Bristow Student Selection Process

Bristow Lottery - Student Selection Process

For the 2008-2009 School Year

Bristow Middle School announces its lottery for the 2008-2009 school year. The lottery for incoming 6^th grade students will be held in January.

All students who are attending West Hartford Public School or are West Hartford residents attending the University of Hartford Magnet School are automatically entered in the lottery.

Students who reside in West Hartford, but are not enrolled in the public schools must apply to be entered in the lottery.

We also expect to have a limited number of openings for incoming 7^th and 8^th grade students. All students, whether attending West Hartford Public Schools, or residing in West Hartford and not attending our public schools, must apply for these 7^th and 8^th grade openings.

Please click either of the links below if you need an application form.

Application form for incoming 6^th, 7^th and 8^th graders who do not attend West Hartford Public Schools or the University of Hartford Magnet School CLICK HERE (MS Word document)

Application form for incoming 7^th and 8^th graders who currently attend King Philip and Sedgwick Middle Schools CLICK HERE (MS Word document)

Below are the selection procedures and timelines for the lottery.

We will run 11 different lotteries – one for each elementary school. We will admit 70 students from King Philip feeder schools and 70 students from Sedgwick feeder schools. The table below shows the number of slots for each school. These are subject to change based on enrollments at the time that the lottery is run.

School	Bristow Middle school slots
Aiken	13
Bugbee	11
Morley	11
Norfeldt	12
Smith	11
Whiting Lane	12
KP Total	70

Braeburn	13
Charter Oak	10
Duffy	15
Webster Hill	15
Wolcott	17
Sedg Total	70

The lottery will also include non-public students who apply for admission. These students will be assigned to an elementary school based on the elementary attendance zone they live in.

We will check the demographics of each school’s random sample to ensure that the balance is maintained through out the sample. For example, we will check for balance among the following characteristics:

The purpose is to make sure that students are split equally across the sample (e.g. the first 10 students are not all boys.) If the first random sample is not uniform then a different random sample is drawn until the sample is uniform. In practice it takes 50 to 100 random samples to achieve a uniform sample.

We will communicate the lottery results to parents. Based on the results of the 2007-08 lottery, here are the expected cut off numbers for each elementary school. If a student receives a number equal to or less than the number of the Bristow slots, then the student is guaranteed the choice of going to Bristow. If a student receives a number less than the projected cutoff number then that student has a good chance of being able to choose Bristow, if not in the first round, then off of the waitlist. Hopefully, these cutoffs will help parents decide which middle school information sessions to attend.

School	Bristow Middle school slots	Projected cutoff lottery numbers
KP Feeder Schools
Aiken	13	31
Bugbee	11	21
Morley	11	30
Norfeldt	12	21
Smith	11	20
Whiting Lane	12	28

Sedgwick Feeder School
Braeburn	13	22
Charter Oak	10	11
Duffy	15	33
Webster Hill	15	25
Wolcott	17	25

Siblings of current Bristow 6^th and 7^th grade students will be automatically assigned the lowest numbers in the lottery from their respective schools

Students who live on Highland Street or at 684 Farmington Avenue are not included in the lottery, but can choose to go to Bristow in addition to the 140 students from KP and Sedgwick.

Twins or triplets will be considered as a single student for the lottery and will be assigned the same lottery number.

We will take applications from students interested in filling the small number of vacancies we anticipate at grade 7 and grade 8 in the 2008-09 school year. These lotteries will be run later than the grade 6 lottery. Applications are due by March 31, 2008. If you do not apply, you will not be considered for the lottery.

This lottery will be a simple random lottery. All students will be randomly assigned a number from 1 to the total number of entries in the lottery and we will use that order to fill the vacancies that arise.

The number of vacancies for grade 7 and grade 8 are both small and variable. For the 2007-08 school year, we admitted approximately 10 new students each into grade 7 and grade 8. During the parent information sessions in March of 2008, we will be able to provide you with more information as to the expected number of slots for the 2008-09 school year at grades 7 and 8.

Siblings of current Bristow 6^th and 7^th grade students will be automatically assigned the lowest numbers in the lottery.

Siblings of current 5^th grade students who indicate they are coming to Bristow prior to March 31st, will be automatically assigned the lowest numbers in the lottery.

Students who live on Highland Street or at 684 Farmington Avenue are automatically admitted.

Twins or triplets will be considered as a single student for the lottery and will be assigned the same lottery number.

Grade 6 Bristow 2008-09 Lottery Timeline
Date	Item	Comments
January 4, 2008	Lottery Deadline	All enrolled grade 5 students and all applying nonpublic school students will be entered into the lottery as of this date
January 18, 2008	Mail letters	Lottery results mailed home to parents
February 4, 2008 February 12, 2008	Information sessions	Informational Meetings for parents and students at Bristow on two nights at 6:30 pm.
March 24, 2008	Deadline for 1^st round of acceptances	First deadline – Parents of low number students need to indicate YES or NO
April	Waitlist	Fill from the waiting list to fill the slots from each elementary school
May	Student Orientation	Hold student orientations at Bristow for incoming 6^th graders
June 13, 2008	Final decision point	Students who decide to change schools must drop out by this date. Any future changes will have to go through the office of the Deputy Superintendent
July 1	Final list of students	Fill in any June 13 dropouts by July 1

Grade 7 and 8 Bristow 2008-09 Lottery Timeline
Date	Item	Comments
March 10^th, 2008	Parent meeting	Parent information meeting for parents of current 6^th and 7^th graders interested in attending Bristow next year
March 31, 2008	Lottery Deadline	All grade 7 and grade 8 lottery applications need to be filled out by this date
April 11, 2008	Mail letters	Lottery results mailed home to parents
May 1, 2008	Deadline for acceptances	Deadline for accepted students to say yes
May and June	Waitlist	Fill vacancies from waitlist.
June 13, 2008	Final decision point	Students who decide to change schools must drop out by this date. Any future changes will have to go through the office of the Deputy Superintendent
July 1	Final list of students	Fill in any June 13 dropouts by July 1