Student Enrollment and Lottery Policy and Procedure

Policy: Milestone Democratic School shall adhere to all Federal, State, local, and municipal laws, guidelines, and regulations pertaining to student recruitment, enrollment, and lotteries. Neither the School, nor any of its agents, employees, directors, or members, shall discriminate on the basis of age, color, disability, national origin, race, religion, sex, gender identity or sexual orientation as they pertain to recruitment or enrollment of students.

Procedure: Student Enrollment for Milestone Democratic School shall proceed by the following process for all applicants:

1. The annual cap for student enrollment shall be 92 students.
2. Upon implementation of this policy and procedure, the Educators’ Cooperative shall create and maintain an official Enrolled Student List, in a clear and accessible, but password-protected and confidential, document. This document will be shared with the Governance Board regularly and on request.
3. Upon implementation of this policy, all currently-enrolled students actively attending Milestone, who are not on track to graduate before the end of the current school year, shall be automatically re-enrolled, unless they have otherwise notified the school.
4. Applications for new enrollments may be received online or in person. Applications received in person will be entered into the online application portal by an EC member within 24 hours of having been received. An automated reply to each application will alert the applicant to their status, any upcoming enrollment dates, and contact information for EC members to address questions to.
5. On Wednesday, May 10th, 2023 (the “Enrollment Date”), a full applicant report will be transmitted to the Governance Board. 
1. If there are fewer applicants than available seats (annual cap minus re-enrolled students), all applicants are enrolled following the process described in Section 6 below.
2. If there are more applicants than available seats, then all new applicants will be put into a random lottery, to be conducted by a member of the Educators’ Cooperative (“EC”) in the presence of a quorum of the Governance Board and a representative of the Authorizer’s office. The lottery shall follow this procedure:
1. Preference shall be given to students who were enrolled in Milestone Democratic School in the previous year and to siblings of students who are enrolled in the school, as well as to children of the school’s founders, governing board members, and full-time employees, so long as this “preference list” does not constitute more than 10% of school’s total enrollment. 
1. Any applicants eligible for preferential enrollment shall be entered into the official Enrolled Student List. If the preferential enrollment exceeds 11 students (10% of the cap), then names from this preferential enrollment list will be randomly drawn and added to the Enrolled Student List until 11 names are included. All other preferential enrollment students will be included in the lottery along with other new applicants.
2. For all remaining new applicants, identical slips of paper with student names (first and last) shall be printed and folded in half, and placed in an opaque container. 
3. The EC member shall, one at a time, draw slips of paper out of the container, and read them out loud, and hand them to a member of the Governance Board.
4. A member of the Governance Board shall enter the names, as they are read and presented, onto the Enrolled Student List, and proceed accordingly until all applicant names have been drawn and entered.
5. The first 110 applicants selected within the annual cap will be enrolled, and will be notified accordingly by mail and email. 
6. All applicants whose names fall on lines after the annual cap shall be designated as on a waitlist, in the order that they were drawn, and will be notified accordingly by mail and email.
3. At the end of the first week of instruction of the 2023-24 school calendar, any student who has not attended a majority of school days (online or in person) shall be removed from enrollment, and students on the waitlist will be invited to enroll in the order that was generated by the lottery. Students unenrolled in this process can appeal to the Board to retain their spot.
4. If, at any point during the school year, a student withdraws from enrollment, or is withdrawn, students on the waitlist will be invited to enroll in order, given a reasonable time to respond, enroll, and register, at the discretion of the Registrar.
6. Enrolled students will be invited to schedule a registration and orientation meeting with their student’s Advisor.
7. Milestone Democratic School will continue to accept applications for enrollment year-round, although enrollment and attendance will be limited to the following timelines:
1. Any and all applications received after the Enrollment Date and before September 15th will result in immediate enrollment, so long as the annual cap has not been met. If the cap is met, all applications received will be added to the waitlist in the order they are received.
2. Any and all applications received between September 16th and January 4th (so long as the annual cap has not been met) will result in enrollment effective January 5th. 
3. Any and all applications received after January 4th shall be considered as applications for the following school year. 
4. The Board shall hear and consider special requests made by parents and guardians for exemptions to these timelines. However, the Board does not have the authority to enroll students above the approved cap.
5. Immediately upon enrolling sufficient students to meet the annual cap, Milestone will remove all links and access to applications materials from its website, and requests for application or enrollment will be deferred to the following school year.