The Grove School (TGS) is a free and public charter school. Enrollment is open to any student who is applying for any grade level between grades 7 and 12. Please read the instructions about the enrollment process carefully and keep track of the key dates.
Under California state law, enrollment to The Grove School is governed by a Public Random Drawing (PRD). In early Spring, The Grove School conducts its PRD for admission to the school for the following academic year. In order to be part of the PRD, a family must complete an online lottery form or paper form. For the 2022-2023 school year, this form must be completed online or turned into the office by March 11, 2022, before 5 pm. Each completed application will be assigned a number, and during the PRD, numbers will be drawn at random.
Typically, The Grove School receives applications in excess of the number of spaces available. Those students who do not get picked in the PRD for the spaces available will be placed on a waiting list. Students on the waiting list may be invited to join The Grove School at any point during the school year, if space becomes available. If the student is not admitted by the time of the PRD for the following school year, they must re-submit an application to be considered for admittance. Students on the waiting list for any given school year do not have priority admission for the following school year. For the full details of the waitlist and considerations like home hospital and entering foreign exchange programs, see the Grove School’s full post waitlist lottery and additional enrollment policies.
Forms:
Dates and Places for Enrollment Lottery: the lottery will take place on March 30, 2022. It will be open to the public, either through a livestreamed or in-person event. All details, links and live video will be available on our website. Parents and students are welcome and encouraged to attend the virtual lottery, but attendance is not mandatory and does not affect inclusion of applicants in the lottery procedures.
If you are unable to attend the enrollment lottery you will receive a letter in the mail informing you of your student’s enrollment or placement on the official waiting list for the 2022-2023 school year.
Please do not call the school regarding the results of the enrollment lottery. Information will not be verified over the phone. All correspondence regarding lottery results will be done in writing.
Our waiting list is only created from the students who participated in the March 31, 2021 lottery. We do NOT add students to a “waiting list”.
If you missed the deadline last school year and are interested in your student possibly attending Grove in the immediate future, you may complete the online “Enrollment Interest” form. If, at any time during the school year, The Grove School goes through the entire waiting list, The Grove School will proceed through another lottery process to be executed in the process below from the enrollment interest forms that have been returned.
Again, filling out the “Enrollment Interest” form DOES NOT add your student to the waitlist, but does give an opportunity to attend Grove, if the list of lotteried students from the previous year have been exhausted. For further information, please contact info@thegroveschool.org.
Official enrollment policies, as stated in the Grove School Charter, p.95:
The Charter School shall require students who wish to attend the Charter School to complete an application. Applications will be accepted during a publicly advertised open enrollment period each year for enrollment in the following school year. Following the open enrollment period each year, applications shall be counted to determine whether any grade level has received more applications than availability. In the event that this happens, the Charter School will hold a public random drawing (or “lottery”) to determine admission for the impacted grade level, with the exception of existing students, who are guaranteed admission in the following school year.
TGS has established an annual recruiting and admissions cycle, which shall include reasonable time for all of the following: 1) outreach, 2) voluntary orientation and informational briefings for parents and students, 3) admissions application period, 4) an admissions lottery if necessary, and 5) enrollment. The Charter School will fill vacancies or openings that become available after this process through the use of a wait list established from the admissions lottery, as described below. In the event that the number of students seeking admission exceeds the Charter School’s maximum enrollment, admission preferences in the lottery shall be given to the following students in the following order:
The Charter School and the District agree to adhere to the requirements related to admission preferences as set forth in Education Code Section 47605(d)(2)(B)(i)-(iv). Full details of this provision are found below, including instructions on filing a complaint.
Typically, TGS receives applications in excess of the number of spaces available. In early Spring, TGS conducts its lottery for admission to the Charter School for the following academic year. To be part of the lottery, a family must complete an application. The application must be completed and turned into TGS no later than 5:00 p.m. by the deadline set in March of the current academic year. Each completed application will be assigned a number.
The Board of Directors will take all necessary efforts to ensure lottery procedures are fairly executed.
