Massachusetts Charter School Waitlist Initial Report for 2023-2024 (FY24)

As of March 15, 2023

Each spring, charter schools send the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (Department) the number of students enrolled for the upcoming school year as well as the number of students who were placed on the schools' waitlists through each school's initial lottery, which is typically held in February or March.

The information provided below reflects the number of students who applied to charter schools but did not gain admittance and were reported to the Department as of March 15, 2023. Note that charter schools may have established a waitlist during the principal application cycle, but exhausted it prior to the March 15 reporting deadline. Additionally, charter schools may have implemented their principal application cycle and offered a seat to every applicant, resulting in no waitlist being established. Charter schools that have exhausted or not established a waitlist as of March 15, typically run subsequent application cycles. The waitlist report does not include any applications collected but not yet included in an admissions lottery. This initial 2023-2024 waitlist report finds the following:

• 66 out of 76 charter schools¹ in the Commonwealth reported a waitlist as of the March 15 reporting deadline.
• There are 35,040 entries across all waitlists, representing 21,270 unique students.
  • Of the unique students, 15,757 students appear on a single waitlist and 5,513 students (25.9 percent) appear on more than one waitlist.

Figure 1. Unique Number of Students on Charter School Waitlists

In 2014, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education adopted regulations requiring charter schools to refresh their waitlists every year, based on the most recent application cycle for the upcoming school year. These regulations, however, allowed schools to keep students on their waitlists who submitted applications before March 31, 2014. There are no longer any schools that include waitlisted students from prior years on their active waitlists.

Figure 2. Total Number of Applications Reported on Charter School Waitlists

The unique waitlist counts provided in this current report should be taken as the Department's best understanding and representation of the demand for the upcoming 2023-2024 school year rather than exact numbers of students willing to accept offers at each school.

Each charter school is responsible for maintaining its own individual waitlist. To ensure uniformity, the Department created a waitlist collection template and required charter schools to use it to input waitlist data. This template embedded tools that automatically flagged duplicate records, which each school could then remove before submitting its waitlist. The template also embedded tools that flagged the waitlist for other inconsistencies, such as unrealistic dates of birth (e.g., 2/28/2023) and student age. In order to verify student information and address overall waitlist accuracy, the Department corrected any transcription errors or inconsistencies in submitted charter school waitlists. Finally, the Department continues to implement its matching process, which is refined and updated to increase accuracy in identifying students who applied for admission to more than one charter school.

The Department thanks all of the charter school administrators and staff who worked diligently to report their waitlists as accurately as possible. The Department appreciates the efforts made by schools to submit their waitlist reports as promptly as possible.

The appendix to this report contains the following numbers based on a March 15, 2023 data collection:

1. the unique number of students on waitlists;
2. the total number of new applicants reported on charter school waitlists by March 15, 2023;
3. the unique number of students on waitlists by grade;
4. the unique number of students on waitlists by city/town;
5. the total number of students on waitlists for each charter school by grade (with backfilling overlay);
6. the unique number of students on waitlists by city/town and grade; and
7. the total number of students on waitlists for each charter school by city/town by grade.

For more information on waitlist policies and procedures and the number of students found on previous cycles of charter school waitlists, see Charter School Technical Advisory 16-3: Enrollment Processes and FAQ's and Pre-Enrollment and Waitlist Data. For further information regarding this report, please contact Brenton Stewart or the Office of Charter Schools and School Redesign at charterschools@mass.gov .

Attachments

• Initial Report of Charter School Waitlist as of March 15, 2023

• FY2024 Initial Waitlist Appendix

---

¹ The total number of charter schools operating in the Commonwealth during the 2023-2024 school year will not change due to the closure of the Paulo Freire Social Justice Charter School and the opening of the Worcester Cultural Academy Charter Public School.

Last Updated: May 16, 2023