ADMISSIONS

Contact Ginger Smith, Development Coordinator, for an appointment to tour the school and discuss our enrollment procedures.   Click here to email or call 355-0055 ext 116.

If you would like to be contacted or have a Black River information package mailed to you, please use our Request Info link on the "About Us" menu above. We will send information or contact you according to your request.

Please remember to include all supporting documents as your application will not be considered complete without them. Applications may be submitted in person or by mail or fax.

See also Admissions Policy below

If more students apply than we can accommodate, there will be a random selection from new applicants. Once a student is accepted, all applicants from the same family will also be admitted.

Charter School Enrollment Provisions of State Law

The Admissions Policy of Black River Public School is developed based on the language of the state law, which refers to a charter school as a “public school academy.” Because Black River Public School is chartered by Grand Valley State University, the following statutory provisions apply:

For a public school academy authorized by a state public university, enrollment shall be open to all pupils who reside in this state who meet the admission policy. If there are more applications to enroll in the public school academy than there are spaces available, pupils shall be selected to attend using a random selection process. However, a public school academy may give enrollment priority to a sibling of a pupil enrolled in the public school academy. A public school academy shall allow any student who was enrolled in the public school academy in the immediately preceding school year to enroll in the public school academy in the appropriate grade…. [Michigan Revised School Code, 1976 PA 451, MCL 380.504(3)] (emphasis added)

State law also allows charter schools to accept students in an approved foreign exchange program.


ADMISSIONS POLICY

Open Enrollment Period

Spaces in each grade K-12 for the following school year will not be officially assigned until after 3:00 p.m. on the last Wednesday of February, at which time Open Enrollment closes. If the last Wednesday of February is not a school day, Open Enrollment closes at 3:00 p.m. on the next school day.

Admissions Priority

To identify which applicants may be admitted for the following school year, an Admissions Meeting will be held at the school shortly after the close of Open Enrollment at a publicized date and time to be announced via the School calendar. At that time, other applicants, if necessary, may be placed on a prioritized Wait List by grade based on the results of a random selection process.

Priority Groups.

The order of priority in which spaces for each grade will be filled is as follows:

1) Students enrolled for the current school year who re-enroll on or before the last Wednesday of February. (Students with an Individual Education Program active on the first day of the following school year are automatically re-enrolled unless formally withdrawn.)

2) Siblings of students currently enrolled, if the sibling applies on or before the last Wednesday of February.

3) Siblings of newly enrolled students. When, at the close of Open Enrollment, one sibling is accepted into a grade that is not oversubscribed, or is accepted by lottery, any of their siblings in Priority Group 4 are immediately advanced to Priority Group

4) New students that enroll on or before the last Wednesday of February who do not have a sibling that was accepted, subject to space availability, which may be determined by random selection process.

5) Any applicant that applies after the last Wednesday of February. Such students would be accepted in Wait List order only if space is available.

Priority Group 1 - Current Students. If a student is enrolled at Black River Public School for the current school year, that student shall be allowed to enroll for the next school year if a Re-enrollment Application Form is completed and returned on or before the last Wednesday of February.

Priority Group 2 - Brothers/Sisters of Current Students. If a student is currently enrolled and has one or more siblings that wish to attend Black River Public School for next school year, the currently-enrolled student’s siblings will be given enrollment priority if an Enrollment Application Form for each sibling is completed and returned on or before the last Wednesday of February.

Priority Group 3 - Brothers/Sisters of Newly-enrolled Students. Note that Black River Public School strives to allow brothers and sisters to attend the same school and tries to give all preference allowed by law to accomplish this during the Open Enrollment and, if necessary, the random selection process. As more fully explained below, if a family has two or more children that apply to Black River Public School, when one child is validly accepted and enrolled at the Admissions Meeting, all of that child’s siblings who have applied are accepted and may enroll as long as space is available in that grade. If space is not available, they advance to the sibling wait-list. This preference is not available after the Admissions Meeting has been held and Open Enrollment is closed.

Priority Group 4 – New Applicants. If the number of applicants for a grade is less than or equal to the number of spaces available for that grade, all new applicants for that grade are accepted and are enrolled at the Admissions Meeting. If there are more applicants than spaces available, a random selection process will be used. Applicant families are encouraged to attend the Admissions Meeting, but are not required to attend or have representation.

