Open Enrollment Deadlines: SMUHSD's December Window and Frisco's January Dates

Most school-decision advice says the same thing: watch the spring. But for two districts we track, the decisions that shape next school year open in the dead of winter, while families are wrapped up in the holidays and semester finals. San Mateo Union High School District opens its enrollment window on December 1. Frisco ISD opens its gifted referral window on January 5. Both close on hard deadlines, and one of them serves two different school years at once.

Here is what each window actually decides, with the exact dates, so you can put them on the calendar now instead of discovering them in a Facebook group in February.

San Mateo Union: enrollment opens December 1, and it moved

If your child enters 9th grade in fall 2027, SMUHSD's Priority 1 Enrollment Window is the mechanism that assigns their school. For 2027-28 it opens at 8:30 a.m. on December 1, 2026, and closes at 11:59 p.m. on February 5, 2027. Enrollment runs through SchoolMint: you verify residency and complete the online enrollment form.

Two things about this window are easy to get wrong.

First, the opening moved. Last cycle's window opened in early November (November 3, 2025, for fall-2026 students). This cycle opens about a month later, on December 1. If you enrolled an older child and remember a November start, the date in your head is wrong for this year. The close stays where it was: 11:59 p.m. on the first Friday of February.

Second, the window is not just paperwork for your neighborhood school. Completing it on time secures priority assignment to your school of residence, and it is what makes you eligible to apply for a Sibling Transfer or an Intra-District Transfer to a different SMUHSD school. The district's transfer page is blunt about the deadline: requests submitted after it "are automatically denied." Transfer requests are accepted only inside this same December-to-February window - there is no separate transfer season. Intra-district requests then go to a lottery held in February. Missing the window does not bar enrollment itself (the district kept late registration open for the current year), but it forfeits the priority assignment, and for transfers there is no late line at all.

If you are earlier in the process and still comparing schools, the district's 8th-grade family information nights run from October 15 to October 28 this fall: Burlingame on October 15, Aragon's EXPO on October 20, Capuchino on October 21, Hillsdale on October 22, and Mills and San Mateo on October 28. They land five to seven weeks before the window opens, which is the right order: see the schools, then enroll.

Frisco ISD: one January window, two different school years

Frisco's January G/T referral window runs January 5-19, 2027, and closes at 3:00 p.m. Central. Miss the time, not just the date, and it is closed.

The part that confuses families: this single window serves two different program years, depending on your child's grade.

• Kindergarten referrals are for 2026-27, the year your child is already in. January is also a kindergartner's only published window of the year: the fall window covered only students new to Frisco ISD, in grades 1-12.
• Grades 1-11 referrals are for 2027-28, the following school year.

So a kindergarten parent and a 3rd-grade parent submit in the same two weeks, for placements a full school year apart.

Two more rules worth knowing. Students in grades 1-11 who completed the entire screening process in fall 2026 are not eligible for spring 2027 screening; the January window is not a retry line for a fall result. And the fall referral window that ran August 12-25 was only for students new to Frisco ISD; if your child was already enrolled and is in grades 1-11, January is your window, and always was.

Frisco also runs district-wide CogAT testing that feeds G/T screening for three grades, on its own calendar: Grade 5 September 14-29, Grade 3 October 15-30, and Grade 1 November 5-20. The district's calendar notes dates are subject to change. If your child's scores meet the criteria, the campus G/T teacher reaches out automatically, but the referral window above is the route that does not depend on being reached out to.

The winter pattern, and what to do this week

Put these dates on the family calendar now:

Then do the prep that removes the deadline stress: for SMUHSD, gather the residency documents before December so the SchoolMint form is a formality. For Frisco, decide before January whether you are submitting a referral, and know which school year your child's referral serves - the district's calendar directs referral questions to your campus G/T teacher.

These pages change. Both districts revise dates year to year, and this year SMUHSD already moved its opening by about a month. We verified every date on this page against the districts' own pages and calendars, most recently on the day this page was published; before you act, check the district's current page.

Where Cuemath fits

We have no role in either window: enrollment and G/T screening run entirely on the districts' own rules and timelines.

What a winter deadline tends to surface is a different question: where does my child actually stand in math right now? If a referral or a school choice is on your mind, that answer is useful before the window opens, not after. A free Cuemath evaluation is a structured read on exactly that, and what happens in the session is documented plainly in what a MathFit evaluation is.

FAQs

We only want our neighborhood SMUHSD school. Do we still need to act in the December window?

Yes. The window is the enrollment mechanism itself: residency verification plus the online form, inside the window, is what secures priority assignment to your school of residence. Late registration existed for the current year, the district's page says "You can still register your new student for the 2026-2027 School Year," but registering late means enrolling without the priority assignment, and the transfer doors close entirely.

What happens if we miss SMUHSD's February 5 close for a transfer?

A late transfer request is automatically denied. The district's page states requests submitted after the deadline "are automatically denied," and intra-district requests are decided by a February lottery. One detail worth knowing: the page describes notification "via letter after the lottery has been held if the transfer has been granted." It does not say how denials are communicated, so plan your follow-up rather than waiting on a letter.

What if our child completed only part of Frisco's fall screening?

The page does not say. The published rule bars spring screening only for students who "completed the ENTIRE screening process in fall 2026," and it does not address partial completion, so we cannot tell you which side of the line that falls on. Ask the campus G/T teacher before assuming either way.

The Frisco CogAT dates I found in a group thread say something different. Who is right?

Check the year. The 2026-27 windows above moved a few days from their 2025-26 dates, and the district's calendar header itself says dates are subject to change. So an old list in a group thread is wrong for this year, and even the current one deserves a check against the district's page before you plan around a day.