Reply to How do we advocate for the expansion of Specialty School programs?

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Reply to "How do we advocate for the expansion of Specialty School programs?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP. I can understand the reasoning behind wanting more specialty schools, but I have some serious concerns with the transparency of the lottery. Why does it take so long between the lottery and the posting of the numbers? Shouldn't this all be computerized and instantaneous? Last year someone posted on here about how she had a great number to the French Immersion program and a not great number for Spanish and was placed in the Spanish program and lost her number for both French Immersion and Thomas Pullen. I've heard too many parents saying the system is rigged for me to feel comfortable putting more dollars into it until some of the transparency issues get fixed.[/quote]

What does that mean, "lost" her number?  Wouldn't the French Immersion program just be a lot more popular?  If people feel they have been wronged, they need to make some noise so that problems can be fixed.[/quote]

I read the thread from last year. Who knows what happened, but generally it sounds like the system they use for the lottery is not very sophisticated.[b] It is not capable of ranking multiple choices.[/b] So if you apply to more than one and get selected to more than one, you are more or less randomly assigned to one of them, even if your preference was for the other. [/quote]

Yeah, I don't see that as a huge problem.  Given how large the waitlists are, you should be happy if you get into any of the programs you apply to.  And you're not talking about getting in to two programs, you were saying she was on the waitlist for two and got assigned for one.  I don't see the failure there.  What you were insinuating was that there was some sort of corruption or something, which is a really serious allegation and is not the same.[/quote]

They [i]clearly[/i] tell you that you cannot rank your choices, and that you are at the mercy of whatever way they are filling the schools that year.  For that reason, we applied to ONE charter school and ONE specialty school.

Every year, there are different priorities with respect to filling the specialty schools.  Last year, it was the Spanish Immersion program since it was new.  So they filled those slots first, which is why that poster got placed into Spanish Immersion with a higher number than French Immersion and Thomas Pullen.  [/quote]

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