Mystic Valley Regional Charter School

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1 Mystic Valley Regional Charter School 4 Laurel Street l Malden, MA l Telephone l Facsimile Admissions Criteria Enrollment Policy and Procedures Charter schools are public schools and are therefore open to all Massachusetts students on a space available basis. This means that the Mystic Valley Regional Charter School may not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, creed, sex, gender identity, ethnicity, sexual orientation, mental or physical disability, age, ancestry, athletic performance, special need, proficiency in the English language or in a foreign language, or prior academic achievement when recruiting or admitting students. Moreover, the Mystic Valley Regional Charter School may not set admissions criteria that are intended to discriminate or that have the effect of discriminating based upon any of these characteristics. M.G.L.c. 71, 89(m), 603 CMR 1.06(1) & (8). The Mystic Valley Regional Charter School has an interest in making sure that all prospective students and their families understand the mission and focus of the school and are interested in being a part of the school community. Our enrollment process is not integrated with that of our sending school districts. The Mystic Valley Regional Charter School requires: 1. Candidates for admission to apply for the grade immediately following their current grade and to successfully complete their current grade to be admitted. 2. Applicants to be residents of Massachusetts at the time that they submit a Request To Attend (attached) and at the time of enrollment and attendance. Please note that failure to meet requirements 1 and 2 from time of application to time of attendance may result in rescinding offer. 3. That primary preference for admission be given to siblings of students "currently attending" the school in accordance with Massachusetts Law M.G.L.c. CH71, S 89 (n); 603 CMR 1.05 (6) Department of Education regulations. 4. That secondary preference for admission is given to students who are residents of the charter region (Everett, Malden, Medford, Melrose, Stoneham and Wakefield (as defined in (64)) at the time that they are offered admission to the school. Reasonable proof of current residency is required at the time an offer of admission is made and registration paperwork is submitted. and strongly advises and requests: 1 Board Approved:

2 5. Parents/ guardians and students attend an Open House and orientation session prior to enrollment. Attendance at such Open House and Orientation is not required as a condition of enrollment. 6. As part of enrollment process, parents/guardians and students sign compacts that demonstrate their agreement with and understanding of the school's mission and parent handbook. (Signing the compact is not required as a condition of enrollment.) The Mystic Valley Regional Charter School will not: Outreach 1. Give preferences to children of staff members or Board members 2. Give preference to siblings of students accepted to the school but not yet attending 3. Make statements in meetings intended to discourage, or that have the effect of discouraging, parents/guardians of students with disabilities, students with limited English proficiency, or any other protected group of students from submitting a Request To Attend to the school. See M.G.L. c (1) 4. Administer tests to potential applicants or predicate enrollment on results from any test of ability or achievement 5. Require potential students or their families to attend interviews or informational meetings as a condition of enrollment 6. Use financial incentives to recruit students. 7. The school will not set any principal application deadlines or hold any enrollment lotteries for student admission for the upcoming school year until after January 1, and shall conclude its principal enrollment process no later than March 15 of each year. The Mystic Valley Regional Charter School provides information about the school to those who are interested throughout the year. The School provides many informational sessions at Open Houses held throughout the year, but begin in early November. Request to Attend forms can be obtained on the school s web site at or in person at the school business office at 576 Eastern Avenue, Malden, MA. The school has and will implement its recruitment and retention plan (as outlined in MGL Chapter 71. Section 89(1):CMR (i) and enrollment process can include regional outreach effort that includes advertisement in local newspapers, open houses at the school, parent meetings at local pre-school centers and announcements on the school s website. All applicants will receive a document outlining the rights of students with diverse learning needs to attend the charter school and to receive accommodations and support services, including students who may have disabilities, require special education, or are English language learners. Information regarding the availability of our services may be found in our student handbook and on our website at Please refer to our Annual Report also located on our website for a comprehensive over view of our recruitment and retention plan. Attendance at Open Houses is strongly encouraged, but not required, for students and their families. 2 Board Approved:

