Parents/guardians can complete and submit a lottery application form that is accessible from our website, www.lncharter.org, from 12:00:01 on November 1 to 11:59:59 on January 31 of year year. There is no advantage to being the first person to apply or the last person to apply.  

Yes. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Division of Charter Schools, mandates that applications from out-of-state residents/children are not eligible for admission. You and your child must be a full-time resident of North Carolina with a physical address in the state at the time the application is submitted. 

There are exceptions to this if a family member is on active military duty and will be moving to the state. Please contact our lottery coordinator, Cathy Swiney (cwiney@lncharter.org), with questions. 

No. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Division of Charter Schools, mandates that applications from out-of-state residents/children are not eligible for admission. You and your child must be a full-time resident of North Carolina with a physical address in the state at the time the application is submitted. If you move to North Carolina during the summer, you will need to find another school for your child and then apply for the following school year when that application window is open. The exception to this would be if the parent is on active military duty.

Temporary residence in North Carolina, solely for the purpose of applying and attending Lake Norman Charter School, is not considered “residency.”

No. Per North Carolina state law, the student must be a domiciliary of the state.

The lottery is held no later than the third week in February of each year. It is live streamed for convenience. The day before the lottery is held, we will email a link to all applicants to view the lottery as it is live streamed.

State law requires Lake Norman Charter School to hold a lottery when our applications exceed our openings. The computer-generated lottery is an independent system, and school staff do not have the ability to manipulate or adjust the lottery outcome.

All applications received during the open application window will be entered into one schoolwide lottery. At the time of the lottery, the data collected from all submissions will be used to run the computerized lottery system.

Once parents submit an application, they will receive an application number that they will use to check the status of their child(ren) after the lottery is held.

Elementary enrollment offerings occur at two campuses - ES East (10019 Hambright Rd., Huntersville) and ES West (8772 McIlwaine Rd., Huntersville). The lottery application will ask parents to select one of three options:  ES East, ES West or No Preference. When a child’s application number is drawn from the school’s single lottery, the child will be offered a seat at one of the two campuses based on the family’s indicated campus preference. A family’s campus preference will be accommodated if an appropriate grade-level seat is available at that campus.

In order to be eligible for enrollment openings at both elementary campuses, when completing the lottery form a family must select “No Preference,” indicating their willingness to accept placement at either campus if there is an open spot.

The school makes every effort to enroll siblings at the same campus based upon available seats; however, the school cannot guarantee the availability of open seats at a family’s campus choice, even for siblings.

Both elementary school campuses follow the same curriculum, mission and programming and classrooms will have the same student/teacher ratio. Both schools offer club opportunities for students, afterschool care (Knight’s Kids) and lunch offerings via partnerships with local restaurants and PTO support.

The East campus has an enrollment of 610 students. The West campus will have a smaller enrollment with 375 students. Special areas taught at the East campus include art, PE, media/technology, music and STEM. Special areas taught at the West campus include art, PE and media/technology.

Despite the differences, there will be collaboration between the East and West elementary campuses and intentional fostering of relationships between students in the same grade level. Building these relationships ensures they will become one group of students when they enter fifth grade at the middle school.

No. Once the application has been submitted, no changes will be accepted. No exceptions will be made. Please do not submit another application indicating a preference for the other campus.

No. You only need to submit one application, making only one elementary school campus choice on the lottery application. Submitting multiple applications for different elementary school campuses is considered a duplicate application. Should multiple applications be submitted, the original application will remain in the lottery, and subsequent applications will be deleted.

No. You are not eligible to submit an application in the lottery because your child is already enrolled in LNC. This would be considered a transfer and we do not allow transfers between the two elementary school campuses.

No. We do not allow transfers between the two elementary school campuses.

If you received a confirmation email, you can be assured that your application has been received and you will be entered into the lottery. Do not submit another as this will cause duplicates. If in doubt, email lottery@lncharter.org  with your child’s name, grade applied and date of birth. We will respond to you by email within 48 hours.

Check your emails (including your junk or spam file). If you still are unable to locate it, please email lottery@lncharter.org, and provide your child’s name, grade applied, and date of birth. We will resend the confirmation email to you. If you do not receive a confirmation email, your application was not received. There may have been required information not submitted; please correct and submit.

Email lottery@lncharter.org with your application number, child’s name, grade applied, corrected grade (remember you are applying for next year’s grade) and date of birth. Your application will be corrected and another confirmation email will be sent to you. Do not submit another application. Adjustments can be made up until January 31, but after that date if the application is inaccurate, it will be removed from the lottery process.  Once the lists are created by the lottery, the results are final.

Only one application can be submitted per child per year. Parents cannot apply for multiple grade levels for the same child. Additionally, parents cannot apply for the same child using different variations of the student’s name (i.e Elizabeth Smith and Beth Smith).  The original application will remain in the lottery, and any duplicate applications will be deleted.

At the time of the lottery, we will announce the accepted students only. If you are not able to view the lottery livestream, the day after the lottery we will make the link available on our website. You can check your child’s status by entering your application number when prompted.

