Thomas MacMillan Photo
Terence and Tierra Williams.
Terence Williams was hoping to win the lottery. But his number didn’t come up, so he now plans to pay for another year of daycare — and wait for another chance to place his kids at Davis Street 21st Century Magnet School.
Williams was one of over 100 anxious parents who showed up at the Board of Education headquarters on Meadow Street Tuesday morning to hear if their child’s number had been selected in the lottery for spots in magnet schools.
Magnet schools offer specialized courses of study, each with a different emphasis. They are available to students in New Haven and surrounding towns, regardless of where they live. Students vie for spots through a random lottery. Some precedence is give to students living near magnet schools and to students with siblings already attending.
Letters announcing the results will be sent out soon. But for parents who couldn’t wait for the mail to come, Tuesday was a chance to find out immediately.
The lottery drawing began at 10 a.m., with a presentation by Robert Canelli, director of the magnet school program. He was joined by Ed Linehan, a former director, now a consultant to the school board, in a second-floor meeting room.
The district has several dozen magnet schools with 15 grade levels, for a total of 2,600 open slots, he told the assembled crowd. The district received 8,008 magnet school applications for kids in New Haven and the suburbs, he said.
Linehan explained how the lottery works. A computer was set up in the middle of the room, with a projector displaying a program interface on a screen at the front of the room. At 10 a.m., a staffer punched a button and the computer began assigning students random numbers.
Then the program goes through the applications and starts assigning schools, Linehan said. The child with the lowest number gets his or her first choice, until all the first choices are done. Then the computer goes through and assigns second choices. Once all the slots are filled, the computer puts students on waiting lists.
Parents weren’t told on Tuesday what number on the waiting lists they received. They have to wait for a letter in the mail to tell them that.
The program took only a minute to perform all those calculations. But it took another 10 minutes to print out the results. In the meantime, parents edged their chairs closer to the front, then dashed forward to form lines: A‑L on the left, M‑Z on the right.
Nikki Klein (pictured) was in the front row, clutching the PIN that would let her see if her 5‑year-old son will be able to start at Edgewood School in the fall.
“It’s a great neighborhood public school,” said Klein, who lives nearby.
She said she hadn’t put down a second choice. She had heard that strategy would increase her chances of getting into her first choice.
“That’s not true,” Linehan said. However, Klein’s strategy might help if her son is waitlisted: he’ll be waitlisted on her first choice only. If someone is tapped from the waitlist and declines, they don’t get a second chance on a different waitlist, Linehan said.
Williams, with his 3‑year-old daughter Tierra, learned that she and his 5‑year-old son Terence had been waitlisted at Davis 21st Century Magnet School, near his home.
“It’s all right,” Williams said as he walked away from the counter, having received the bad news. He said he’ll be sending his kids to Morning Glory Daycare for another year until (he hopes) they get in to Davis.
“Magnet schools are a lot better,” he said. The teaching is “more hands on” and the kids get more individual attention, he said. In other public schools, “teachers can’t pinpoint one specific person,” he said. Plus, with teacher layoffs, it’s just going to get worse, he said.
One by one, parents like Williams got the news. Most took it quietly, good or bad. But Dana Casey squealed with delight when she was told her 10-year-old son Decklin can attend Mauro-Sheridan next fall.
She and her son live in Milford, where she has not been happy with the quality of schooling, she said. She said she visited Mauro-Sheridan recently and was impressed with the facilities and all the technology in the classrooms.
“It’s awesome,” she said. “It fits with my son. … I’m so happy. You have no idea.”
Casey said she had tried to shelter her son from disappointment by not having him visit the school. She said she was afraid he would get too excited and then be crushed if he didn’t get in. She said she settled for just showing him the school’s website.
“He’s going to be very excited,” Casey said.
Bruce and Loralee Crowder also received good news: Their daughter Adeline made it into John C. Daniels School, their first choice.
The Crowders (pictured) reached the front of the line with 2‑and-a-half-year-old Adeline in dad’s arms and 3‑week-old Elias nestled in a sling on mom’s chest.
The Crowders, who live in North Haven, said they were attracted by the multilingual program at Daniels. They said they were shocked that Adeline got in; they weren’t expecting to make it.
“Now it’s the commute we have to contend with,” Loralee said. Bruce said he’ll be driving his daughter to school every day.