Current through Reg. 50, No. 13; March 28, 2025
(a) Application
deadline. For admission to a charter school, a charter holder shall:
(1) require the applicant to complete and
submit a common application form prescribed by the commissioner of education,
referred to as the Texas Charter School Admission Application, beginning in the
2020-2021 school year. The application must be submitted not later than a
reasonable deadline the charter holder establishes.
(A) The common application form shall be
posted on the Texas Education Agency (TEA) website, and the form and all
associated fields shall be posted on each open-enrollment charter school's
website to be used by an applicant for admission to an open-enrollment charter
school campus.
(B) The common
application form and the student admission and enrollment policy under
subsection (d) or (e) of this section, including the policies and procedures
for admission, lotteries, enrollment, student waitlists, withdrawals,
reenrollment, and transfers, shall be publicly accessible and easily available
on the charter school's website. A charter school must make available the
common application form and may not require the use of an account, email,
password, or other condition as the sole means to access the information or the
common application form. A charter school may also print copies of the common
application form and make them available for use during the admission
process.
(C) An open-enrollment
charter school may not alter the form, unless to signify specific criteria that
may not apply to their campus as permitted by TEA, and may not add any
additional criteria, questions, statements, advertisements, or solicitations or
require any conditions for a person to access the form. An open-enrollment
charter school may not sell, provide, or ask an applicant to agree to share or
have the charter school share any student information provided in the
application to any person or entity other than TEA;
(2) on receipt of more acceptable
applications for admission under this section than available positions in the
school:
(A) except as permitted by subsection
(b) of this section, fill the available positions by lottery; or
(B) subject to subsection (d) of this
section, fill the available positions in accordance with the open-enrollment
charter school's approved student admission and enrollment policy;
and
(3) create and manage
a waitlist, as described in subsection (e) of this section, for applicants who
are not admitted after all available positions in the charter school have been
filled.
(b) Lottery
exemption. The charter holder may exempt students from the lottery required by
subsection (d) of this section to the extent this is consistent with the
definition of a "public charter school" under the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA) as reauthorized under the Every Student Succeeds Act
(ESSA), as interpreted by the United States Department of Education (USDE),
including but not limited to, siblings of students already admitted to or
attending the same charter school; children of a charter school's founders,
teachers and staff, and children of employees in a work-site charter school (so
long as the total number of students allowed under this exemption does not
exceed 10% of the school's total enrollment).
(c) Newspaper publication. To the extent this
is consistent with the definition of a "public charter school" under ESEA as
reauthorized under ESSA, as interpreted by the USDE, a charter holder may fill
applications for admission under subsection (a)(1) of this section only if it
published a notice of the opportunity to apply for admission to the charter
school. At a minimum, a notice published under this subsection must:
(1) state the application deadline;
and
(2) be published in a newspaper
of general circulation in the community in which the school is located not
later than the seventh day before the application deadline. For purposes of
this chapter, a newspaper of general circulation is defined as one that has
more than a minimum number of subscribers among a particular geographic region,
which has a diverse subscribership, and that publishes some news items of
general interest to the community.
(d) Student admission and enrollment. Except
as provided by this section, the governing body of the charter holder must
adopt a student admission and enrollment policy that:
(1) unless as provided in subsection (f) of
this section, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex; national origin;
ethnicity; religion; disability; academic, artistic, or athletic ability; or
the district the child would otherwise attend under state law;
(2) specifies any type of non-discriminatory
enrollment criteria to be used at each charter school operated by the charter
holder. Such non-discriminatory enrollment criteria may make the student
ineligible for enrollment based on a history of a criminal offense, a juvenile
court adjudication, or discipline problems under Texas Education Code (TEC),
Chapter 37, Subchapter A, documented as provided by local policy; and
(3) specifies whether students will be
admitted to the charter school campus by lottery or on a first come, first
served basis if the application is published in a newspaper of general
circulation in the community in which the school is located not later than the
seventh day before the application deadline, as described in TEC, §
12.117.
