For Immediate Release
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Contact:Jacqueline Reis 781-338-3115

State Estimates 34,000 Students Remain on Charter School Waitlists

MALDEN - The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) today released the most recent report of how many students are on a waitlist for admittance to a charter school in 2015-2016 based on data from October 1, 2015. This is an update to initial waitlists established in March 2015 that indicated approximately 37,000 students were on charter school waitlists. According to the October 1 data, approximately 34,000 unique students remain on a waitlist at one or more charter schools. "My staff and the charter school sector have worked hard to ensure the accuracy of the waitlist. I am confident that these numbers reflect parental and student demand for additional high-quality educational options," said Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Mitchell D. Chester. Each spring, charter schools submit to ESE the number of students enrolled for the upcoming school year as well as the number of students who were placed on their waitlists through each school's initial lottery. The March 2015 collection reported on the number of students who applied for admission for the 2015-16 school year and were put on schools' initial waitlists. The information provided today is updated through October 1, 2015 and reflects late offers of admission and/or new lotteries for seats that opened up over the summer and into the school year. The resulting reduction of several thousand students from the initial spring list is consistent with the fall reductions reported in recent years. The March 2015 initial waitlist reported that 75 out of 82 charter schools had waitlists and collectively identified 49,444 entries representing 37,470 unique students. Of the 75 charter schools who submitted initial waitlist data in March 2015, 74 schools continued to have a waitlist as of October 1, 2015. As shown in the table below, the 74 updated charter school waitlists contained 43,294 entries representing 33,903 unique students. It is important to note that not every student on a charter school waitlist would necessarily accept an offer of admission if, and when, it might be proffered. Therefore, the number of students found on each charter school's waitlist should not be understood as the number of students actively willing to accept an admission offered at any moment in time. This is particularly true for schools that have chosen to rollover their waitlists from one year to the next for waitlists established prior to March 31, 2014, as permitted by 603 CMR 1.05(10)(a), allowing students to remain on the waitlist for several years. A recent ESE survey found that approximately 75 percent of charter schools indicated that they chose not to rollover their prior year waitlists for the 2015-2016 school year. The Department is exploring ways to identify how many students continue to be rolled over in future waitlist submission cycles. Despite the significant and continuing improvement efforts ESE has made in recent years, it remains impossible to quantify the exact number of students who may be actively waiting for admission to a charter school unless ESE makes speculative assumptions, and ESE has avoided doing so in compiling the numbers presented today. The unique waitlist counts provided in this report should be taken as ESE's best understanding and representation of existing demand for the time period covered in the collection rather than exact numbers of students willing to accept offers at each school. The Department has implemented a few changes to the most recent collection process to achieve as accurate a matching process as possible. Because the current collection process requires significant resources from both the charter schools and ESE, ESE will continue to explore other efficient and accurate methods for collecting future waitlist information. In the following chart, some students are included on more than one waitlist:
School NameTotal Number of Students Reported on Charter School Waitlists
Abby Kelley Foster Charter Public School525
Academy of the Pacific Rim Charter Public School485
Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School456
Alma del Mar Charter School819
Argosy Collegiate Charter School32
Atlantis Charter School392
Barnstable Community Horace Mann Charter Public School9
Baystate Academy Charter Public School23
Benjamin Banneker Charter Public School268
Benjamin Franklin Classical Charter Public School289
Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School19
Boston Collegiate Charter School2,725
Boston Day and Evening Academy Charter School154
Boston Green Academy Horace Mann Charter School170
Boston Preparatory Charter Public School530
Boston Renaissance Charter Public School686
Bridge Boston Charter School1,800
Brooke Charter School East Boston1,277
Brooke Charter School Mattapan1,941
Brooke Charter School Roslindale2,183
Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School101
Christa McAuliffe Charter Public School81
City on a Hill Charter Public School Circuit Street352
Codman Academy Charter Public School880
Community Charter School of Cambridge215
Community Day Charter Public School - Gateway387
Community Day Charter Public School - Prospect443
Community Day Charter Public School - R. Kingman Webster383
Conservatory Lab Charter School442
Dorchester Collegiate Academy Charter School277
Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter School661
Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers (Horace Mann)345
Excel Academy Charter School475
Four Rivers Charter Public School57
Foxborough Regional Charter School2,797
Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School193
Global Learning Charter Public School383
Hampden Charter School of Science594
Helen Y. Davis Leadership Academy Charter Public School213
Hill View Montessori Charter Public School476
Hilltown Cooperative Charter Public School253
Holyoke Community Charter School487
Innovation Academy Charter School306
KIPP Academy Boston Charter School181
KIPP Academy Lynn Charter School477
Lawrence Family Development Charter School1,351
Lowell Collegiate Charter School9
Lowell Community Charter Public School392
Marblehead Community Charter Public School104
Martha's Vineyard Charter School16
Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School of Excellence178
MATCH Charter Public School1,631
Mystic Valley Regional Charter School3,616
Neighborhood House Charter School648
Paulo Freire Social Justice Charter School37
Pioneer Charter School of Science391
Pioneer Charter School of Science II (PCSS-II)264
Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School103
Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School327
Prospect Hill Academy Charter School534
Rising Tide Charter Public School261
River Valley Charter School603
Roxbury Preparatory Charter School270
Sabis International Charter School2,851
Salem Academy Charter School157
Seven Hills Charter Public School247
Silver Hill Horace Mann Charter School107
Sizer School: A North Central Charter Essential School3
South Shore Charter Public School822
Springfield Preparatory Charter School73
Sturgis Charter Public School540
UP Academy Charter School of Boston130
UP Academy Charter School of Dorchester1,293
Veritas Preparatory Charter School94
Total43,294

There are 43,294 names on the wait list, which reflect 33,903 unique individuals. Of those 33,903 students, 4,833 students (14.3 percent) are on an average of about 3 different wait lists, but they are only counted once.

Number of Waitlists A Student Appears OnUnique (Unduplicated) Number of Students
129,070
22,582
31,209
4496
5227
6145
773
846
932
109
119
122
132
141
Total33,903
View the full report.



Last Updated: February 18, 2016