5000: Charter School Enrollment Procedures

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1 Page 1 of : Charter School Enrollment Procedures Introduction This document describes the process for completing Charter School enrollment counts. It includes instructions for verifying student registration in their local district, maintaining student attendance records in the online School Register, and performing the necessary enrollment counts. It also describes the process for incorporating revised revenue information into the budget. References N.J.A.C. 6A: N.J.A.C. 6A: New Jersey School Register Department of Education Charter School Enrollment Count Procedures Required Forms This procedure refers to the following hardcopy and online forms used to facilitate this process: Charter School Registration Form Registration Checklist Transfer Card Transportation Form (B6T) Lottery Ticket Lottery Receipt Notification Letter to Districts Student Enrollment List for District Attendance Form Online School Attendance Register

2 Page 2 of 10 Completion of Charter School Registration All students enrolling in the charter school must complete a CACS Registration Form. A separate form is needed for each student in a family. The following verifications are required to complete this form: Verification of address Immunization record or letter of exemption for religious reasons Proof of guardianship Proof of registration in resident district The registration clerk must initial each of the items at the bottom of the Registration Form, indicating that the necessary documentation has been provided by the parent/guardian. All registration for the forthcoming school year must be completed by June 1 (N.J.A.C. 6A:11 7.2(j)1). Registrations received after that date may not be included in the initial count. Verification of Address All registrations require two forms of verification of address. The following are acceptable forms of address verification: Utility bill Driver s license Tax return Lease/Mortgage The registration clerk must write his or her name at the bottom of the registration form to indicate verification of address. Immunization Records All students must have current immunization records, or a letter of exemption, to be eligible for registration. Records which appear incomplete must be submitted to the School Nurse for evaluation. Upon receipt of a complete immunization record, the registration clerk must write his or her name at the bottom of the registration form.

3 Verification of Registration in Resident District Compass Academy Charter School Policy Manual Page 3 of 10 All students registering the Compass Academy Charter School must first be registered in their resident district. Resident districts are required to accept upon submission registrations for students who are registering for the charter school (N.J.A.C. 6A:11 7.2(a)). Acceptable proofs of district registration include: Transfer Card signed by a district administrator Current Report Card Official communication from resident district attesting to registration of student The registration clerk must write his or her name at the bottom of the registration form. Note that the resident district registration will be confirmed again at the submission of the charter school enrollment data to the resident district. Proof of Guardianship Only the legal guardian of a student may enroll the student in the school. Relatives, who do not possess legal guardianship, are not eligible to do this. Acceptable proofs of guardianship are: Original birth certificate (with raised seal) Court Order awarding custody to the guardian Current tax forms showing the student listed as a dependent The registration clerk must write his or her name at the bottom of the registration form. Transportation Form (B6T) Enrolling students must fill out a Transportation Form (B6T) indicating the distance from their home to the school, as well as the cross street information on the form. The registration clerk must initial the Transportation Form item at the bottom of the registration form. Lottery Ticket and Receipt Lottery selection process (As stated in the CACS charter application approved by NJDOE) For the purposes of the following rules, the following terms are defined as follows: 1. A Manual Lottery refers to the selection of applicant names by a random method such as the blind drawing of individual names from a container in sequence until all names in the container have been exhausted. 2. All applicants participate in lottery irrespective of preference status.

