Enrollment

Any student in the State of California is eligible to attend Ocean Charter School. There are no entrance tests or requirements. Enrollment for all grades at Ocean Charter School is by random, public lottery.

CURRENT ENROLLMENT FOR 2007-2008
Enrollment for the 200-2008 school year is closed effective February 2, 2008. All 2007-2008 applications previously submitted are no longer valid. You must re-apply annually for the Enrollment Lottery.

OPEN ENROLLMENT FOR 2008-2009
Open Enrollment for the 2008-2009 school year commenced on February 2,2008. We held Open Houses for grades K through 8 on the following dates at these locations:

Saturday, February 2nd     10-12noon         NORTH CAMPUS (Grades 5-8) CLOSED
Saturday, February 9th      10-12noon         SOUTH CAMPUS (Grades K-4) FULL- CLOSED
Saturday, February 23rd    10-12noon         SOUTH CAMPUS (Grades K-4) FULL-CLOSED
Sunday, February 24th      1pm-3pm          NORTH CAMPUS (Grades 5-8) CLOSED

OCS serves its students at two locations.  Our South Campus, serving grades K-4, is at 12606 Culver Blvd, Los Angeles, CA  90066.  Our North Campus, located at 13151 Appleton Way, Los Angeles, CA  90066 is the home of our 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades.

Applications for 2008-2009 are available effective Saturday, February 2, 2008, in the school office at both campuses. The Enrollment Lottery deadline for 2008-2009 applications is Friday, March 7, 2008 by 5:00pm. All complete applications submitted by this deadline will be eligible to participate in our Enrollment Lottery, scheduled for Tuesday, March 18th at 4:00pm at our South Campus. The Enrollment Lottery is conducted to determine applicants' waitlist placement. You do not need to be present at the Lottery. After the Lottery is complete, interested families may inquire about their enrollment status by emailing enrollment@oceancharterschool.org.  Offers of Enrollment will be made by mail before the end of May 2008.  Please note OCS will be closed for Spring Break starting March 24th and resume on April 7th. All applications submitted after the Enrollment Lottery deadline will be added to the end of the Lottery waitlist in the order in which they are received. Should you have any questions regarding the application or special education, please contact Debbie Tripp at 310-313-1230.

DATES:
Lottery Applications available: February 2, 2008
Lottery Applications deadline: March 7, 2008
Enrollment Lottery:  March 18, 2008 (4:00pm, Teachers' Lounge) 

We will lottery (20) "K2" spots for 2008-2009 and (20) "K3" spots which, if enrolled, will be reserved until September 2009. Wait-listed applicants must re-apply to the Enrollment Lottery following the enrollment period each year. In our 4th grades, we expand from 20 to 24 students and therefore have (8) spots to offer.  All other grades will have available spots only if an enrolled student does not return for the 2008-2009 school year.  Preference is given for siblings of current students and the children of faculty, staff or board members only.  Your application will be valid for one year, until we open Enrollment for the following school year.  If we are unable to offer you Enrollment for the current school year, you must re-apply annually for the Enrollment Lottery.

Parents who were unable to attend our Open Houses and are interested in learning more about Ocean Charter School may visit our website, read our Charter, attend our public Board of Trustees meetings (1st Thursday of each month), and join our Community Yahoo group to receive school-related news and announcements.

KINDERGARTEN ONLY: Ocean Charter has a two-year, play-based, mixed-age Kindergarten program.  Because of the State-mandated cutoff (you must be five years old by Dec 2nd of the year you start Kindergarten) and Ocean Charter's first grade cutoff (You must be six years old by June 1st of the year in which you start first grade), not every child will enjoy two years of Kindergarten.  In order to make the application process as fair as possible, children born between Dec 3rd and June 1st will be offered placement 18 months in advance of enrollment.   Birthday ranges for Ocean Charter Kindergarten, 2008-2009 are:

6/1/2002 - 5/31/2003:  "K1" (attend one year of kindergarten) for 2008-2009

6/1/2003 - 12/2/2003:  "K2" (attend two years of kindergarten) for 2008-2009

12/3/2003 - 5/31/2004:  "K3" (18 months in advance, attend one year of kindergarten) for 2009-2010*

* K3: You may participate in the Lottery 18 months in advance to determine placement for September of 2009. Your child will be identified as "K3" for the 2008-2009 school year.   Any questions regarding Ocean Charter Enrollment may be directed to ocsenrollment@gmail.com, or you may call the school office at 310-827-5511.  

