Minneapolis - St. Paul Metro

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A community for leftists and progressives within the Minneapolis - St. Paul Metro Area, including all suburbs and exurbs.

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School open enrollment / statewide enrollment options questions (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by illustriousPark265@lemmy.world to c/msp@midwest.social

6 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi everyone! Our family is moving back to MN in a few months, and we are starting the process of looking into schools. Our son will be 5 next year and will be starting kindergarten in 2026. He's our oldest, so this is our first rodeo. We're looking into Nova Classical Academy (Highland Park) and Math & Science Academy (Woodbury).

Our questions:

How hard is it to get into these schools for kindergarten? (We are not school staff members, and our child doesn't have a sibling already enrolled in the school.) We realize that MSA's elementary school is just now being built, and 2026-2027 is the first year they're enrolling for kindergarten.
Is there anything we can do to be more competitive for acceptance to either school? Or is it literally just a random lottery? Does it matter when we apply for the lottery, as long as it's within the enrollment window? (Our children don't appear to be "protected class students" as defined by MDE.)
Any experience with either of these schools? We welcome all feedback as we know nothing! Especially if you have a child with mild ASD, we'd love your input.

Thank you so much!

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[–] liran@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

I've met a few families who go to Nova, and they all speak highly.

[–] m_f@discuss.online 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I don't have direct experience with either one, but they're both good schools with good test scores. It shouldn't matter when you apply for the lottery, as long as it's within the window. It's state law that charter schools have to do random lottery other than a few allowed exceptions. If you want to know numbers like how many applications they tend to get, you should be able to call/email them.

I don't generally trust charter schools to work well with kids with IEPs unless they specifically say something about it. They're not held to the same standards as other schools.

[–] illustriousPark265@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Sweet, thanks for the advice re: asking the school for application numbers and checking into special ed accommodations! (We don't anticipate our son will have an IEP, but great consideration.)

[–] liran@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

We're definitely different folk,lol. Live in Minneapolis, checked out the school visible from our house. We've had a great public school experience here, and better yet are neighborhood friends.

Mostly just replying to give a shout out for public and neighborhood schools for future readers.

[–] illustriousPark265@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Thanks. Yeah, I'd be happy to send my kids to MPS, and that is a possibility, but my wife has bad blood with a few MPS employees in leadership positions, so she has some reluctance to enroll our kids there. I do understand there are some very nice schools in the district, and we're both reasonably satisfied products of regular public school districts (i.e., non-charter--not sure if that even existed when we were kids), so I do endorse this as well.

[–] m_f@discuss.online 0 points 4 months ago

Chiming in to say that since OP is coming from another state (you say back to, but not sure how long it's been), MN public schools are generally really good. If you're looking at charter schools because that's what you're used to, try checking out public schools around you.