Priority Group 5 – Applicants After the Close of Open Enrollment. For grades that are not oversubscribed at the end of Open Enrollment, applicants will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis until the grade is full, at which time further applicants are placed on a Wait List. For each grade with a Wait List, all applications received will be placed on the Wait List. The Wait List has two parts: 5A) the Sibling Wait List and 5B) the General Wait List. For the purposes of enrollment priority, a parent’s children, step-children, adopted children, and foster children are all considered to be each other’s siblings. If an applicant to be placed on a Wait List is the sibling of an enrolled student, the applicant is placed on the bottom of the Sibling Wait List. If an applicant to be placed on a Wait List is not the sibling of an enrolled student, the applicant is placed on the bottom of the General Wait List.

RANDOM SELECTION PROCESS (LOTTERY)

For each grade that has more applicants than spaces available at the close of Open Enrollment (making it a “Lottery Grade”), applicants in Priority Groups 1 and 2 will be admitted for the fall. Next, a random selection process (a “Lottery”) will be performed to create a preference order for the applicants in Priority Group 4. Each applicant selected by Lottery has a numerical “Lottery Priority” ahead of each student subsequently selected by Lottery for that Lottery Grade.

For each Lottery Grade, a numbered “Lottery Priority List” will be created by grade to document the order of preference determined by the Lottery. If a new family has multiple children in the lottery (a “Multiple Applicant New Family”), all begin in Priority Group 4 and remain there unless and until one is enrolled via the Lottery. If there are Lotteries for multiple grades, the Lotteries will be performed from the lowest Lottery Grade to the highest Lottery Grade.

After the Lottery has been held for each Lottery Grade and the Lottery Priority Lists have been created, a New Family Re-Prioritization will be performed. For each Multiple Applicant New Family, if one of their applicants has Lottery Priority that assures him or her a space, all other applicants in that Multiple Applicant New Family are given status in Priority Group 3 and are admitted and enrolled as long as space is available in that grade. The applicants remaining in Priority Group 4 are accepted in order of Lottery Priority until all spaces for a grade are filled. The remaining applicants are placed on a Wait List in the order they were selected by Lottery.

SELECTION FROM WAIT LIST

If a space in a grade with a Wait List becomes available for any reason, the space will be offered to the next available applicant on that grade’s Sibling Wait List. If there are no remaining applicants on a grade’s Sibling Wait List, an available space will be offered to the next available applicant on that grade’s General Wait List. It is the intent of Black River Public School to allow family members to attend the same school whenever possible. It is recognized and consistent with state law to accept applicants from the Sibling Wait List that may have submitted an application after some or all of the applicants on the General Wait List. If an applicant that is accepted from the General Wait List has siblings on the General Wait List of any grade, each of the accepted applicant’s siblings move immediately to the bottom of the Sibling Wait List for their grade. If multiple spaces become available in a grade (for example the addition of 20 spaces to create an additional class within the grade), the Wait List is evaluated one space at a time, such that siblings may move from the General Wait List to the bottom of the Sibling Wait List in the middle of the process of filling the available spaces. If spaces become open for multiple grades, the grades will be evaluated sequentially from the lowest grade to the highest grade.

ADMISSION IS CONDITIONAL

Applicants are required to fully complete all required enrollment materials and provide all necessary information. This includes, but is not limited to, the enrollment application form, emergency contact card, copy of birth certificate, and immunization information. Making an omission of a material fact or a false statement in enrollment application materials may be sufficient cause for denying an applicant consideration for enrollment or for expulsion after enrollment.

COMPLIANCE WITH CODE OF CONDUCT

All students and prospective students must abide by the Black River Public School Student Code of Conduct and are subject to disciplinary action for violations thereof, up to and including expulsion. In other words, a prospective student is subject to the all school policies, practices and procedures (and consequences for violations), even before their first day of class.

EQUAL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY

Black River Public School does not charge tuition and does not discriminate in its pupil admissions policies or practices on the basis of intellectual or athletic ability, measures of achievement or aptitude, status as a handicapped person, or any other basis not permitted by Michigan’s public schools. [Some testing may be required to determine the proper placement in a subject. Math and Spanish tests, for example, are generally required for new students to determine in which class they belong and to benchmark educational progress. Such tests are administered after a student has been accepted for admission.]