"How did your kid get into that Charter School?"

If I had a nickel for every time I heard this question I could personally offset the school district's budget deficit.

There is such confusion and misconception in regards to a charter school's enrollment policies.

While pork may be the other white meat--Charter schools are the other public schools.

How did your kid get into the neighborhood school? You enrolled them. The same applies for charter schools. You complete an enrollment form, or a letter of intent. Each charter has its own unique nuances, but in Douglas County the two enrollment policies for new families are either on a first-come-first-serve basis, or more commonly-the lottery system. Call the school of interest for you and ask them which one they use. Let's dissect each of these.

For simplicity and sake of comparison we'll assume you are enrolling a kindergartener in both cases.

If the school you are considering has a first-come-first-serve policy--you fill out the letter of intent and the date. You receive a number indicating your student's place on the list and you become one of the hopeful families to receive that special phone call. The more popular the school is, the longer the list-and the longer in advance you need to start the process of intent.
Good news is that there is no fee to get your student's name on the list (as charter schools do not have tuition or application fees) so you can decline if the offer of enrollment comes and you have changed your mind.
The not so good news for those of you, who waited awhile for this process, is that many charter schools are so coveted that you needed to have your child on the intent list before they started preschool. I have to admit that I, myself, fell in this category. I thought that the woman who told me to enroll my toddler son into kindergarten was a little off her rocker. Had she seen my son? He was still eating paper, not reading them! Our little guy was four years old when I realized he needed to be on the list.
Flukes happen and the year he was to start second grade several families coincidentally moved, and he became a uniform clad fellow.

The lottery system is fairly self-explanatory. The enrolling hopeful completes a letter of intent and this information is entered into a computer system. Software shuffles the names and randomly selects the lucky students. The benefit of this process for those of us who dragged our feet is clear, as we are just as likely to get a spot for our children as those who turned in the paperwork during the postpartum period.

In addition to these enrollment methods there is in general a sibling and employee policy. Siblings of current attending students and children of full-time employees have a priority in enrollment over new families.

Have I heard of families accepting enrollment for an older child so that a sibling can get in? Yes.

Have I heard of someone taking employment at a charter school to assure that their kindergartener is offered a spot? Yes.

Have I heard of a charter school tipping the scales in favor of a certain family due to status, grades, bribes or threats? Never!

At charter schools space is the issue. Classroom size is smaller and so are the buildings. They accept students up to capacity and the rest go on a waitlist until the process begins again.

Well, we have covered just the basics of charter school enrollment. Next we will address unfair and incorrect comments such as "Charter schools have better CSAP score because they don't accept special education students," and "Charter schools test and turn away kids that don't fit your curriculum."

Until then, write our Superintendent Dr. Jim Christensen a Thank You Note and let him know how much you personally appreciate the Douglas County Charter Schools.

Dr. Jim Christensen

620 Wilcox Street

Castle Rock, CO 80104

Or if you are sending a hallmark e-card: jim.christensen@dcsdk12.org

P.S. There is a comment button below. If you have comments, complaints or questions about my writings, please use it. I don't bite...hard.