McAuliffe Charter To Accept 140 Sixth Graders in Lottery

By Susan Petroni (Patch Staff)

The Christa McAuliffe Charter School, a regional public school, will be conducting its annual admissions lottery on Wednesday, March 4, at 6 p.m. at its new campus location of 139 Newbury Street in Framingham.

The online lottery application is open through midnight on Saturday, February 28. Parents can apply at the school’s website ( mcauliffecharter.org/admissions).

McAuliffe will accept 140 students for the 2015-16 sixth grade.

No students will be accepted into the seventh or eighth grades at this time.

After the 140 students have been accepted, the school will continue to draw names to establish an ordered wait list for grade 6. The school will also conduct a lottery to establish an ordered wait list for seventh and eighth grades.

Lisa Mandozzi, executive director of the MetroWest YMCA Framingham branch, will be the neutral party who will conduct the school’s high-stakes lottery.

According to Cori Sage, McAuliffe’s admissions coordinator, “We expect to have about twice as many applicants as spots open in this year’s lottery. There are typically about 20-30 families with current scholars whose siblings will have preference in the lottery.”

The school’s enrollment policy outlines a lottery and admissions process that follows the state charter school laws and regulations that call for a blind lottery:

• First preference goes to students who have siblings currently attending the school.
• Next, students who are residents of Ashland, Framingham, Holliston, Hopkinton, Marlborough, Natick, Southborough, and Sudbury are drawn through the random electronic lottery tool.
• Students who live outside of the eight-town region may also apply to the lottery; the school draws from the non-regional pool after all sibling and regional student names have been drawn.

There were 283 applicants for the 144 slots for the current sixth grade class or the class of 2017. It was the largest applicant pool for the school’s largest class ever.

There were 261 applicants for the current 7th grade class and 214 applicants for the current 8th grade class. There were 150 applicants, the year before that.

Editor’s Note: My daughter is a grade 8 student at the Charter school.

Students selected in the lottery and those accepted off of the wait list have 10 business days to submit forms to enroll in the charter school.

As spots open up, the school will invite students off of the ordered wait lists.

“We encourage families who find themselves on a wait list to be patient as the enrollment process sorts itself out through the spring and the summer,” says Executive Director Kristin Harrison. “It is not unusual for families to be invited to enroll their child even during the summer months. Our Admissions Team will keep the wait list information updated on our website so that families can stay in the loop easily and be prepared for the invitation to join our community.”

The Christa McAuliffe Charter School is a diverse “Expeditionary Learning” public school for students in grades 6 through 8.

The school’s hands-on curriculum cultivates high levels of student engagement, responsibility for learning, and enduring character growth. Learn more at www.mcauliffecharter.org

The school is hosting an admissions open house on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 6:30 to 8 p.m. for families interested in learning more about the school.