Lottery Procedure
The following four categories of students are entitled to enroll automatically at PECS without participating in the annual lottery (as described below):
Applications will be available in the main office for the upcoming 2013-2014 school year on Monday January 14. If you know of someone who lives outside the traditional Palisades Elementary School attendance area and wants to submit a lottery application, please let him or her know that the application must be returned by Monday, March 11 at 12:00 p.m. The lottery will take place on Friday, March 22 at 8:30 am. If you currently have a child at Palisades Elementary and they have a sibling that will become school aged for the upcoming year, please understand that you must complete an enrollment application for your younger student.
Subject to proof of residency (e.g., a current utility bill), students presently residing in the original LAUSD-determined "home" attendance boundary for PECS; and (B) siblings of students who presently are attending PECS and who will continue to attend PECS during the ensuing academic year; By approximately February 1st of each academic year, PECS will produce and make available to the public (at the PECS campus office) an application to enter the above-described lottery. The lottery application conspicuously will include a deadline date -- approximately one week prior to the actual scheduled lottery date - by when the completed application must be received at the PECS campus office. Lottery applicants are encouraged strongly to hand-deliver their completed applications to such office during its normal business hours (i.e., 8:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m., Monday - Friday); PECS cannot and will not be responsible for any lost, delayed, misdirected, mutilated, indecipherable or illegible lottery applications, regardless of whether caused by reason of a force majeure event, the conduct of any PECS personnel, the conduct of the U.S. Postal Service or any other third party. Fully completed, timely received and cross-checked (i.e., to ensure compliance with the first bullet point in this subsection) lottery applications will be divided into three groups: one for students residing in the original LAUSD-determined home attendance boundary for West Vernon and Union Avenue elementary schools (Group No. 1) transportation not included by the District; one for students residing in the original LAUSD-determined home attendance area for any other LAUSD elementary school including siblings of matriculated students if no longer residing in the PECS attendance area as defined by the District (Group No. 2); and one for students residing elsewhere within the State of California (Group No. 3). Within each of these three groups, the students will be subdivided by the grade that they will be entering during the ensuing academic year. On the date of the lottery at PECS, a minimum of three persons -- to consist of a PECS principal, a PECS parent and one other person, all of whom are selected by the Governing Council – will conduct and supervise the random drawing of names, in accordance with the following:
Procedure:
First, all of the names from each grade level in Group No. 1 will be drawn randomly and placed in order of drawing on the appropriate grade level list (e.g., the first name drawn of an entering kindergarten student will be No. 1 on the kindergarten lottery list; the second name drawn of an entering kindergarten student will be No. 2 on the kindergarten lottery list; the first name drawn of an entering first grade student will be No. 1 on the first grade lottery list; etc.)
Secondly, all of the names from each grade level in Group No. 2 will be drawn randomly and placed next, in order of drawing, on the same grade level lists set forth in subsection (i) above (e.g., if five names from Group No. 1 have been placed on the kindergarten lottery list, then the first name drawn of an entering kindergarten student from Group No. 2 will be No. 6 on the kindergarten lottery list; etc.); and
Thirdly, all of the names from each grade level in Group No. 3 will be drawn randomly and placed next, in order of drawing, on the same grade level lists set forth in subsections (i) and (ii) above (i.e.., if five names from Group No. 1 have been placed on the kindergarten lottery list, and if an additional ten names from Group No. 2 have been placed on the kindergarten lottery list, then the first name drawn of an entering kindergarten student from Group No. 3 will be No. 16 on the kindergarten lottery list, etc.). Family members of students who are participating in the lottery shall be permitted to observe the lottery in person. At some time between the date of the lottery at PECS and approximately the end of May of the same academic year, a representative of the PECS administration will notify (by means of regular mail, e-mail or telephone, at the sole election of PECS) the family of each lottery applicant whether or not PECS is able to offer that particular applicant admission as a student during the ensuing academic year. The number of lottery applicants to be offered such admission at PECS shall be based upon PECS's enrollment projections for the ensuing academic year, and hence on the number of available classroom slots at each grade level for the ensuing academic year (e.g., if PECS has determined that there are seventeen classroom slots available at the kindergarten level for the ensuing academic year, then PECS shall notify the families of Nos. 1 through 17 on the kindergarten lottery list that their children are being offered admission at PECS for the ensuing academic year). In such initial notification, the PECS administration representative shall advise the family of each such admitted student as to (a) the date by when such family must accept PECS's offer of admission to the family's child and (b) the written materials that the family must complete and return to PECS by such deadline date in order for the family's acceptance of such admission offer to be deemed effective. The remaining lottery applicants who are not offered admission in the notification described in the immediately preceding bullet point will be placed on a waiting list for each of their respective grade levels (i.e., in the order in which their names were drawn at the lottery). To the extent that (1) a lottery applicant(s) declines an offer of admission at PECS and/or (2) a new classroom space(s) opens up at a particular grade level(s) for the ensuing academic year, additional lottery applicants may be offered admission at PECS at any time through "norm" day of the ensuing academic year (after which date the lottery applications of students who have declined an offer of admission at PECS, or who theretofore have not been offered admission at PECS, shall be considered null and void and of no further force or effect. The school will keep on file all records and documentation of the fair execution of the lottery procedures. However, PECS may refine lottery policies and procedures in accordance with the written policy adopted by the Governing Council. As an affiliated school, changes in the lottery procedures must be submitted to the LAUSD Innovation and Charter Division for approval.