I know it used to be we couldn't get them licenses and we couldn't get them transportation. Mhm. What is your biggest holdback? Um I would say it would be transportation, but um this year we've actually a lot of students who are placed at jobs, whether it's two students or four students or six students, um they're carpooling. So, they're willing to help out their classmates and their peers um in getting them to and from. We've also [snorts and clears throat] arranged like I mentioned before with an HVAC company, um they meet students at um like the Home Depot parking lot in Methuen, they'll pick them up there and bring them to the job site. Um so, it's actually at first it was a challenge, but it's the challenge was um brought to my attention to think outside the box and how we can make this happen for our students so they're not referencing to like an Uber or a Lyft ride and a lot of um family members also will chip in help them um get there to and from their their work site.
So, it's been it's been great. >> [clears throat] >> Bless you. Audra, I want to thank you very much for spending some time with us tonight. I know you've been here all day. I'm sorry to keep you longer than we have to. Ms. Jones, thank you very much. Um I will be asking the superintendent to give us another review at the end of the year. Maybe you can be with us and do a final wrap-up. Yes, thank you. >> Thank you. Shutting the lights on us. All right, now an easy one. This should be quick. The lottery. Miss uh Assistant Superintendent Richardson, are you going to handle that or um Mr. Lavoy? So, actually um Ms. Hebert, who's the director of admissions and counseling, she is actually going to start off for us. Um Oscar, I think we have some slides there. Um so, Ms.
Hebert's going to give us an overview of the the progress. I will say um so, we had the lottery on March 12th. Um despite all of the the challenges and the difficulties with, you know, just having a lottery this year, um all things considered, the actual lottery itself, it went very very well. Um so, we were very pleased about that. Um and I do want to give credit to Ms. Hebert and her staff. So, Madison Portoreal, who's the admissions specialist, and Betsy Gomez, um our equitable access liaison, and also um Ms. Kennedy, who's the other um administrative assistant in the guidance department. She also helps out as well with, you know, fielding the phone calls and managing enrollment and all of that. So, they've done a a great job. But, I'll let Ms. Hebert give first an overview. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Um I know the lottery has been a hot button topic for every district across the Commonwealth. Um now that we've completed the lottery for the class of 2030, I know there's been a lot of anticipation leading up to it and many questions after. So, we wanted to kind of take a little bit of time to walk you through it and give you a little recap and then kind of where we stand as of today. Um so, as you know, as Brenda talked about, we held our lottery on March 12th. Um we had 1,316 applicants who were in the lottery. To qualify to be in the lottery, you had to have lived in district and submitted your application on time, which was February 1st. So, with all of that being said, we had 1,316 applicants for 500 seats. Which means our waitlist is 816. It's a big waitlist.
Just as a reminder, too, um we do have town apportionment, right? So, we kind of divvy up our seats by town. So, Andover gets 25 seats, Lawrence gets 325, Methuen 125, and then North Andover 25. Um just as a little refresher.
Any questions so far? Okay. I know you're very excited to talk about how the lottery works. I'm going to recap it quickly. Now that we've seen it and we lived in it, it might be a little bit easier to kind of understand. Um I think, you know, when we think of lottery as a group, we kind of think of Mega Millions. Um ball comes up, my number's up, I win. It's not how it works um when we do the admissions lottery. Um so, each applicant was given a unique ID before the lottery started. Um that's just how we identify them so we don't have to use names. On the night of the lottery, every um person in the lottery gets a pull number, right? So, every single person who is in the lottery pulls a number. That's really the lottery number, okay? So, that's kind of the ticket.
Um the key to understand there is that the lower the pull number, the higher the applicant's chance of being admitted. So, for the lottery, we partnered with GoTo Solutions to run the lottery process. Once the pull numbers were drawn, um applicants Oh, I skipped a step. I'll go back to that. Um once the pull number was drawn, um applicants were then sorted by community in from lowest um pull number to highest. So, the lowest pull number in each community were offered seats. So, for example, for Methuen had 125 seats, the 125 lowest pull numbers from Methuen were offered acceptance, and so on and so forth for each community. Um just so you can see the breakdown of applications by community. Andover had 45 applications this year for 25 seats. Lawrence had 944. Methuen had 266 and North Andover had 61. So, we had a lot of applicants.
