In accordance with federal laws, no student will be denied admission to NAMASTE CHARTER SCHOOL based on race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, disability, aptitude, or athletic ability. The school shall be open to any child who is eligible under the laws of Illinois for admission to a public school. New students will be admitted each year without regard to prior measures of achievement or aptitude, athletic ability, disability, handicapped condition, ethnicity, race, creed, gender, national origin, religion, or ancestry. All students who live in Chicago, Illinois are eligible to apply and enroll in NAMASTE CHARTER SCHOOL.

Procedures

Application

Parent/Guardian must complete one application per child/student interested in applying to Namaste Charter School for grades K-8.  Parent/Guardian must provide basic student and parent information, applying grade, and sibling information (if applicable).  New student applications can be completed online at www.namastecharterschool.org,  paper applications can be mailed to the Namaste Charter School; 3737 S. Paulina St. Chicago, IL 60609, or faxed at 773-376-6495 by 4 pm on the deadline date indicated on the application.

Timing

NAMASTE CHARTER SCHOOL holds an open application period beginning in November through the first Friday of March for its incoming class of kindergarteners and any open positions in the other grades to enroll for the following fall term.  To be permissible for consideration to apply to the school, the application must be completed and signed by the student’s parent or legal guardian and it must be submitted to the school electronically or in person, or postmarked, within the open application period, which ends on March 1, 2024 at 4pm.

If, after the application period has ended and the number of applications received exceeds the number of open student positions, the school will hold an open, public lottery to select students for admission.  Names will be drawn after all available spaces have been filled in order to form a priority-ranked, enrollment waiting list. This waiting list will be the only official, legal document identifying the names of eligible students with applications to NAMASTE CHARTER SCHOOL pending acceptance for the subsequent school year, or when vacancies arise, based upon the order of random selection from the lottery following a recruitment period. If applications are received after March 1, 2024 at 4pm, they will be placed on a late application waiting list in the order they are received. This waiting list will become active after all students placed in the lottery have been admitted into Namaste.

Preference will be given to siblings of students already enrolled in NAMASTE CHARTER SCHOOL. For definition purposes, the “siblings” term sibling applies only to natural siblings, step-siblings, foster siblings, and adopted siblings.

Lottery: Results and Registration

Namaste Charter School conducts a computerized lottery developed by PowerSchool, an independent programmer that uses a mathematical algorithm to randomly and blindly assign students to grade levels or on the waitlist. Namaste records and broadcasts the lottery in real time. The name of each student who is a resident of Chicago and has submitted an application with a parent/guardian signature shall be part of the lottery. If a child’s name is drawn who has older siblings in the lottery, the names of the older sibling shall be given priority on the enrollment list for that grade level and shall be accepted provided there is space available in the appropriate grade level. This process is open for all applicants and community members to witness. This process will also be time-stamped, recorded, and submitted to CPS upon completion within ten days of the open lottery. This process shall be used each year for all grades. If a child in a younger grade is selected for admission, and a sibling of that child remains on the waiting list for his/her grade level, that sibling will be placed at the top of the waiting list for admission in accordance with the sibling preference statute in the law. 

Formal notices will be mailed to the parent(s)/guardian of the student notifying them of the lottery results.  Families will also receive electronic notifications in addition to mailed notifications of the lottery results.  For students whose names are drawn the formal notice will also include a letter of intent to enroll or decline that must be signed and returned to NAMASTE CHARTER SCHOOL within two weeks of notification (3/29/24) to hold the student’s admission position.  The school will make one phone call to each family that has not returned the letter of intent to enroll in the timeframe required.  If no commitment can be secured from the family in a reasonable timeframe, the school has the right to remove the student from the admit list and pursue other students in order from the established waitlist. 

Waitlist

If there are more applicants than seats available in any given grade, all students not accepted in the lottery will be placed on the waiting list as assigned by the lottery program. Applications received after 4 p.m. by the deadline date will also be added to the waitlist in the order that it is received. Families may contact the Namaste Charter School a week after the lottery to inquire about the waitlist number. Families will be given a range of the waitlist and may continue to follow through on their child(ren)’s status throughout the enrollment period. The Namaste Charter School waiting list does not carry over from year to year. If the student is not selected, the parent will need to apply for the next school year. New student applications are available every year in October.

Upon enrollment or withdrawal, the student’s parent/guardian must complete all paperwork required by the Chicago Public Schools to enable all records to be properly transferred and to provide the school with the necessary information, such as address and immunization records. It shall then be the duty of Namaste Charter School to immediately contact the school last attended by the child to obtain relevant academic and other records.

Since all promotion decisions have not been made, a few students will be admitted in each grade level, and, at any time that a space becomes available in a given grade level, Namaste will utilize its waiting list to select the next student to attend.