-performing zoned schools followed by neutral lotteries, while preserving a clear audit trail.
Built-in eligibility, documentation, and decision rules
Your intradistrict open-enrollment policy translates into configured rules within Avela’s system. That means no arbitrary, inconsistent, or non-compliant decisions.
Automated notifications and appeals support
Avela streamlines approval notifications to families. For denials, districts can use Avela to track and manage appeals cleanly (using saved views and tags), ensuring families have the required pathway to the superintendent.
Annual reporting, ready-to-submit
Instead of rebuilding counts by hand at the end of the year, Avela captures application, approval/denial, and reason-code data throughout the process. With Integration tools that securely connect Avela to the systems districts already use, district leaders can export compliant annual reports aligned to Nevada’s requirements with far less staff time.
Ready To Get Started?
Nevada’s new intradistrict open-enrollment law is an opportunity: to expand access, make capacity more transparent, and ensure open enrollment is equitable statewide. With the right tools, compliance doesn’t have to mean extra burden on district teams. Avela partners with districts to deliver an open-enrollment process that is clear for families, easier for admins, and fully aligned with state requirements.
To discuss how Avela can support your district, get in touch with the Avela team here.