Um Questions about kind of how the lottery was was run and how numbers were generated? Okay. So, after we held the lottery that night, all all applicants were notified of their status via email um and then on their applicant portal. We also mailed home letters to every applicant so that they knew their status of whether they were accepted for admission um or if they were waitlisted. After [snorts] um we offered acceptances to our first 500 students, um they have 10 days to accept or decline um and then we move from our waitlist from there. So, um the deadline for that after the lottery, the 10 days was Sunday. So, Monday morning, we kind of checked. We had 70 families we had not heard from yet Monday morning. Um so, to ensure that no one missed the opportunity, our office has reached out by phone calls and emails to students and their parents.
We've reached out to the middle schools to help us. Um and as of this morning, actually, I have a slide that's a little bit off. Um we have um it was 30, it's actually down to 14 now. Um so, I'll get to that one in a minute. That was just a preview, but Um so, I just want to kind of mention that getting that number down, we really want to make sure that we're giving opportunities to people um who are accepted. So, um that really is a true compliment to the hard work of the staff in the admissions with Betsy and Arlene um and Madison making those phone calls and making sure um that families know that they were, you know, in or not. So, they've been they've been working kind of in overdrive. Once somebody confirms or declines an acceptance, we kind of move from the waitlist there.
So, what that means is if a student declines, we offer the seat to the next student on the community-specific waitlist. For example, if five students from Lawrence decline, the next five students on Lawrence's waitlist are offered admission. We have not pulled from the waitlist yet and I'll get to that in 1 second. Um just so people are aware, the waitlist is posted on our website. It's organized by community tabs and pull number. Families can search by using the ID. We update that um We update the waitlist monthly, so families can track the movement and they can see exactly where their student is on the waitlist. Whenever a student is offered a seat from the waitlist, we notify them by email and we also call them because we don't want students to miss out on the opportunity to accept. Um so, where we are now is we have 403 students who have officially accepted with us.
We have 68 students who have declined and that number 30 is actually down to 14 who we have not heard back from. Um so, we anticipate to pull from the waitlist at the end of this week. So, we will start contacting families from each town where there are spots open um to see um we'll write down the waitlist in order cuz the waitlist is ordered. Does that kind of make sense? Okay. Um before I end, I just wanted to acknowledge that as you know, this process has been very difficult for many of our families. Um we've had conversations with students who have done everything right and still didn't get a get in. Um we've had conversations with their families, with their siblings, with our own faculty members. Um and those conversations have been heartbreaking at times and I'm sure they have been for you as well.
Um please know that our admissions office and GLTS, we're here for all families. We will continue to support every student and family who has questions or needs guidance through this process. Please encourage them to reach out to us. We don't mind taking the phone calls. We don't mind sitting with families even when they're disappointed and the conversation is hard, it's the right thing to do and we're happy to do it. So, please encourage them to contact us. Um this isn't the lottery isn't unique to GLTS. Every other district um is kind of going through it, but we're in it together.
So, um I'm happy to answer any questions you have right now about the lottery, where we're at. Um yeah. Ready to go. Um comment and question. So, uh my question is so, you said the number from 30 to 14. So, out of that amount, did because they responded, they accepted or they they declined? >> It would be a it would be a mix. Yep. So, some of them that we've reached out to have accepted and some have declined. Yep. Okay. And from the different communities, and again, if a kid from Methuen says no, We'll go. >> down from Methuen and then Lawrence if they And we're trying to be very methodical about that. We don't want to make mistakes, so we've been kind of a little bit slower this week in wanting to wait for the responses. And by the end of this week, Thursday, Friday, anticipate we will be reaching out and pulling from the waitlist.