3 Enrollment Steps: 1. Complete a Request To Attend form. Request to Attend forms can be obtained on the school web site at or in person at 576 Eastern Avenue, Malden, MA. Request To Attend forms will be accepted until the Friday before the Enrollment Lottery held each January. The school shall give reasonable public notice, of at least one month, of all application deadlines. Applicants to Kindergarten must be 5 years old by August 31 st of the year they are entering Kindergarten. 2. Receive official lottery number by mail after submitting Request to Attend form. 3. Attend one of our informational open houses beginning in early November. (Note: not required for enrollment) Families may attend before submitting Request to Attend form or receiving official lottery number. 4. Watch for the publicized date, time and location of our lottery night which will be published at least one week before the event on our website and local newspapers. 603 CMR 1.06(6). 5. After the deadline to submit your Request to Attend form passes, the Mystic Valley Regional Charter School will divide all Request To Attend forms into three categories under 603 CMR 1.06(4: siblings of currently attending students, regional applicants, and non-regional applicants. Regional - Applicants who live in the city or town that is part of the charter community (Everett, Malden, Medford, Melrose, Stoneham or Wakefield). Residents enrolled in district, charter, private or parochial schools or enrolling in schools in the charter community get equal preference. Non-regional - Applicants who live in the city or town that is not part of the charter community (Everett, Malden, Medford, Melrose, Stoneham or Wakefield). Residents enrolled in district, charter, private or parochial schools or enrolling in schools outside of the charter community get equal preference. Preference for admission is given first to applicants in the siblings (regional or non-regional) category (defined below) followed by applicants in the regional category and then by applicants in the non-regional category without regard to when their Request To Attend was submitted as long as it was prior to the lottery enrollment deadline. Siblings are defined as students who share a common parent, either biologically or legally through adoption. Whether the children reside in the same household has no bearing on determining if the children are siblings for purposes of a sibling preference. Children who live in separate households may be siblings and those that live in the same household may not be. If siblings are placed in foster homes and one of them enrolls in the charter school, then the siblings of that student are entitled to admission preference. Foster children are not considered siblings of other children in the foster home unless they share a common parent (biologically or legally). 3 Board Approved:

4 6. Attend Enrollment Lottery in January. (Note: not required for enrollment) 7. Receive notice of acceptance or placed on waitlist. 8. The school will set a final date for students to accept offers of enrollment for the following school year within two (2) months of Enrollment Lottery which will be outlined in offer letter. 9. Parents will be able attend a parent orientation near this date to complete the enrollment package. Lottery Process Mystic Valley Regional Charter School serves students in grades K through 12. The school accepts applications for, and enrolls new students in grades K through 6, in accordance with the enrollment growth plan attached on page 7. Each year, the Mystic Valley Regional Charter School will determine the number of spaces available by grade level for grades K through 6. If there are more eligible applicants than are spaces available, the Mystic Valley Regional Charter School must hold a lottery to determine which applicants will receive an offer of admission. 603 CMR 1.06(3)(a). As previously mentioned, the school must give reasonable public notice of the lottery at least one week before the lottery date. The lottery will be conducted in public at 576 Eastern Avenue in Malden with date and time posted in the school s advertisements. Charter schools must have a neutral individual, without any connection to the school, randomly draw the names of all students who submitted Request To Attend forms before the deadline. Upon receipt of a Request to Attend form, the school will assign a random number to each application received and send out a notice to all applicants prior to the lottery informing them of their random number assigned. At the lottery, the random numbers will be drawn and announced. Attendance at the lottery is not a requirement for enrollment. Offers of Admission and Enrollment Offers of admission will be made to applicants based on the sequence their number was drawn and which category the applicants belong. Priorities are: 1. Siblings (regional and non-regional) 2. Regional Applicants 3. Non Regional Applicants All applicants selected out of the lottery receive an enrollment packet. Selected families are given a two week deadline to notify the school of their decision to enroll. If the family of a selected student for enrollment from the lottery does not contact the school within the designated deadline or declines the offer, their enrollment offer is rescinded and they must apply in a future lottery in order to obtain another enrollment offer. When an offer of admission is made and registration paperwork is submitted, proof of current residency or sibling status will be required. Proof of residency, with the exception of homeless students, may be made by providing utility bills, tax bills or copies of signed lease etc. 4 Board Approved:

5 The school will hold an Orientation session in August (before the start of school) to prepare new families and students for the transition to the school and to assist families with any remaining paperwork. If the principal enrollment process fails to produce an adequate number of enrolled students, the lottery process may be repeated if a wait list does not exist and the required lottery process is strictly followed, including public notification and deadlines(603 CMR 1.06 (5). Waiting List When the number of applicants exceeds the number of open seats, those applicants will be placed on a waitlist and are offered positions in the respective grades if and when they become available. No student may be admitted ahead of other eligible students who were previously placed on a waitlist during a prior enrollment process, except in cases where enrollment preferences change or as described in 603 CMR 1.05(10)(b), (603 CMR 1.05(8). Beginning with the lottery, applicants will remain on the waitlist only for the school year for which the students applied. All waitlists that were established prior to March 31, 2014 will be maintained until such waitlists are exhausted. The school will maintain accurate records of the waitlist containing the names (first, middle, last), dates of birth, home addresses, telephone numbers and grade levels of the students who enter lottery but did not gain admission. Parent/Guardians are responsible for notifying the school if any of this information changes. If an opening becomes available during the year, the first student on the waitlist who satisfies all controlling criteria will be called (talks to a parent or guardian or leaves a message on the home answering machine or cell phone) and offered enrollment. If a student is selected off of the waiting list, the family has 3 days after the school makes contact to confirm enrollment. If the family fails to respond in those 3 days, the offer is rescinded, they are taken off the waitlist and the next eligible applicant from the waitlist is offered the position. Waitlist Exceptions Due to state imposed caps on the number of students who can attend a charter school from a town (which currently could affect applicants from Malden and Everett), there may be students who remain on the waitlist for grades that are not completely full. In particular, due to these limitations, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has limited the enrollment of students at Mystic Valley Regional Charter School to 835 students from Malden and 300 students from Everett (based on current cap increases reported by MA ESE for the school year). If a space becomes available and the enrollment of a student from the waiting list would cause his or her sending district to exceed the net school spending cap, or a limitation on enrollment 5 Board Approved:

6 like those on students from Malden and Everett, we are required to skip over that student but keep them on the waiting list. If that student on the waiting list is a sibling of a student currently enrolled at the charter school, the school may enroll that student and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will pay the tuition to the charter school, subject to state appropriations. Example: If the Malden cap has been reached, and a Malden student on the waitlist in an underenrolled grade is next on the list, we would not be allowed by the state to admit that student even though the student s grade may not yet be completely full. We would be required to offer the spot to the first non-malden, regional candidate on the list. If there were no non-malden regional candidates on the waitlist, we would extend the offer to the first non-regional candidate on the list. In the event that a student from Malden cannot be removed from the waitlist because of the statutory cap, he or she will maintain his or her place on the waitlist under the provisions cited above. There is also a possibility that the departure of a Malden student will allow a Malden student in a different grade to be admitted. If, for example, a Malden student leaves, and the student who fills his or her seat in the same grade is a non-malden resident, there would then be room for another Malden student in another grade. In such a case, we would admit the first student on the list that is from Malden and who is in a grade that is not yet full. Other Limitations and Conditions When a student stops attending the school for any reason in grades K-6, the school will attempt to fill vacant seats up to February 15 th. A vacancy not filled after February 15 th moves into the subsequent grade, to be filled the following August if such grade is not in the last half of the grades offered and is not grades 10, 11, or 12. Seats for students who have accepted an offer of admission in the charter school but have never attended are exempt from this provision (603 CMR 1.06(4)(d). In the unlikely case that our principal enrollment process fails to fill the available admission spaces, the school may repeat the process more than once to meet the requirements of G.L. c. 70, 89(n), (603 CMR 1.05(8). Please note, the school will not disclose student information with the exception that charter school and public school districts may request from each other student names and addresses once a year and may send mailings through a third party mailing house. Parents/Guardians will be given an opportunity to opt out from this list via the enrollment form (registration paperwork). School Transportation The school provides transportation to students of the school who reside within the region (Everett, Malden, Medford, Melrose, Stoneham, and Wakefield) who live more than 2 commonly driven miles from the school they attend. 6 Board Approved: