Pinnacles Prep Now Enrolling Students, Expects Lottery

Pinnacles Prep, Wenatchee's first and only charter school, is now accepting enrollment applications for the 2023-2024 school year.

For the next school year, Pinnacles will be expanding to offer classes for grades six through ten and is once again prepared to conduct a weighted lottery to determine a portion of its incoming student body, if necessary.

Pinnacles spokesperson and co-founder, Sara Rolfs, says the school is already accustomed to the lottery process.

"We've had a lottery all three years that we've been in operations so far. It is disappointing that not every child who wants to attend Pinnacles gets to come here but we feel good about the continuing interest and the demand."

Although Rolfs is expecting the school to hold another lottery, she says that will depend on the number of sign ups they have by April 1.

"According to charter school laws, we are allowed a certain number of students per grade level, which is between 60 and 65. So if there are less than 65 applicants for our sixth grade class of next year by the end of open enrollment, then we won't need to have a lottery. But if there are more than 65 then we'll hold another weighted lottery."

The weighted lottery will offer prospective students who meet certain qualifiers extra tickets to potentially become selected.

The criteria for weighted participants includes those whose parents are full-time staff members at Pinnacles; those who are considered economically disadvantaged; and those wishing to transfer from an underperforming school per the standards of the Washington School Improvement Framework.

Siblings are automatically accepted once another sibling is chosen through the lottery.

If necessary, the lottery will be held on April 13th via Facebook Live. Rolfs says this practice for conducting the lottery has remained since the school's inaugural year for the purposes of transparency.

Pinnacles expects to enroll 420 students during the 2023-2024 school year.