Lottery Process
By law, admission at our school is open to all students wishing to attend. In the event that there are more students wishing to attend the school than there are seats available, admission will be determined via a public, random lottery, with priority given to students in the following order:
Students residing within LAUSD boundaries:
- Siblings of currently enrolled students*
- Children of current employees and developers**, not to exceed 10% of the school’s population
- Students who reside in the Northeast San Fernando Valley area
- All other students who reside in the Los Angeles Unified School District
Students residing outside of LAUSD boundaries:
- Siblings of currently enrolled students*
- Children of current employees and developers**, not to exceed 10% of the school’s population.
- All other students who reside outside of the Los Angeles Unified School District
Verification of Preferences Indicated on Lottery Form
A verification of your priority will be done by the school staff and/or SchoolMint prior to finalizing your child’s enrollment. If your child was offered enrollment via a priority area and our school determines that your child does not actually qualify for that priority, your child will be placed at the bottom of the wait list. Your child may still be admitted off the waitlist, as qualifying for a priority is not a condition for admission.
Continuous Enrollment through 8th Grade
Once a student is enrolled, they remain enrolled through 8th grade unless a parent/guardian releases their seat. Parents of enrolled students do not have to complete an enrollment request form every year.
Lottery Application Availability & Lottery Drawing
Our online application is available starting on Monday, October 1, 2023. The window for the lottery closes on February 9, 2024 and the lottery drawing will be held on February 15, 2024. Notifications regarding offers will be sent following the lottery and parents will have 3 business days to accept the offer through SchoolMint. Applications may still be submitted after February 9. However, those applications will not be entered into the lottery and students will be admitted (or added to the waitlist, depending on seat availability) on a first come, first served basis.
How the Wait List Works
All families of students who are not offered admission for the upcoming school year at a PUC school will remain on the wait list until (1) it is cleared at the end of the academic year for which it was drawn or (2) the parent cancels the student’s application prior to that time.
When a student is enrolled in a PUC school (once an enrollment packet has been submitted), the name of that student shall be removed from the wait list of any other PUC school on which he/she is listed. All students may apply to attend other PUC schools during the annual application period preceding the lottery.
Offers from the Wait List
If a space should become available, families will be contacted in the order of the wait list.
- If a space should become available, families will be contacted in the order of the wait list.
• If this offer is extended prior to school beginning, families will have 3 business days to respond whether the offer is being accepted or declined.
• If this offer is extended once school has started, families will have 2 business days to respond whether the offer is being accepted or declined.
*The currently enrolled sibling student must also be enrolled in the 2024-2025 school year.
**A “developer” is an individual who has engaged in activities that have supported the opening of the school. A developer may be a parent who has a child who will enter the school in the founding year, in later years, or becomes a parent of a school aged child. These people are considered “developers” and will priority for enrollment in the school any subsequent year after the school has been opened.
PUC Nueva Esperanza Charter Academy does not charge tuition and does not discriminate against any pupil on the basis of ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion or disability.