4 Page 4 of The lottery will be open to all, will not rely on computers, and will be easily understood and followed by all observers. 4. Only applications received prior to the end of each registration deadline are eligible to participate in the lottery. 5. All applicants offered a seat shall be required to affirmatively respond to an offer for acceptance within five (5) days. Those not responding (excludes declines) will be placed on the waiting list with an application date equal to the date the initial offer expired. 6. A lottery shall be conducted by a designated 3rd party for only those grades in which the number of applicants exceeds the number of expected seats available. If the number of applicants is less than the number of seats anticipated to be available, no public lottery shall be conducted for that grade for that registration period. 7. Siblings of applicants in another grade who are offered and have accepted admission based upon the preference established by the rescinded offer SHALL maintain the seat accepted and the sibling whose offer which has been rescinded shall be considered to have a preference of an applicant with a sibling applying for the same academic year. 8. ALL offers of registration shall be made in the order of the lottery results and established Waitlist. NO OFFER SHALL BE MADE TO A STUDENT NOT PROPERLY ENTITLED TO THE NEXT AVAILABLE SEAT. Rules: Preferences 1. All preference categories shall be published prior to the conduct of the Lottery. 2. All Applicants entitled to receive a placement preference shall be identified PRIOR to the Lottery. 3. Preference status entitles an Applicant to be offered an available seat ahead of Applicants without a preference status. 4. All Preferences shall be considered in the following hierarchy: A. Applicant sibling of a currently attending student. B. Applicant sibling of an accepted applicant applying for the same academic year. 5. Siblings who are applying for the first time will receive preference only after one of the siblings has been accepted. Procedure: 1. The open enrollment (registration) periods will be published in advance of the lottery date. Public Lottery: 1. Public event scheduled the day following the closing of each registration period as announced on the compassacademycharer.org website. 2. All applications are verified for preference prior to generating lottery labels. (e.g. All siblings are properly linked and verified, etc.) (See Rule 2 above)

5 Page 5 of For the initial start up of the Compass Academy Charter School registration process, the CACS planning committee will be responsible for announcing the grade levels that will participate in any lottery based on enrollment numbers (Number of seats available). 4. Labels with all eligible students will be generated, sorted by grade, for all students participating in the manual lottery. Students drawn during the lottery will be displayed by drawing number and NOT by name unless specifically requested in writing by client. 5. All labels will be affixed to a 3x5" index card and put into a single container (irrespective of grade). 6. When a Manual lottery is conducted, the drawing will be done by a neutral third party. The party conducting the lottery will record the order in which student names are drawn. This can be accomplished by writing the selection number on the card as drawn.. (For ease of recording, once selected, cards may be sorted by grade level indicated on label.) 7. Once all numbers are recorded, the lottery will be processed to establish the admission order allowing for all appropriate preferences. 8. Display of lottery results will be posted by student name. 9. The school administration or CACS planning committee will generate offers of registration. See Rule above regarding offers not responded to within the designated time frame. 10. Remaining students are assigned to the waitlist in the order of their lottery number. 11. Applicants who applied after the close of the enrollment period will be placed on the waitlist in the order that their application was received (date & time). 12. Letters will be sent to waitlisted students indicating their status. 13. Students who decline admission will be marked and the seats that open will be made available to waitlisted students. On the waitlist, the appropriate number of students will be highlighted in the order in which an offer should be made. Siblings of students who are sent an offer will move up on their waitlist as appropriate. Each registered student receives a numbered lottery receipt (green), signed by the registration clerk. A matching lottery ticket (pink) is completed and kept by the school. In addition, the student s registration is tagged with the matching lottery number. Registration Checklist The registration checklist is both an aid to the registration clerk to ensure that all necessary steps are completed and a way to confirm that registrants are fully informed about the lottery rules. The registration clerk completes a registration checklist for every single registration.

6 Entry of Students into Student Information System Compass Academy Charter School Policy Manual Page 6 of 10 Once students have been selected for admission, they complete an Enrollment Acceptance Form which includes data required for NJSMART entries. Information from this form and the registration form are entered into the SIS. Refer to the Student Information System documentation for detailed instructions. Upload of Student List to NJSMART SID Management Process The Registration Clerk outputs the SID Management file from the SIS and uploads it to NJSMART. They follow up on any errors and conflicts until all submitted students are uniquely identified by a SID issued by NJSMART. This SID is added to the student record in the SIS. Refer to the NJSMART documentation for detailed instructions. Enter Student Data into Charter School Enrollment System Once all students have SIDs issued by NJSMART, the Registration Clerk enter student data into the NJ DOE Charter School Enrollment system available on the NJ DOE Homeroom web site. Refer to the NJ DOE Charter School Enrollment system documentation for detailed instructions. Performing Enrollment Counts Enrollment counts are performed three times a year: June 1 (for forthcoming school year) October 15 Last day of school Enrollment data is submitted to all sending districts for those students enrolled from that district. This data must include the following: Student Name Date of Birth Grade Address Assigned District School Indication of new records