>> Yeah. And I mean, you I watched the video live and you guys [snorts] did a good job. Um it was clean and it was just as smooth as it possibly can. Um especially in public view. Um but again, I think like this process has just been really unfair. Yeah. Um I think I said it from the beginning when this came to our attention that um the state was wrong in doing this and they're still wrong and they will continue to be wrong um because I mean, I've gotten letters to my house and emails and I'm not even joking. A girl that lived down the street from my house came to my door and knocked on my door and she told me, I have um always wanted to go to Greater Lawrence Tech. My dad went to school there. Um and I have perfect grades.
I never miss school. I go to public school. Yeah. And didn't get the opportunity, end up being one of the lowest in the list. Um and I've heard other stories, too, um from Lawrence and and other communities, too, that um have been impacted by this and um you know, having those difficult conversations. Um you know, and and the blame that has been put on on us that um we've caused this and I redirect them and tell them exactly who did it. Mhm. Um but that's just me. Um and it's been Yeah, I just really want to appreciate that you guys did this very very cleanly. Um very smooth. Um but that we will continue to push back on this process um in any way we can. Um yeah. We're not shy to have families to encourage families to reach out to DESE or to Governor Healey's office.
Um I know other schools are doing the same. Um hopefully that will impact change, but it it has been really hard for a lot of our families. It's it's been tough. >> And in terms of the waitlist, um what was the number of students waitlisted? You might know this from the previous school year. Or similar? Yeah. Was it higher or less or I think it might have been slightly above, but also take into consideration like right now, right? We might have some late applicants. >> We do. Yeah. >> So, last year, it was kind of more rolling admissions, so it's hard to compare exactly. Um So, I would say though, based on the fact that, you know, we had to stop and it was as of February 1st. >> Mhm. Um I think that the number is maybe lower than it would have been. And I think that the wait list was a little bit bigger last year.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and so I I asked it to make a point out of it and it's that we we're accepting more students this year, Mhm. but if we would have accepted less, it would prove the point that this lottery thing was going to make more spaces, more seats for kids and it actually is not. >> Not for us. Yeah. Um all it's doing into our point is now we have to build more classrooms to to fit all the kids. Yeah. Um and that's what they mean by creating more seats. Um and then all that does is cause the districts to have a more financial strain in building more classrooms because we need to take in more kids because of a system that was intended to do that. Yeah. So, that was the point I was trying to make out of that question. Thank you.
I get You guys did do a good job. I watched it a couple of days later. Yeah. I did notice that it took more time to describe it and it was a Oh, it's so fast. Yeah. >> Yeah. It's It's underwhelming. Yeah. And I I did get a couple of calls also. >> Mhm. Um and basically the system shows it don't bother trying, don't try to achieve cuz if you get the lucky number, you're in. It's It's shameful that they even thought this was a bright idea in our state. >> I know. It's It's It's hard to sit with a 13, 14 year old who's has all A's and has done everything right and they're at the bottom of the wait list. >> Yeah. The parent told me, "How do I tell my daughter that they don't think you're worth anything?" >> Yeah. Yeah. And that's what it comes down to.
Yeah. And she had They even sent, you know, her grades and everything, you know, in an email to me. It's like And we would love that student at our at our high school. Yeah. I know. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Mr. Haydon, can I just add something? Um so, I appreciate Mr. May's comment about how, you know, it was a smooth process and I just wanted to say that I know both Katie and I have been part of the MAVA admissions meeting, so it's a very collaborative community and though we would like to do the lottery a little bit sooner next year, we actually had a benefit, I think, in waiting until March because we, you know, we're part of multiple meetings where, you know, you would find out from other schools, you know, look out for this, make sure you don't do that. was really, really helpful.
It was very collaborative. So, that was really nice. Um and just in terms of the number of people watching, so the IT department, as we were getting ready to do the lottery, they were letting us know like, "Wow, there's, you know, a high number of people actually watching and tuning in live." Um there were over 2,000 people um who were on the live stream. Um some as far away as California and Japan. So, it must have been family traveling, I'm assuming. Um so, it it was Yeah, it was pretty amazing. >> their residency. Yes, we did. We checked residency after that. But, yeah, so thank you for that, but >> Yeah. thank you, Katie. >> Yeah, of course. Anyone else? Katie. One thing or So, I know you mentioned on the waiting list, they their number get placed so so the kids can go they'll know where they follow.