“Merrimack charter school wrongly denied nearly 70 students lottery access.” Nashua Telegraph (NH), 08/24/2011
Nearly 70 students were wrongly denied their right to enter an admissions lottery for the Academy for Science and Design charter school this year, the school acknowledged in a letter sent to parents this week.The school chalked up the error to “inadvertent human error,” though e-mails provided by parents whose children were rejected show they were told if their children didn’t score 70 percent on a math placement exam, they were not eligible to attend the school. Using placement test scores to deny students would be a violation of the school’s charter and possibly state law...[Thomas Frischknecht, chairman of the school’s board of trustees] said the issue came to the board’s attention last week when parent Janet Sukkar attended the meeting with her family and told the board her son had been denied admission because of his math placement test score. She provided correspondence to corroborate her claim, according to meeting minutes.