7 Page 7 of 10 Reports to print these lists are provided within the Online Student Register. A separate list must be printed for each district and faxed with the standard cover letter as per the schedule specified by the NJ Department of Education. These lists include all students registered from the district as of the current count date as listed above. New Students Student appearing in the registration list for the first time must be marked as new records with an X in the New Record field. For all districts for which there are new records, a follow up phone call is necessary to confirm receipt of the information and to verify that the new students appear in the districts enrollment records. Withdrawn Students Withdrawn students are not included in the list sent to the districts. Their withdrawal date is noted in the Online Student Register, and the number of days attended for the current year (up to their withdrawal) is calculated. The withdrawal date is considered the date on which CACS receives a signed transfer card from the parent/guardian, officially removing the student from the school. Maintenance of District Enrollment Lists and DOE Final Reports District enrollment lists as sent to the resident districts are maintained in the Business Office. Entry of Student Data in DOENet Note: Consult the DOE NET Technical Manual for detailed instructions for entering student data. The manual is located in the Executive Director s office. Only students who are new to CACS, or who have changed resident districts, are added to the DOE Net database. Student with changes to their free lunch status or special services, or who withdraw from CACS, require changing in the DOE Net database. Because CACS enrolls students from multiple school districts, data for each district must be entered separately.

8 Page 8 of 10 (Additional Codes are available in the Cumberland County Public School Directory published by the Department of Education and available at the Cumberland County Office.) Once student data is entered and updated for all districts, it must be verified against the schools records. This is done by scrolling through all records for the district with the printed register for reference. Withdrawn Students Students who have withdrawn from CACS since the previous enrollment count require two entries in the DOE Net: A D in the Action field The number of days enrolled in the Enrolled Days field. Enrolled days are calculated by subtracting the number of days between the student s withdrawal and the count date from the total number of possible enrolled days for the current session. Be sure to consider the school calendar when determining Enrolled Days. For example, if there were a total of 99 session days up to and including February 15, and the student withdrew effective February 11, the number of enrolled days would be 96, not 95. This is because February 14 is a vacation day in our current school calendar. Similarly, consider snow closing days they should not be counted as possible enrolled days and may affect Note that deleted students (marked with a D in the Action field) will continue to appear in the data for some time.

9 Page 9 of 10 Following up with the Districts to Resolve Discrepancies Once CACS has finished entering its data, the resident districts provide school code entries for all new students from their district. If the districts fail to do this, or if there are discrepancies between the charter school records and the district records, these codes may not have been entered. The NJ Department of Education provides a report that documents student records for which there are no school codes, or for which there is a dispute about their residency. This report is entitled Registered Student with 000 or 999 Assigned School District Code. The charter school must follow up for each student listed on this report to determine with the district the cause of the discrepancy. The most common causes for these discrepancies include: Student no longer resides in district and never informed CACS Student is new to district and records in the district are not current Human error Our copy of the Cumberland County Public School Directory highlights points of contact for each district. Typically, the charter school must provide confirmation of residency for the disputed students as well as a copy of the transfer card or other document used to determine enrollment in the resident district. In cases where students have moved numerous times over a short period, it is likely that the guardian did not enroll the student in all the local districts in a timely way. We must work closely with each district to resolve such questions, recognizing that the guardian may not have followed all proper procedures.

10 Page 10 of 10 Student Attendance Procedures Student attendance records must be maintained on a daily basis in the Online School Register. Consult the Administrator s Plus, Daily Attendance documentation for detailed data entry procedures. Attendance Forms Teachers record daily attendance on printed Attendance Forms. (They also use these forms to records lunch orders and payments.) Completed Attendance Forms are brought to the office by 10:00 am. Students arriving after then must be recorded on the forms by office staff when they sign in. Attendance forms are maintained in monthly binders as the backup to the electronic register. Attendance Entry Office staff record student attendance in the online register, using the information provided on the Attendance Forms. Adopted: Signed by Sanford Tweedie, Board President Date