Massachusetts Charter Schools

2013-2014 Charter School Student-Level Waitlist Report Submission

To:	Charter School Leaders
From:	Cliff Chuang, Associate Commissioner
Date:	May 6, 2013

This month, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (Department) will begin collecting waitlist data for each charter school in accordance with M.G.L. Chapter 71, Section 89(n), which reads, in part:

The names of students who entered the lottery but did not gain admission shall be maintained on a waitlist, which shall be forwarded to the department not later than June 1 in the year in which the lottery is held. In addition to the names of students, the school shall supply to the department each student's home address, telephone number, grade level and other information the department deems necessary. The department shall maintain a consolidated waitlist for each municipality in order to determine the number of individual students in each municipality seeking admission to charter schools.

For this year, the Department requests that each charter school provide the following data elements for each student included in the waitlist numbers that were previously reported in the aggregate, by grade and by town, in the March FY14 Pre-Enrollment Report:

First Name

Last Name

Middle Name

Date of Birth (MM/DD/YYYY)

Town Code

FY14 Grade

This FY14 Charter School Student-Level Waitlist Report should be completed using the Excel template named FY14 Charter School Waitlist that has been uploaded to the school's Charter School File Exchange dropbox within the ESE Security Portal. The total number of individual student records included in this file should match the aggregate number of students reported by the charter school as waitlisted in the FY14 pre-enrollment report. For your reference, we have re-opened the Charter School Pre-Enrollment web application within the security portal so that each school can review their previously submitted aggregate waitlist data.

As with the data collected through the pre-enrollment process, the Department may review a sample of the waitlist data reported by charter schools. Therefore, please ensure that your charter school's enrollment process is clearly documented. Specifically, please be sure that you have carefully tracked the seats available at the time of the lottery (if applicable) and maintain records of all applications received.

We will be sharing this data with the Office of the State Auditor. The Auditor is currently undertaking a review of the Department's charter school oversight activities.

The deadline for submitting the FY14 Charter School Student-Level Waitlist Report is 5:00 p.m. on Friday, May 24, 2013. Please note, if your school did not report a waitlist in the FY14 pre-enrollment report, this additional data collection will not apply to your school.

In the future, we will need to collect and update this information on a monthly basis. We hope to develop automated reporting tools to minimize the time and effort needed to comply with this statutory requirement.

Thank you for your time and attention to this important matter. If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact Lee DeLorenzo (ldelorenzo@doe.mass.edu; 781-338-3227) or Joanna Laghetto (jlaghetto@doe.mass.edu; 781-338-3221).

Last Updated: May 6, 2013