Admissions and Enrollment Policy

Table of Contents

Purpose: This policy is in place to address the process for handling admissions at School. The goal of this admissions policy is to declare the process and methods that will be used to admit students in a fair and consistent way that does not offer priority to any student except those specifically noted in required by North Carolina law.

Southwest Charlotte STEM Academy  is a nonprofit, tuition-free charter school authorized by the state of North Carolina.  As a charter school, School will be open to all students who would otherwise qualify for enrollment in North Carolina Public Schools. The school will not discriminate against any student on the basis of ethnicity, national origin, gender, or disability. School will open enrollment on November 15th. The open enrollment period will end on January 31st. The lottery will occur on the first Monday of February at 12:00 on the school campus. You do not need to be present in order to be selected the school will notify all parents who applied via SMS and Email within the next 24 hour period.  

No criteria for admission will be used except the completed application. The application may be completed online through our website., unless a family is unable to access the site.  In that case, we will provide a paper application to parents when requested.  The application will include the student’s name, parent/guardian names, current address of student, phone number of parent/guardian, email of parent/guardian, county of residence, current grade level, their grade level for the coming year, student’s date of birth, the name of any siblings already enrolled at the school, declaration of the student’s residence in the state of North Carolina, confirmation of access to email, parent email address and an indication as to how the family would like their children entered into the lottery.

Grade Level for the Lottery Application

 

Parents will be asked to confirm both their student’s current grade as well as the grade for the coming year. Parents may not choose which grade they would like their child enrolled in for the coming year, they must enter the actual current grade and the next year’s grade as confirmation.
Parents wishing to have their child considered for retention must still submit their student for the subsequent grade level and then if admitted the student will be evaluated by the Director and child’s teacher before a retention decision is made. 

If the student’s current school recommends a student for retention and has it documented in the student’s file, the student will be moved to the appropriate grade if they have been admitted to the school and will retain enrollment status with School. If the student is on the wait list at the time the retention decision is made, they will be moved to the correct grade level and placed on the wait list of their new grade based on the number they were pulled during the lottery.

Returning Students

 

Current students at School will not be required to re-enroll. They will be asked to sign a letter of intent for the coming year during January to allow the school to plan appropriately for the lottery

Enrollment Priority

 

Southwest Charlotte STEM Academy will follow all rules and regulations regarding enrollment priority as required by applicable North Carolina law.

The following groups will have enrollment priority at Southwest Charlotte STEM Academy in the order that follows as space permits in each grade:

  1. Children of full-time employees and board members (may not exceed 15% of total school population)
  2. Siblings of currently enrolled students who were admitted to the charter school in a previous year (as determined by Charter School law G.S. 115C-218.45(f)(1))
  3. Children whose families are considered Economically Disadvantaged
  4. Children who are currently enrolled in a NC Charter School

Economically Disadvantage Students:  Southwest Charlotte  STEM Academy will institute a priority lottery for remaining seats available in order to achieve 25% of our students meeting the “Economically Disadvantaged” (ED) criteria, defined by meeting national Free and Reduced Lunch (FRL) criteria.

With each lottery, the Head of School will work to identify the number of FRL seats available per grade level in order to balance students admitted across grade levels, total seats available, school resources and planned annual target.

Families will have the opportunity to complete an optional form, separate from their lottery application, where they can offer family income information in order to determine if they are eligible for the purposes of the priority lottery.  This supplemental form will ask applicants to consent to verify status as FRL eligible by Southwest Charlotte STEM Academy staff, and will state no specific information will be obtained beyond eligibility status and that the information will not be retained.

Bundled Policy for Siblings

 

All children in a family are “bundled” together under one unique lottery registration number, but will only be registered to run in the lottery under the name and grade of the oldest child (“Primary Registrant”).  If the “Primary Registrant” child is admitted, all siblings bundled on the registration form will be eligible for placement in their respective grade level immediately, as long as there is an opening.  If there are no openings, they will be placed on the preferred waitlist for the respective grade level. If the “Primary Registrant” is placed on the waitlist, the other siblings will also be placed on the waitlist for respective gra