Lottery seat question

[Anonymous]

I've been looking at the multi-year lottery data as we prepare for the prek 4 lottery and noticed there has been large fluctuations in the number of available seats over the past several years. Does anyone know why? Does it have to do with covid? Is there any way to reasonably predict how many seats there will be this year?
For the school I've been looking at, the trend has seemed that there were more spots available several years ago, but very very few last year.

[Anonymous]

Are you looking at a specific school?

Schools decide how many seats to offer based on assumptions about how many PK3s will stay at the school. But also, schools can sometimes have more, or fewer, classrooms of a certain grade. For example if they need more room for K (a compulsory grade where students in-boundary have the right to attend), they could reduce their number of PK4 classrooms.

[Anonymous]

There could be any number of reasons, including a new classroom being opened or a classroom being closed. If you name the school, people will be able to provide you with better advice.

[Anonymous]

I think at this point COVID isn't really driving that kind of decision.

It can also have to do with the choice of whether to have multi-age (combined PK3/PK4) classrooms or not.

[Anonymous]

Also equitable access has lessened the amount of seats available through the regular lottery. You can see the remainder seats on the equitable access drop down option for the school.