Admissions Management for K-12 Schools

Charter school lottery typically runs annually for available seats. Application intake captures paper applications, online applications, and partner-referral applications. Eligibility verification confirms residency (in-district / out-of-district per charter agreement), sibling preference, founder-family preference (where allowed), and faculty-children preference (where allowed by state law). Random-number lottery executes with immutable audit trail; waitlist orders results for offers as seats open through summer. Offer letters tie to enrollment confirmation deposits. State authorizer audit reviews the lottery process — the audit trail makes that audit straightforward. Per NAPCS, 7,800+ US charter schools serve 3.7M students, all under lottery-based enrollment.

Sibling preference: a student with a currently-enrolled sibling at the school admits before non-sibling applicants in the same lottery (charter / magnet) or queue (independent). Independent schools typically grant sibling preference automatically unless space-constrained; charter schools grant sibling preference per state authorizer rules (most states allow sibling preference; specifics vary). The platform tracks family-unit relationships across applications and active enrollments — a Smith family applicant identifies as sibling of currently-enrolled Smith student automatically. Multi-grade lotteries with sibling preference run cleanly: the kindergarten lottery considers an applicant's sibling at fourth grade for sibling priority.

COPPA governs online services collecting data on children under 13 — applies to nearly all K-12 admissions data. The platform enforces COPPA defaults: parent consent at application; minimal data collection; no third-party behavioral advertising; no third-party tracking pixels on application forms; deletion-on-request honoured per COPPA Section 312.6. FERPA technically applies to enrolled students, not applicants — but the platform applies FERPA-style protections preemptively for applicants. School policies on application retention post-decision configure transparently: many schools delete declined / withdrawn applications after one year per their privacy policy.

Yes. Independent schools handling need-based financial aid run analysis through SSS by NAIS (most common at NAIS member schools), FACTS Grant & Aid Assessment, or TADS (used by some Christian schools). The platform integrates with all three — household financial documentation submits to the third-party analyzer; analysis results (estimated parent contribution, recommended aid amount) flow back into the school's admissions / financial aid workflow; aid officer adjusts per school policy and per available aid budget; final aid offer goes out with admission letter or shortly after. Sibling discount, faculty-child remission, and merit aid layer onto need-based packaging transparently.

Independent schools run re-enrollment cycles each January-February with binding tuition contracts. Contracts release first week of January; signed and deposit paid by Feb 15-March 1; late re-enrollment per school policy. Contracts execute electronically through the platform — parents review terms (tuition, payment plan, withdrawal-fee policy, force-majeure clauses), accept with audit trail, pay re-enrollment deposit, and confirm tuition payment plan in one workflow. Charter schools handle annual re-enrollment differently: rising students confirm enrollment for the next year by April (typical timeline), releasing waitlisted applicants for the lottery slots. Both workflows track re-enrollment yield by grade live.