Green Dot is sometimes accused of pre-selecting or "skimming" students. On the contrary, Green Dot has completely open enrollment as required by California state law for charter schools. We recruit heavily in the highest-need neighborhoods and then hold a public, random lottery among every student that has submitted an interest card.
Student Recruiting: An Open and Fair Process
Green Dot invests unprecedented resources to recruit students from the targeted neighborhoods. During the school year, Green Dot organizes the community around its schools. This results in dozens of letters of support from local area community organizations and residents. Green Dot has organized community rallies, BBQ's, precinct walks, and hosted many information sessions in the targeted area. Green Dot employs dozens of community organizers to meet with parents and solicit students. These community organizers work seven days a week within the target community to inform parents of the new schools.
Green Dot recruits students through: 1) precinct walks and door-to-door canvassing; 2) print advertising in local newspapers; 3) outreach to local public, charter, and private middle schools; 4) outreach to local churches; 5) outreach to local non-profits, social service providers, and other community groups; 6) phone banking and direct mail; and 7) grassroots marketing throughout the attendance area, including flyers, posters, banners in high-traffic areas and "street teams" canvassing local areas. Green Dot has hosted weekly information sessions in the area to explain the benefits of Green Dot's schools.
Random Lottery to Select Students
Green Dot schools hold random public lotteries in the spring and summer before school starts. All student applications entered by the deadline are eligible for the lottery. Any applications accepted afterwards are placed on the waitlist in order of receipt. To be considered valid, student applications require only basic contact information, student age, grade level and previous school attended. All student applications are entered into an electronic database from which individual lottery cards are created. Lottery cards include the student's name and date of birth. Each card is created from store-purchased, pre-cut card stock. Every lottery card is the same size, weight, shape and indistinguishable from one another. All lottery cards are placed in a large tumbler, from which names are drawn one at a time, in full view of the audience. There are typically several hundred parents present to witness the student lottery.
Generally, each school holds its own lottery, but if a group of Green Dot schools serve the same attendance area, they may choose to combine resources and recruit students jointly. At a recent lottery, a total of 300 9th grade seats were available at two schools. Over 400 students submitted applications. After duplicate entries and non-eligible students (generally those not in 8th grade) were removed, a total of 361 students were entered in the lottery.
In keeping with the schools' charters and federal guidelines, the students of "founding families" may receive automatic admission to the school. However, these students do not comprise a significant portion of the enrollees, and in any case come from the targeted attendance area. To the extent that students come from outside the targeted area, the impact of their lottery entrance is minimal due to the low performance all of the high schools in the area; specifically, the California Department of Education has considered these schools to require "Program Improvement" for five years or more. In addition, the students are very similar to targeted high schools in terms of their ethnic and economic demographic profile.
After the lottery, the students and their families are asked to fill out an enrollment form with more detailed information.