I just heard from the father of the daughter with a rare disability that Newark Charter School’s admissions office is letting his daughter into their lottery. This is good news, and I’m glad for everyone who reached out to Greg Meece at Newark Charter School. I got an email this morning from someone in Florida who emailed Meece! While this is not a guarantee she will be accepted into the school, she has a chance which is all the parents wanted based on her very unique situation. From what I’m hearing, there were 3,500 applicants and only 80 slots are open. The school has 190 Kindergarten students, but because of their enrollment preference that siblings get first dibs, that filled 110 slots already.
I wish this family all the luck in the world and I look forward to hearing the outcome. There are still some questions regarding the admission policy in and of itself, but for now, good news all around. The lottery is tonight at 6pm.
The Season Of Myths 
does anyone think this child will be randomly selected?
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She has a 2% chance of being selected based on the numbers. I don’t think that part was as important to the parents as the fact that she wasn’t even allowed to be part of the process. For them, it was about equality, so this is a victory!
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Then I’m happy for them. It was a victory for NHS too.
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said differently, who monitors the lottery?
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Good news.
I wish we had a system for confirming PRE-lottery admissions. That seems, to me, the main opportunity for shenanigans–and in the case of NCS it typically accounts for well over half of the students admitted (as is apparently true this year for K, and there aren’t many spots in later grades). It seems only fair to the 3,420 (or whatever) children who won’t be selected via lottery that their families know that the sibling, etc., priority policies really do account for the 110 pre-lottery admits. To my knowledge, no one checks that other than school staff, and it’s not a public process. I’m not saying that I know there has been gaming of that system, but it sure would not be difficult.
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Tampering with the lottery is a high-risk process. I don’t think NCS needs to rig its lottery to assure its low percentages of low income, special ed, or ELL enrollment. There are plenty of other factors at work for that.
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I did see in their board minutes from August or September they are doing the lottery through the Data Service Center instead of what they used before. Not sure what that means, but I would imagine it is better.
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Reblogged this on Kilroy's Delaware.
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I just heard from the parents. Their daughter is 160 on the waiting list for Kindergarten. I think they expected that to happen, but they are very happy they got the chance.
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It’s important that community members come together for a cause that’s bigger than their own personal agendas. Hopefully, this child will continue to have positive results from a less than genuine school board that “says” it’s for the children but does little to back up their statements.
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There were only 70 some preferences for K (I was at the lottery) . Before the actually lottery, they announce the break down of the preference within that group. It was about 6 staff children and then the remaining were siblings. And then they read the name each of those children. So, about as transparent as it can be without disclosing a great deal of student information to the public.
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I, too, was at the lottery. I am planning on applying next year and wanted to see what the process is like. Let’s just say I was less than impressed.
Using rough numbers because I may have remembered them incorrectly…
190 open slots.
79 already accounted for (siblings, children of faculty). 41.5%
3,500 total applicants.
750 kindergarten applications.
500 within the 5 mile radius.
I talked to some of the parents there and felt bad for those who showed up outside of the 5 mile radius who statistically have zero chance of getting in but weren’t informed.
Regarding the process, several things caught my eye. I won’t get into specifics just yet but they would infuriate me if I was on pins and needles awaiting someone’s hand-picking of names, “randomly”. I may even have footage worth sharing off my phone that i turnd on once I picked up on these habits. Although not sure what good it would do.
I would love to see the demographics of those selected (111) vs. the (79) already enrolled via the preferred charter process. Motive – How does this correlate with their recent, yet controversial, distinguished Tier 1 school rating……..
360 days and counting.
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