Specific charter school enrollment data?

[Anonymous]

Forgive me, but I'm new to this and can't find the info on my school dc. I see that most charter schools list preferences in their lotteries, such as "sibling enrolled" and "children of staff." I'd like to be able to look at my odds of getting in to a charter based on whatever preferences apply to me. Is there information somewhere of what preferences each person admitted received?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Forgive me, but I'm new to this and can't find the info on my school dc. I see that most charter schools list preferences in their lotteries, such as "sibling enrolled" and "children of staff." I'd like to be able to look at my odds of getting in to a charter based on whatever preferences apply to me. Is there information somewhere of what preferences each person admitted received?

No - that isn't released. Most schools will tell you how many spaces they expect for non-siblings at their open house events.

[Anonymous]

Charters only have a couple preferences: sibling (enrolled and accepted) and sometimes staff. I don't think there's any charter that hasn't accepted everyone with preference. So in other words: if you have preference, you will get in.

If you don't have any preference, that's a different question. Yes, the school can ESTIMATE how many seats it will have, but it's just a guess, not a fact. If you don't have acceptance preferences, I suggest you just list schools on your lottery application in order of your true preference and just hope for the best. Don't try to make guesses about the likelihood of getting in because there's just no way to tell (and besides, even if there's only one spot open for non-pref, someone still has to get that spot).

[Anonymous]

Thanks, all! Is there a way to find it the ranked order of these preferences? In other words, is there a way to find out that if I worked at the school, but my child's siblings were not enrolled, if my child would be given preference before someone who did not work there but did have siblings enrolled?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks, all! Is there a way to find it the ranked order of these preferences? In other words, is there a way to find out that if I worked at the school, but my child's siblings were not enrolled, if my child would be given preference before someone who did not work there but did have siblings enrolled?

That varies by school. You can probably find it somewhere on the DCPCSB website because they need to notify them of their preferences and order. Or just call DCPCSB and ask about the specific schools you're interested in.

There are also some limitations to the faculty preference -- sometimes you need to have worked there for more than a certain amount of time before you're eligible and there is a cap on how many staff/teacher preferences a school can give (think it can't exceed 10% of enrollment).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks, all! Is there a way to find it the ranked order of these preferences? In other words, is there a way to find out that if I worked at the school, but my child's siblings were not enrolled, if my child would be given preference before someone who did not work there but did have siblings enrolled?

No, and there won't be. Charters are notorious for their lack of data on lottery acceptances, because they don't want to be audited on the funding end.

Secondly, and more importantly, the Lottery Board nerfed the kind of data OP is looking for. Instead, you get waitlist data and thats about it, unless someone FIOA's for it.

Waitlist PCSB here, for last year: https://data.dcpcsb.org/Waitlists-Spaces-Available/Wait-List-SY15-16-as-of-March-27-2015/3ibf-jtff