Sixty Paul Revere students won seats in next fall’s ninth-grade class at Palisades Charter High School, and 148 were wait-listed during a tense and emotional lottery Monday evening. But the school’s omission of eight Paul Revere students’ from the list has left some parents angry and confused, contending that lottery rules were broken. ‘Eight names were accidentally omitted through human error,’ PaliHi Executive Director Amy Held told the Palisadian-Post on Tuesday. ‘We took corrective action by expanding the size of the ninth grade class by eight. We’ll do that by accepting fewer students at the 10th- through 12th-grade levels.’ Revere students on the waitlist will not be impacted, Held said. Those eight students whose names were not called were awarded seats ahead of the 148 students currently on the waitlist. Parents of accepted, wait-listed and prospective students say they have lost confidence in the school’s ability to hold a fair lottery. ‘In all fairness, they should recall all of it,’ said Linda Hilton, a Mar Vista resident whose eighth-grade son at Revere was low on the waitlist. ‘But that would cause melee because parents of accepted students would oppose it vehemently.’ PaliHi held the lottery because it received a record number of applications for school seats this year. According to revised school numbers, 1,354 students applied for 764 seats school-wide. Following its recently formalized admissions policy, the school has accepted 248 Palisades residents, 191 siblings of current PaliHi students, 14 relatives of school staff and 187 Revere students who come from its 13 LAUSD-mandated school-sending areas. Also, the district will place 123 Magnet students in Pali’s first-year class. In order to comply with No Child Left Behind, a Bush administration education initiative, the school is obligated to reserve nearly 80 seats for students from low-performing, overcrowded schools, up from 20 last year. Also, school administrators say they have reserved 50 seats for new residents who might apply between now and the beginning of next school year. Driven by high test scores, good reputations and safe school environments at Palisades public schools, parents from areas like Venice, Santa Monica, Mar Vista and Westwood have enrolled their children at local public elementary schools and Paul Revere Middle School, with the expectation of future enrollment at PaliHi. But the large number of applications means that PaliHi might have to reject Revere students for the first time in its history, breaking a 40-year feeding pattern along with students’ and parents’ spirits. That possibility was devastating for former Palisades resident Christine Bolan, who seriously considered selling her Westchester home to secure her son’s enrollment at Pali. Three realtors assessed her home’s market value, but moving back to the Palisades was prohibitively expensive. ‘My son’s whole childhood has been with the same group of children,’ said Bolan, who learned Monday night after months of worrying that her son was accepted. ‘It’s important for his stability.’ School administrators expect that many seats currently reserved by the school will not be filled, potentially opening up room for the dozens of students currently wait-listed. The school is sending letters to all accepted students, which ask them to confirm their intention to enroll by April 10. All accepted students who do not respond, regardless of residence, will lose their seats. While some parents say the prospect of being taken off the waitlist is in their favor, many say that their confidence in the school’s management has been shaken by a series of mistakes. They point to the following recent events: ‘ The original lottery was called off last Thursday evening after more than 100 parents waited in the school’s gymnasium for more than one hour. After first telling parents to wait 15 minutes to prepare the names for the lottery, Assistant Principal Margaret Evans, who is responsible for the school’s admissions practices, told parents an hour later that there was a ‘computer glitch.’ ‘ School application records presented by Evans have varied wildly. Last week, Evans told parents and the Post that 964 students applied to the school and that 155 Revere eighth-graders would be wait-listed. But by Tuesday, Evans changed those numbers to 1,354 and 133, respectively. ‘ Parents received a letter from Evans informing them of last week’s upcoming lottery, but that letter failed to mention where on campus and what time of day the lottery would be held. Parents of students whose admission to PaliHi was uncertain found it virtually impossible to speak to school administrators. The Palisadian-Post’s numerous attempts to speak to Assistant Principal Evans regarding admissions policies were not returned. ‘I feel horrible for all the other kids who weren’t picked,’ said Allen Falk, a Mar Vista parent whose eighth-grade daughter from Revere was one of 60 students accepted. ‘It worked out for us, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. From the beginning, communication was horrible. I’ve had better luck getting through to the I.R.S.’ ————— Reporting by Staff Writer Max Taves. To contact, e-mail reporter@palipost.com.
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