The Hudson County school will be the first to hold a weighted enrollment lottery.
TRENTON -- New Jersey will allow a Hudson County charter school to hold an enrollment lottery that favors students from low-income families -- the first time the state has granted permission for a charter school to weight its lottery, according to the New Jersey Charter Schools Association.
After multiple unsuccessful attempts, the Hoboken Dual Language Charter School this month received approval for the weighted lottery, said Barbara Martinez, president of the school's board of trustees. It will announce the full details of its plan at a news conference Wednesday, she said.
The weighted lottery could combat a major criticism of both the Hoboken Dual Language Charter School and charter schools in general. Critics locally and across the country have accused charter schools of manipulating enrollment to take only the best students.
Hoboken Public Schools, which filed a lawsuit last year to stop the charter school from expanding, complained that the school consistently has a lower percentage of minority students than the district.
http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/03/hola_charter_school_expansion_decision.html
The state's decision to allow the weighed lottery opens the door for other charter schools to ask for lotteries that favor students who are considered underserved.
In the approval letter, state Education Commissioner David Hespe wrote that charter schools can seek weighted lotteries that favor economically disadvantaged students in an effort to better represent a cross section of their school age population.
The New Jersey Charter Schools Association supports the Hoboken Dual Language Charter School's weighted lottery and hopes the school becomes a pioneer for the state, its president, Nicole Cole, said.
The Hoboken Dual Language Charter School has 22 open seats for kindergarten in 2015-16 and received more than 200 applications, Martinez said. Students at the school spend about 90 percent of their day in Spanish-speaking classrooms in the early grades and 50 percent in Spanish-speaking classrooms beginning in fourth grade.
In 2013-14, about 11 percent of the school's students were considered economically disadvantaged, according to state data. More than 90 percent of its students spoke English as their first language at home, and 62 percent were white.
Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