Before the public lottery, each completed lottery packet is checked for completeness and to place the student in the correct preference. Placement is independently verified by two office staff members. The student names are entered into a spreadsheet in preference order and by grade level; this spreadsheet is then sent to the accountant, who does an additional check for siblings and employee preferences. The accountant then alphabetizes the list under each preference and assigns each student in each grade level a number, and prints cards for each student with number and name.
The lottery is conducted in public. Anyone from the community may attend the lottery. The lottery process is explained before drawing begins, and any questions are answered both before and after the drawing. The numbered list of names of students who have entered the lottery is also available for inspection.
The accountant uses numbered chips that correspond to the numbers assigned to each student to draw names. Within each grade level, students will be drawn from pools beginning with all applicants who qualify for the first preference category, and shall continue with that preference category until all vacancies within that grade level have been filled. Chips are placed in an opaque container in front of attendees in order of grade level and preference. The container is shaken, and the chips are drawn by another person designated by the Head of School and displayed clearly to the lottery attendees while the accountant reads the name associated with that number. The person drawing the chips has no personal stake in the lottery.
The corresponding name card is taped to a numbered board in draw order, and a handwritten list is also kept of the lottery draw. If there are more students in a grade level than there are spaces available, the drawing continues and students are placed on a wait list in draw order, until all lottery entrants for that grade level have been placed on the wait list.
After the lottery, photographs are taken of the list of names on the board, and compared to and kept with the handwritten list. These records are scanned and shared between the accountant and the lottery office staff, and kept in the accountant’s files and high school office files for the fiscal year.
Students who are selected for enrollment in the lottery are informed by letter within three days of the lottery. Students who are on the wait list are also informed within three days, as described below, and given their position on the list.
If a student is pulled from the waiting list, families are notified of their student’s available place at Grove twice via telephone and twice via email over the course of three days. If no response is received, we send a letter notifying the family. After one week, if no response if received from that family, we move to the next name on the list.
Public random drawing rules, deadlines, dates and times will be communicated in the application form and on the Charter School’s website. Public notice for the date and time of the public random drawing will also be posted once the application deadline has passed. The Charter School will also inform all applicants and interested parties of the rules to be followed during the public random drawing process via mail or email at least two weeks prior to the lottery date.
Upon admission to the Charter School, prospective students and their parents/guardians must agree to the following:
The Grove School enrolls students in accordance with Education Code (EC) Section 47605(d)(4).
California Education Code (EC) Section 47605(d)(4) (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=47605&lawCode=EDC) states the following:
A charter school shall not discourage a pupil from enrolling or seeking to enroll in a charter school for any reason, including, but not limited to, academic performance of the pupil or because the pupil exhibits any of the following characteristics:
A charter school shall not request a pupil’s records or require the parent, guardian, or pupil to submit the pupil’s records to the charter school before enrollment.
A charter school shall not encourage a pupil currently attending the charter school to disenroll from the charter school or transfer to another school for any reason (except for suspension or expulsion).
This notice shall be posted on a charter school’s Internet website and a charter school will provide copies of this notice (1) when a parent, guardian, or pupil inquires about enrollment; (2) before conducting an enrollment lottery, and (3) before disenrollment of a pupil.
If you feel that The Grove School has violated any of the above, or the lottery process, please complete the Complaint Form.
The complaint form may be sent electronically or in hard copy to the charter school authorizer:
Redlands Unified School District
20 West Lugonia Ave.
Redlands, CA. 92374
(909) 307-5300
kenneth_wagner@redlands.k12.ca.us
The Grove School Enrollment Lottery will take place on Wednesday, March 31 at 5pm, and will be live streamed at thegroveschool.org and on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ViVn0cEovGQ. To adhere to current COVID-19 health precautions, the physical space will be closed to the public. Active observation of the process is not required for enrollment, and the office will be contacting families enrolled through this process.
Prior to and during the livecast, a staff member will be standing by to answer questions via email to info@thegroveschool.org. For full details about the enrollment process, see our enrollment webpage.
*“Faculty” is defined as full-time teaching faculty/staff who work 30 hours or more per week at TGS.