05/08/14 — Lottery held for city's new charter school

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Lottery held for city's new charter school

By Melinda Harrell
Published in News on May 8, 2014 1:46 PM

Wayne Preparatory Academy held a lottery Tuesday to determine which children would be admitted to attend the charter school during its pilot academic year.

Nearly 500 applicants were vying for placement there.

"In the charter school application to the state, it had to be outlined how many children the school would serve, and that number for this year is 422. Next year we can raise the enrollment numbers," Wayne Preparatory School Board Chairman Dr. Ken Benton said. "We are basically full. Enrollment and promotion of the school has been very successful. We have only been advertising for two months."

Benton said that most of the available seats were filled during Tuesday's lottery and that the remaining ones are being reserved for siblings of students who are enrolled and children of the school's staff.

"We don't know what that number will be, so for this lottery, we played it safe," Benton said.

The grade with the highest number of applicants was kindergarten, with 138 applications. Of those 138 applications, 83 were chosen from the lottery.

Grades 1-4 had 80 seats per grade filled through the lottery process.

"There were tears of joy from some parents because their kids were getting in," Benton said. "People are beginning to recognize that the charter school system is quickly becoming the new system of education."

This school year, Wayne Preparatory will only offer K-4 grades.