Admission and Lottery Procedures

Effective Date: 3/6/97 500 –  1  Admission and Lottery Procedures 
Revised Date:  6/28/09, 3/9/10, 2/8/11, 5/8/12, 10/8/13,  1/15/19 Approved by:

DPSA Board 
Last Reviewed 2/10/21

 

  1. ADMISSIONS REQUIREMENTS

The DPSA shall enroll any eligible pupil who submits a timely application unless the number of applicants exceeds the capacity of the program, class or grade level.  In such cases, selection shall be by lot.  A student continuing for the next year will be re-enrolled for the next year without reapplication.  

Preference for enrollment shall be given to siblings of students enrolled in DPSA.

Children of licensed DPSA teachers and staff are given preference after sibling preference for enrollment at DPSA schools.  Children of DPSA staff are given preference after siblings and DPSA teacher children.

When a parent or legal guardian of an enrolled student is deployed by one of the US armed services to another location and the family moves with the deployed service member, that student, upon his or her family’s return to Minnesota shall be reenrolled in the school if the parent or legal guardian makes that request.    

A student enrolling in kindergarten must be 5 by September 1 of the enrolling year.  

 

Procedure

 

  1. A lottery date is set by the DPSA board in as part of the annual school calendar process.  
  2. Once the date is set, advertisement about the lottery and application process are communicated to current students and to the general public through all available means of communication deemed appropriate.   
  3. In these advertisements a date is established by which applications must be received or postmarked to be in the lottery.
  4. Applicants who are siblings of students currently enrolled in the school,  do need to fill out an application for their spot and submit it prior to the lottery deadline.  
  5. The enrollment coordinator for DPSA receives all the applications and prepares the information for the lottery.
  6. Simultaneously as the lottery date approaches an intent to return process occurs with current students to help determine the number of openings for the next school year.  This is coordinated by the head of school and enrollment coordinator.
  7. The head of school determines the number of openings for each grade level in the lottery based on the intent to return information.
  8. An independent auditor determines admission by lot, with preference for siblings of students currently enrolled and staff’s children.
  9. The lottery begins with kindergarten and goes grade by grade to 8th grade.  As students are pulled in the lottery, if there is a sibling applicant that application goes to the top of the list for that sibling’s grade level.
  10. Applicants that are not accepted at the lottery (because the number we can admit is limited) are drawn by the auditor and placed on a wait list in numerical order. 
  11. The school lottery team works with the auditor to provide email communication to all applicants within 24 hours of the lottery.  Any family that has not provided an email address, will be sent notification via US mail.  

 If we do not get a response from a family, a call is made by the enrollment coordinator at the end of the two week period to determine if the family wants the available spot or not.   If they decline or we are unable to locate the family, the next student on the auditor established wait list will be offered a spot in our schools

  1. Before any additional applications received after the lottery deadline can be considered for admission, all students who were placed on the wait list in the lottery must be admitted. 
  2. Students whose applications are received after the deadline for the lottery are accepted based on date of receipt and sibling preference.  

 

Additional Enrollment Related Procedures:

 

  1.  When a student who is enrolled in a DPSA school enrolls in a school in another district the student loses his or her placement in our school and must re-enroll if at any time he or she wishes to return to a DPSA school.  
  2. When a student is accepted from the DPSA waiting list the space for that student will be held for five (5) school days.  After that amount of time if the student has not accepted he or she is considered to have declined admission and will need to reapply.
  3. When a student is accepted during the school year (when classes are in progress) a student must begin attending the DPSA school within five (5)school  days of his/her admission.  If that does not occur a student will need to reapply.  The one exception to this may be a student on an IEP for whom particular arrangements need to be made for admittance that require more than five days.  
  4. If a student is accepted from our wait list and is found to be attending a treatment program and cannot meet the requirements above he/she must reapply for admission.  A spot will not be held for the student.   
  5. When a family has applied for more than one student, when one of the students is accepted the other family members attain sibling status.