Each applicant accepted through the lottery will receive an official offer sent to email addresses provided on the application within one week. An applicant will have seven calendar days from the date of that email to respond to the offer letter. If the applicant fails to respond to the offer within the seven-calendar day period, in either the affirmative or negative, the seat will be offered to the next applicant on the waitlist.

Should the applicant accept the offered seat, the applicant will receive a confirmation email within 48 hours with steps to complete the enrollment process. Applicants will have five calendar days from the date of that email to complete the steps identified in that email. If not completed within five calendar days from the date of that email, the applicant will lose the seat and it will be offered to the next applicant on the waitlist.

The time to accept if offered a seat reduces as we move closer to the school year and you may have limited time to respond. For this reason, applicants are encouraged to learn all they can about our school via our website, www.lncharter.org.

Once the seat has been accepted and the online registration form and required documents have been received, the student will be considered enrolled at the school and cannot lose his/her seat unless the parent chooses to withdraw him/her.

We require a copy of the child’s birth certificate, two proof of residency documents, a copy of parent/guardian driver’s license, immunizations, health assessment form, most recent IEP or 504 (if applicable), records request from current school (if applicable) and most recent report card (grades 1-12 only). Parents will be asked to upload these documents at the time the online registration form is completed.

No, not necessarily. Other family siblings will only receive an offer if their waitlist number moves up to an available spot for the grade for which they are applying. If a spot does not become available, you will need to apply to next year's lottery. As long as your original child is still enrolled when applying again, you will check the sibling box on the lottery application. This means that they will be given priority before new families. However, a spot must be available in their grade for them to be accepted.

In addition to determining who is accepted in grade levels where there are openings, the lottery also determines the waitlist for grade levels in which there are no current open seats. Each campus has its own waitlist. A student will be offered a seat from the waitlist in order of priority as seats open. For elementary families: If you chose a specific campus on your lottery application (and did not select “no preference”), your child will only be considered for that campus. If a seat is not available there, you will not be offered a seat at the other elementary campus, even if an opening becomes available. 

With more than 6,000 applicants collectively on the waitlist, it is impractical for us to notify everyone every time there is movement. You will be able to check results using your application number from the “Check Results” link on our website as often as you like. There is no need to reach out to the school or articulate your desire for your child to attend our school. Typically, there is not much movement until June/July, but the site is updated on a daily basis as spots become available. We update the waitlist each day until the 20th day of school.

Yes. If you are not accepted by the 20th day of the current school year you will need to re-apply to the next year’s lottery if you want to be considered for the next year. The waitlists do not carry over from year to year. All waitlists are cleared after the 20th day of school and we do not enroll any new students. 

Applicants should apply for the next grade level that their child would be in the following school year. Parents may not choose which grade they would like their child enrolled for the next year.

Parents wishing to have their child considered for retention must still submit their student for the subsequent grade level. Upon submission of the application, an email must be sent to lottery@lncharter.org with your application number, child’s name, grade applied and date of birth. PRIOR to the date of the lottery parents must provide a letter from the child’s current teacher and school principal detailing the reason for the retention. This information will be reviewed by the respective LNC school principal. Should that principal decide to honor the recommendation for retention, the lottery coordinator will adjust the grade level prior to the date of the lottery.

All applicants who are enrolled in an accredited kindergarten during their application year must apply for the 1st grade on the application.

By state law, your child must be 5 years old on or before August 31 to apply. We do not take into consideration the academic achievement/giftedness of a child for enrollment. If an application is entered that does not qualify, you will be contacted and your student’s name will be removed from the lottery.

If multiple birth siblings (twins or triplets, etc.) apply for admission to a charter school and a lottery is needed under G.S. 115C-218.45, the charter school shall enter one surname into the lottery to represent all of the multiple birth siblings.  If that surname of the multiple birth siblings is selected, then all of the multiple birth siblings shall be admitted.

No. You do not need to re-apply for currently enrolled children. Once your children are enrolled at LNC, they are a student with us until they graduate or they are withdrawn.

We pride ourselves on the safety and security of our students and staff and therefore do not offer tours. Virtual tours are available on our website, www.lncharter.org, under the Lottery tab.

Paper applications can be completed at the respective school for which grade level you are applying. Any received after January 31 will NOT be entered into the lottery system but will be added, in the order in which it was received, to the end of the appropriate grade level waitlist generated by the lottery.

Elementary school East:  8:30am to 3:30pm
Elementary school West:  8:30am to 3:30pm
Middle school:  8:00am to 3:00pm
High school:  7:45am to 2:45pm

We do not have a uniform requirement, but students are expected to follow a dress code.

LNC is a carpool school. Parents (and age-appropriate students) are responsible for getting their child to and from school. For information on third-party transportation, please visit our website at www.lncharter.org and search under the Lottery tab.

For families with students at the middle school and/or high school, we offer a limited number of morning bus seats to transport younger siblings to the ES East campus ONLY (for a fee). There IS NOT a bus to transport younger siblings from the middle/high school campus to the ES West campus.

No. Students must bring a packed lunch from home. However, if they would like to pre-order a hot lunch, our PTO partners with local businesses to provide hot lunch options Monday-Friday. Our PTO will communicate more information about their hot lunch program when school starts in August.