OCS Admission Policy:
Ocean Charter School shall be nonsectarian in its programs, admission policies, employment practices, and all other operations, and shall not charge tuition. Ocean Charter School shall not discriminate against any pupil on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, disability, religion, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic that is contained in the definition of hate crimes set forth in Section 422.55 of the Penal Code in any program or activity conducted by an educational institution that receives, or benefits from, state financial assistance or enrolls pupils who receive state student financial aid, nor discriminate against any person based upon the perception that the person has any of those characteristics or that the person is associated with a person who has, or is perceived to have, any of those characteristics. Ocean Charter School will admit any student in the state of California who wishes to attend. Admission to Ocean Charter School shall not be determined according to the place of residence of the pupil, or of his or her parent or guardian, within this state. Ocean Charter School will not enroll pupils over 19 years of age unless continuously enrolled in a public school and making satisfactory progress toward high school diploma requirements.

Ocean Charter School will actively recruit a diverse student population. Open Enrollment, admission requirements, and lottery information are posted physically on campus in a publicly accessible location, on the school's website and announced via the Yahoo email groups. Ocean Charter School will continue to inform the community, including schools identified as Title I and/or Program Improvement, about our educational philosophy. This will be done by several methods, including but not limited to: distributing informational, multi-lingual brochures to local preschool and elementary schools as well as submitting Open Enrollment announcements to local newspapers.

Open Enrollment Process

Families must fill out an application and submit a current IEP or 504 Plan, if applicable.

Admission Requirements

In keeping with our goal to provide a developmentally appropriate arts-integrated educa?tion, OCS maintains the following age requirements.  

The minimum age of children applying to the school will be:

§  Kindergarten: age 5 on or before December 2 of the year they enter Kindergarten

§  First Grade: age 6 before June 1 of the year they enter 1st grade.

The First Grade age policy continues in this manner through all grades. Exceptions may be made by the consent of the class teacher and the OCS Director and will be on a trial basis.  This requirement helps ensure school readiness specific to the OCS Whole Child Curriculum and is consistent with non-discrimination statutes. 

Upon admission to Ocean Charter School, parents are asked to read the OCS Parent Handbook to become familiar with school policies and gain understanding of our Whole Child Curriculum.  Ocean Charter School requests:

§  Active support of the school through volunteering time and/or other resources.

§  Commitment to provide a home environment that is conducive to learning. In particular, this means agreeing to limit children's exposure to electronic media influences such as television, movies, video games, etc.

§  Adherence to the OCS dress code.

§  The willingness of the parent to gain understanding of our Whole Child Curriculum to support their child's education in the home.

Enrollment Lottery Process

If the number of pupils who wish to attend the charter school exceeds the school's capacity, attendance, except for existing pupils of the charter school, shall be determined by a public random drawing. Lottery rules, deadline, and lottery date and time are communicated via the Ocean Charter School website, the Yahoo email group and the Enrollment application.

The Ocean Charter School Director and at least one other school employee conduct the Enrollment lottery as a public event to ensure that lottery procedures are fairly executed.  Procedures include announcing each applicant's name and lottery number, recording the number on paper and entering the number in the school's database.

Ocean Charter School's Open Enrollment period and lottery typically occur in the spring of the year of enrollment, when most interested parties will be able to attend. The lottery takes place on campus. The lottery is open to the public and announced on the Ocean Charter School website, the Yahoo email group and the Enrollment application.

The following shall be given preference for admission to the school: Siblings of students currently enrolled in the school, children of school faculty and staff, and children of OCS Board of Trustees. The OCS Board of Trustees may review and revise this preference policy as necessary for the well-being of the school.

The random public lottery determines applicants' waitlist status. Those who apply after the lottery deadline are added to the end of the lottery waitlist in the order they are received. Offers for openings are made in waitlist number order until the spots are filled or the waitlist is exhausted.

Initial rounds of offers are made by mail, while any subsequent offers are made through contacting applicants by phone. When an offer is made, Ocean Charter School typically requests that applicants notify the school within 2 days to indicate whether or not they will accept; if offers are declined or applicants do not respond, the spot is then offered to the next applicant on the waitlist. The waitlist for the current school year remains active until Ocean Carter School's Open Enrollment period commences. Applications are only valid for the current year. Applicants must reapply for the lottery annually if we are unable to offer them admission for the current year.

The Ocean Charter School administration records all dates and dialogue regarding enrollment activity for each applicant within the database. The manual record of all lottery participants and their assigned lottery numbers is also physically filed on campus. Each applicant's enrollment application is kept on file for the academic year with his or her assigned lottery number in the school database and on his or her enrollment application.