(e) Waitlist. Charter holders required to
create and maintain a waitlist as a result of receiving more acceptable
applications for admission than available positions at the school shall manage
and update the student waitlist.
(1) Each
school year, the following information must be maintained at the campus level
for reporting to TEA no later than the last Friday in October of each school
year:
(A) the total number of students on the
waitlist;
(B) the number of
students on the waitlist disaggregated by grade level;
(C) the number of students
enrolled;
(D) the enrollment
capacity; and
(E) information
necessary to identify each student, as specified in TEC, §
12.1174 (Enrollment
and Waiting List Report).
(2) The waitlist of each charter school
campus shall be managed according to that charter holder's policy, which must
include the following criteria.
(A) The names
of eligible students with completed applications who apply and are not admitted
shall be added to the end of the waitlist in the order in which the
applications are received.
(B) As
spaces become available at the charter school campus during the school year,
the school must consult its campus waitlist and select a new student for
enrollment in the order that students appear on the list.
(C) The charter school shall review each
campus waitlist no less than every 60 days and eliminate duplicate entries and
the names of students who have been admitted to the charter
school.
(3) An
open-enrollment charter school may not sell, provide, or ask a student to agree
to share any student information on the waitlist with any person or entity
other than TEA.
(f)
Student admission and enrollment at charter schools specializing in performing
arts. In accordance with TEC, §
12.111 and §
12.1171, a charter
school specializing in performing arts, as defined in this subsection, may
adopt a student admission and enrollment policy that complies with this
subsection in lieu of compliance with subsections (a)-(d) of this section.
(1) A charter school specializing in
performing arts as used in this subsection means a school whose open-enrollment
charter includes an educational program that, in addition to the required
academic curriculum, has an emphasis in one or more of the performing arts,
which include music, theatre, and dance. A program with an emphasis in the
performing arts may include the following components:
(A) a core academic curriculum that is
integrated with performing arts instruction;
(B) a wider array of performing arts courses
than are typically offered at public schools;
(C) frequent opportunities for students to
demonstrate their artistic talents;
(D) cooperative programs with other
organizations or individuals in the performing arts community; or
(E) other innovative methods for offering
performing arts learning opportunities.
(2) To the extent this is consistent with the
definition of a "public charter school" as defined in ESEA as reauthorized
under ESSA, as interpreted by the USDE, the governing body of a charter holder
that operates a charter school specializing in performing arts must require the
applicant to complete and submit a common admission application form as
described in subsection (a)(1) of this section and may adopt an admission
policy that requires a student to demonstrate an interest or ability in the
performing arts or to audition for admission to the school.
(3) The governing body of a charter holder
that operates a charter school specializing in performing arts must adopt a
student admission and enrollment policy that prohibits discrimination on the
basis of sex, national origin, ethnicity, religion, disability, academic or
athletic ability, or the district the child would otherwise attend under state
law.
(4) The governing body of a
charter holder that operates a charter school specializing in performing arts
must adopt a student admission and enrollment policy that specifies any type of
non-discriminatory enrollment criteria to be used at the charter school. Such
non-discriminatory enrollment criteria may make the student ineligible for
enrollment based on a history of a criminal offense, a juvenile court
adjudication, or discipline problems under TEC, Chapter 37, Subchapter A,
documented as provided by local policy.
(g) Maximum enrollment. Total enrollment
shall not exceed the maximum number of students approved in the open-enrollment
charter. A charter school may establish a primary and secondary boundary.
Students who reside outside the primary geographic boundary stated in the
open-enrollment charter shall not be admitted to the charter school until all
eligible applicants that reside within the primary boundary and have submitted
a timely application have been enrolled. Then, if the open-enrollment charter
so provides for a secondary boundary, the charter holder may admit students who
reside within the secondary boundary to the charter school in accordance with
the terms of the open-enrollment charter.
