Tampa Magnet Programs and How to Apply

A Tampa family applies to a Hillsborough County Public Schools magnet program online at hillsboroughschools.org/choice during a posted application window, and seats are filled by availability, eligibility and lottery rather than by who applies first.

In the district's words, choice is how a family requests enrollment outside its assigned attendance area, seats do not go to the earliest applicants, and placement turns on program availability, eligibility requirements and, where applicable, lottery processes (HCPS, March 6, 2026). The same release lists the HCPS School Choice Information Line at (813) 272-4692, staffed Monday through Friday. Program descriptions sit at hillsboroughschools.org/magnet, the page the district points to for regional event dates (HCPS, October 16, 2025).

For the 2026-2027 school year the district offered 43 magnet schools and more than 100 tuition-free programs, with themes that include Medical, Construction, International Baccalaureate, STEM, Performing Arts and Animal Sciences (Hillsborough County Public Schools). Magnet programs share the choice application with other options; the July 2026 window, for example, covered magnet programs and Hillsborough Virtual School together (HCPS, July 1, 2026).

For 2026-2027, Hillsborough County Public Schools ran three windows: October 20 to December 7, 2025; March 9 to March 27, 2026; and July 6 to July 12, 2026, with final lottery results viewable July 23 to July 31, 2026.

The first window and expo come from the district's October 16, 2025 release (HCPS), the second from its March 6, 2026 release (HCPS) and the final window and results from its July 1, 2026 notice (HCPS). The district called the March window especially important for families who missed the first one or were new to Hillsborough County Public Schools.

The 2027-2028 cycle had not been announced in a district news release when this page was checked. On October 18, 2026, the HCPS District News page listed releases through October 16, 2026, and none set the 2027-2028 magnet window (HCPS District News). The prior first window opened on October 20, so a Tampa family planning for fall 2027 has reason to watch the district site and the Choice Information Line in late October, but the date itself belongs to the district to post.

Hillsborough County Public Schools holds a Magnet Programs and School Opportunities Expo at the start of the fall window, held at Jefferson High School in Tampa in 2025, and a spring choice expo held at Chamberlain High School in March 2026.

The 2025 expo ran on Monday, October 20, from 4 to 7 PM at Jefferson High School, 4401 W. Cypress St., Tampa, with interactive demonstrations, student showcases and on-site application help from district staff (HCPS, October 16, 2025). For families who missed it, the district scheduled three regional events and posted their dates on the magnet webpage.

The Spring School Choice Expo took place on Monday, March 9, 2026, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Chamberlain High School, 9401 N. Boulevard in Tampa, the same evening the second window opened (HCPS, March 6, 2026). The district described dozens of schools attending, among them traditional choice schools, magnet programs and career-focused pathways, with administrators, teachers, students and parents on hand. Individual schools also run their own tours; Stewart Middle Magnet School, for one, invites families to schedule a school tour on its page (Stewart Middle Magnet School).

Tampa magnet schools in federal school records include Stewart Middle Magnet, MacFarlane Park Elementary Magnet and Roland Park K-8 Magnet in the 33607 ZIP code, Williams Middle Magnet on N 47th St. and Franklin Middle Magnet on E 21st Ave.

Each row comes from the National Center for Education Statistics school search for Stewart, MacFarlane Park, Roland Park, Williams and Walker; Franklin's row comes from the NCES search for Franklin, and its school page lists the same phone, (813) 744-8108. Walker carries an Odessa address, and its own page places it in the northwest corner of Hillsborough County (Walker Middle Magnet School), so it is a county magnet a Tampa family may apply to rather than a school inside the city.

Three of the Tampa schools share the 33607 ZIP code, which matters for families weighing commute time, since the School Choice process is how a family requests a school outside its assigned attendance area (HCPS). The table is a selection, not the full list of 43 magnet schools; the complete set is on the district magnet page.

For questions a school office answers better than the district line, such as tour times or program details, the NCES directory lists the main numbers: Stewart Middle Magnet at (813) 276-5691 (NCES), MacFarlane Park Elementary Magnet at (813) 356-1760 (NCES), Roland Park K-8 Magnet at (813) 872-5212 (NCES), Williams Middle Magnet at (813) 744-8600 (NCES) and Walker Middle Magnet at (813) 631-4726 (NCES). Enrollment ranges widely across these Tampa area magnets, from 327 students at Franklin to 1,039 at Walker in 2024-2025.

Several Tampa area magnets are International Baccalaureate schools, among them Roland Park K-8, Williams Middle and Walker Middle, while Stewart Middle builds on Project Lead the Way engineering and Franklin's Boys Preparatory Academy on Cambridge academics.

Roland Park K-8 Magnet School offers the IB Primary Years Programme and Middle Years Program, and every kindergarten through 5th-grade student there is part of the Primary Years Programme, which the school describes as inquiry-based learning built on six transdisciplinary units (Roland Park K-8 Magnet School). Williams Middle Magnet School on N 47th St. calls itself an IB World School and lists HOSA and FBLA clubs among its programs (Williams Middle Magnet School).

Walker Middle Magnet School in Odessa offers the IB Middle Years Programme for grades 6 to 8 and reports students drawn from 29 ZIP codes, 60 elementary schools and 33 home languages, a measure of how widely a single magnet draws (Walker Middle Magnet School). Stewart Middle Magnet School teaches hands-on engineering and technology courses through the Project Lead the Way curriculum (Stewart Middle Magnet School), and the Boys Preparatory Academy at Franklin Middle Magnet School describes Cambridge academics and innovative technology as the core of its program for young men (Franklin Middle Magnet School). District-wide themes beyond these schools include Medical, Construction, Performing Arts and Animal Sciences (HCPS).

In October 2026 the Florida State Board of Education named MacFarlane Park Magnet, Williams Magnet, Roland Park Magnet and Walker Magnet among 38 Hillsborough County 2025-2026 Florida Schools of Excellence, and Stewart and Franklin list 2026 Magnet Schools of America merit awards.

The State Board made the Schools of Excellence designation on October 14, 2026, for sustained academic performance, and Hillsborough County Public Schools announced its 38 schools the next day (HCPS, October 15, 2026). The magnet schools on that list are MacFarlane Park Magnet among elementary schools, Walker Magnet and Williams Magnet among middle schools, and Roland Park Magnet among K-8 schools.

Stewart Middle Magnet School describes itself as a 2026 Magnet Schools of America Merit School of Distinction and a 2024-2025 Project Lead the Way Distinguished Gateway School (Stewart Middle Magnet School). The Boys Preparatory Academy at Franklin Middle Magnet School presents itself as a 2026 Magnet Merit Award of Distinction School (Franklin Middle Magnet School). Both are the schools' own statements of their awards.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, on Hillsborough County Public Schools district releases and school pages, with addresses and enrollment checked in the NCES school directory.