Enrollment

All students eligible for enrollment in a North Carolina public school are eligible for enrollment at Lake Lure Classical Academy. Students must have parents/guardians with a legal residence in North Carolina. This applies to on-campus instruction as well as participation in our Virtual Academy. Lake Lure Classical Academy admits students without regard to ethnicity, national origin, gender, or disability. 

As a public charter school, we conduct an annual admissions lottery for any opening in every grade. Once enrolled, the student may attend through the 12th grade without applying again as long as a legal North Carolina residency is maintained, and the family submits the required intent to return form by the applicable deadline.  If you're interested in having your child transferred to the current school year please call the office at 828-625-9292 to discuss your options.

In a lottery system, parents submit an application to the school by a set deadline, after which all applications that have been received are placed into a lottery pool. On the date of the lottery, student names are drawn from the pool, and those students are assigned open seats at the school. Our Board of Directors has approved a lottery that results in a random selection of applicants. Our lottery is weighted to give siblings, and employees’ children preference. 

To be eligible for Kindergarten enrollment and the lottery, students must turn five years old on or before August 31, 2025.

Before the lottery opens, the school determines the number of available seats in each grade level. This is based on several factors, including the number of current students moving to the next grade and available classroom space. According to the laws governing charter schools in North Carolina, all new students who wish to be part of the Lake Lure Classical Academy lottery must complete an application for admission. 

Only one application per child will be accepted. Submitting duplicate applications to gain an advantage will result in disqualifying the student’s application(s). If a family has more than one child applying for admission, separate applications must be completed for each child.  Applications are accepted between January and March of each year.

The School may give enrollment priority in certain instances as stated in G.S.11`5C-238.29F(g). Currently LLCA offers the following enrollment priorities and implements them as follows: 

1. Any child of a current LLCA staff member or governing board member

2. Any sibling of an existing LLCA student

Our current enrollment lottery began January 1, 2020 and ended March 31, 2020, During that time, our school accepted applications for new students for the 2020-2021 school year.  

All applications must be completed online during the enrollment phase.  Assistance with completion of the online application is available onsite in the administration office, located on the school campus at 1058 Island Creek Road, in Lake Lure.  You may also call 828-625-9292, and press zero for assistance.

If your child is an existing student, no application is necessary. However, a completed "Intent to Return" form is required and due by announced deadlines each year. A link to the form is posted during the annual enrollment phase each winter.  This year’s enrollment lottery will be conducted on April 9th.  As always, the Lottery drawing is an open and public process.  LLCA will live stream the lottery on its Facebook page and post it to the website. Lottery applicants also receive an email indicating either acceptance or placement on a waiting list. View results of the 2020 Lottery Drawing here

The enrollment period begins each year in January and ends in March. During the enrollment period, the exact dates are published on our website. Lake Lure Classical Academy will enroll any eligible student who submits an application within this period unless the number of applications exceeds the number of available spaces. A lottery will be held to fill vacant seats for the next school year. After seats are filled, the drawing will continue to determine the order of a waiting list. Current year waiting lists dissolve when the next enrollment period begins. Our lottery procedures comply with the NC Open Meetings Laws provided in G.S, 143-218.10 (a). LLCA publicizes the dates, times, and location of the drawing. The Drawing is open to the public or posted on social media if it can't be held in person. 

To ensure transparency and fairness, we currently facilitate our school lottery through Lotterease, an independent automated lottery system used to manage our lottery and our waitlist. Since Lotterease is an independent system, our staff does not have the ability to manipulate or adjust the lottery outcome. We must work within the requirements of the system. In addition, all activity that takes place with an application is tracked in a history log that can be viewed anytime by logging into the parent portal. 

Students must have a legal residence in the state of North Carolina at the time their application is submitted.

The Division Principal will review the students transcripts from the prior school year to insure proper grade level placement. Home-schooled students should provide attendance records, test results, and grades. Final decisions, if appealed, will be made by the School Director.

No, per state law you must apply every year for the appropriate grade. 

Open seats will be offered to eligible student applicants immediately following the lottery. These applicants will receive an email that contains enrollment information. Applicants will be given a maximum of 10 business days to make a decision on the offer and submit the online enrollment form. If the offer is denied or not claimed by submitting completed enrollment forms within the ten business day period, the seat will be offered to the first student on the waitlist. Please note: Students who have not completed all courses by the first day of the new school year for the next grade level will not be allowed to enroll for the next school year.

If there are no spaces available at the grade level for which the student is applying, the lottery will generate a waitlist number assigned to that student based on the order in which his/her name is selected for the grade he/she is applying for.  North Carolina Charter Schools are not permitted to carry-over wait lists year to year; therefore, it is necessary to apply for each school year. If one child in a family receives an admissions offer, other siblings are not automatically included in the offer. Other family siblings will only receive an offer if their waitlist number moves up to an offer for the grade they are applying. If no offer is made, they will be considered “siblings” for the next year (after one child in the family is attending) and will receive sibling priority in the lottery for the following academic year. Please keep in mind, most natural attrition or movement will happen over the summer; we will continue to use the waitlist to fill any openings. 

No. The waitlist does not carry over to the following year. You will have to submit a new application every year for the appropriate grade. Once you are enrolled at Lake Lure Classical Academy, you are guaranteed a slot in subsequent years (as long as you remain a legal North Carolina residence) and do not have to reapply. 

Lake Lure Classical Academy will continue to use the waitlist to fill open seats until the 20th day of the new school year As seats open, we will offer them to eligible student applicants according to their number on the waitlist. 

Siblings of students currently attending Lake Lure Classical Academy will be given sibling priority for placement in subsequent years. While we are hopeful to place these siblings within a year, it is possible that it could take longer, depending upon the number of siblings for a specific grade level and the number of available slots that year.