Admissions FAQs
How does the admissions process at UDS work?
Union Day School uses a randomized lottery system for admissions. Our application for the 2024/25 academic year will be available on the school website on December 15, 2023 for grades K-11; it only takes a few minutes to fill out and submit. The lottery will take place March 13, 2024, at 6 pm. North Carolina law allows charters to continue to take applications until the 20th day of instruction for the applying academic year. Families who submitted an application(s) before the lottery date will be notified as to whether they are offered a seat or placed on the appropriate waitlist for the grade(s) they applied. Please note, you do not have to be present during the lottery to be offered a spot. Email notifications will be sent immediately after the lottery has been completed regarding your child’s enrollment status.
If a family has more than one child applying for admission, separate applications must be completed for each child. Please see below for exceptions to this rule (twins/multiple birth siblings). Please click here for additional information about the admissions process.
Are there any requirements families or students need to meet to be able to submit an application?
Students: UDS shall not discriminate against any student on the basis of ethnicity, national origin, gender, religious belief, disability, or fluency in English. UDS shall not limit admission to any child on the basis of intellectual ability, measures of achievement or aptitude, athletic ability, fluency in English, disability, race, creed, national origin, ancestry, religion, or gender.
Families: In North Carolina, the only rule for submitting an application to a charter school is that the child’s primary guardian must reside in the state of North Carolina. If you are offered a seat, part of the enrollment paperwork will include providing proof of residence.
Union Day School is fully committed to providing the same free appropriate education to each child of a homeless individual that is provided to other children and youths. Please review the McKinney-Vento Act Statement of Policy in detail here, or by clicking on the link at the bottom of the website.
Please direct immediate questions regarding eligibility and service to:
Union Day School
Tonya Riggins, McKinney-Vento Liaison
Phone: 704-256-1494
Email: tonya.riggins@uniondayschool.com
Do any applications receive priority in the lottery?
The short answer is no, all applications are weighted equally and the lottery is run using a randomized computer program, ensuring a fair chance for all interested families who have submitted applications. There are a few exceptions to this rule, and UDS reserves the right to give enrollment priority to any child covered by N.C.G.S. 115C-238.29F(g). Such enrollment priority may include: the siblings of currently enrolled students, the children of the school's full-time employees (limited to no more than 15% of total enrollment); and the children of the members of the board of directors (limited to no more than 15% of total enrollment).
How do applications for siblings work?
The application and lottery process includes a feature called “sibling preference” that gives weighted priority to applications for students who are siblings of current UDS students, helping ensure that multiple children from the same family can all attend UDS. If you already have a child attending UDS, you only need to fill out an application for the sibling(s) who is not yet enrolled at UDS, do not fill out an application for your child(ren) who is already enrolled and attending UDS. If you are submitting multiple applications for multiple children in different grade levels, these applications will be given “sibling priority” only once one of the applicants is offered a seat and you accept this seat. For example, if you are applying for seats for your children who are in first and third grade, and your first grader is offered a seat through the lottery but your third grader is placed on the waitlist, the moment you click “accept” on your first grader’s seat, your third grader’s application will move to the top of the third grade waitlist. Sibling preference works by giving priority to sibling applications, and by bumping the sibling of an accepted/enrolled student up to the top of their grade’s waitlist if they are not offered a seat through the lottery.
How do applications for twins or multiple birth siblings work?
If you have twins or multiple birth siblings, you only need to fill out one application. This single application ensures that if you are offered a seat, both twins or multiple birth siblings will be admitted at once.
Can I still submit an application after the lottery date?
Any applications received after date of lottery will not be entered into the lottery but will go to the bottom of the appropriate grade’s waitlist in the order the application is received.
Can I submit my child’s Kindergarten application even if they do not meet the state age requirement?
Your child must be five years old on or before August 31st of the year they are applying for to participate in the regular lottery process. The lottery will prohibit you from submitting an application if the birthdate entered does not match the state age requirements.
My child will be starting kindergarten next year. On the application it asks for "Current School" and "Current Grade." What do I put here?
You put your child’s preschool if your child attended preschool, otherwise no information needs to be put into this area.
Do I need to attend the lottery?
No. You do not need to be present at the lottery drawing in order for your child to be offered a spot.
My child wasn’t offered a seat through this year’s lottery/waitlist process, will I need to fill out an application next year if I want to apply again?
Yes. Each time you want to enter your child’s name in the lottery, you will need to fill out a current application.
If I’m on the waitlist, when can I expect to hear if my child got in?
You will be notified by email if a position opens for your child. You will be periodically updated through the late winter, spring and summer as to your child’s position on the waitlist. It is important to keep an eye on your inbox during the waitlist process because, if you make it to the top of the waitlist and are offered a seat, you only have a short amount of time to accept the seat offering before it expires.
My child was offered a seat, what happens now?
If you are offered a seat through the lottery/waitlist, you will receive an email that allows you to either “accept” or “reject” the seat. Once you have been offered a seat, you have only a short amount of time to click “accept” during this first step, and if you fail to do so in the time frame allowed, your application will fall to the bottom of the waitlist. If you accept your child’s seat, you will receive further email communication that indicates what the next enrollment steps are, and the timeframe in which these steps must be completed.