New Charter School Gets Hundreds of Applicants, Will Hold Lottery for Spots

The founders of Redwood City's newest charter school, Connect Community Charter School (CCCS) say they just can't stop smiling these days.

Though the school has just 140 spots for its official opening in the fall, for the start of the 2013-14 school year, founders said in an e-mail on Friday that they had more than 240 applications come in by last week's deadline.

"It’s been thrilling to see all the interest in Connect from throughout our Redwood City community," the founders said in the e-mail. "When we opened enrollment, we wondered whether enough students would apply to fill our classrooms – but we shouldn’t have worried."

Since more applications came in than there are spots to fill, the founders said they will hold a lottery this Sunday, March 3 to fill the spots.

"A lottery makes admission fair for everyone, and our process is completely transparent," the e-mail explained. "We will pull chips with students’ application numbers out of a container to determine the order that students are admitted and placed on our waiting list."

More detailed information about the lottery is available on the school's website. Families do not need to be present for the lottery.

Families whose child received an immediate spot at the school will be notified by phone right away. Families whose child was put on the waiting list will be notified by mail.

Though CCCS will eventually offer kindergarten through eighth grade classes, in its first year in 2013-14, the school will only be offering one class each for kindergarten, first and second grades, and two classes for sixth grade.  

"We will add grades yearly until we are full, with about 300 students in total," the school indicates on its website.

For more information about CCCS, visit www.connectrwc.org.

Did you apply your child to attend Connect Community Charter School in the fall? Tell us why in the comments below.

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