Family & Community Alternative Learning
Massachusetts Charter Schools

Enrollment Restrictions for 2004-05 School Year

Recently, you were provided an updated memorandum on enrollment policies, dated January 28, 2004, that explained the requirements charter schools are subject to when recruiting and accepting students and then reporting the number of students pre-enrolled to the Charter School Office at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. This memorandum provides information on enrollment restrictions , by sending district, that charter schools may face for the 2004-05 school year.

The Charter School Regulations (603 CMR 1.06) state:

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education shall notify each Commonwealth charter school no later than February 15 of any limitation on the number of students from a district that may be enrolled in charter schools for the upcoming year.

The charter school statute stipulates that no school district's total charter school payments shall exceed 9% of the district's net school spending. Using projected FY 05 enrollment numbers for charter schools, projected FY 05 tuition rates, and required FY 05 net school spending ("NSS") figures, we have calculated projections of each sending district's FY 05 status against the 9% NSS cap.

The attached analysis was done by the School Finance Unit with the Department, and estimates the number of "seats" open for charter school enrollment in FY05 in each school district. It is critical to understand that the FTE number, found in the last column to the right, does not represent a hard and fast number of remaining "seats" for the 2004-05 school year. Rather, this number is a ballpark figure that can inform your school's decisions about next school year's enrollment.

The attached analysis only takes into consideration known anticipated enrollment growth as a result of grades being added at operating charter schools in the fall of 2004, including several schools opening this fall. The analysis Does not reflect possible changes in enrollment at charter schools by district, nor does it reflect allowable future growth at charter schools up to their own maximum enrollment as chartered by the state.

This is important information because your school will not receive tuition for any student that exceeds the 9% cap for a district. An example of how the Department pro-rates the tuition assessment for districts over the cap follows:

The charter school legislation (MGL Chap. 97 Section 89 (i)) states:

The commonwealth shall incur charter school tuition payments for siblings attending commonwealth charter schools to the extent that their attendance would otherwise cause said school district's charter tuition payments to exceed 9 per cent of said school district's net school spending.

The line item that funds this "sibling" provision was only partially funded in FY 04 and is likely to be only partially funded in FY 05. Therefore, the enrollment of siblings in a school district nearing or at the cap will most likely not "count against the cap" and force the Department to pro-rate tuition exceeding the 9% cap.

As there are a number of charter schools that enroll students from the same communities, it is important to work collaboratively to ensure that the enrollment plans of one charter school do not adversely affect other schools. The Charter School Office is happy to help facilitate such conversations if needed.

Finally, please note that charter schools must submit their pre-enrollment form to the ESE electronically via a smart form similar to those used for other Department data collections. This process began with the filing of the March 2003 Pre-Enrollment Report and will continue in the future. The data fields remain the same as last year's electronic submission and the same as the old paper submission (counts of students pre-enrolled from each municipality broken down by grade and the number of students from each municipality placed on the waitlist by grade). Specific instructions on how to access the 2004-05 Pre-Enrollment Report will be provided to you by the end of February and the report must be completed and transmitted no later than March 19, 2004.

Please call me at 781-338-3217 if you have any questions about the enrollment policies, the enrollment of specific students, or the pre-enrollment process in general.