If necessary, the 2012–2013 school year lottery will be held on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 10:00AM the Rue Building (3rd and Garden Street) on the 4th floor. Families that have submitted a lottery registration form for the 2012–2013 school year by the deadline of 5PM on Friday, January 13th, 2012 will be issued a lottery number. Lottery numbers will be issued by mail beginning on January 4–5th, 2012. If you have submitted a lottery registration form by January 4th 2012 and do not receive a lottery number by mail by January 13, 2012, please contact Lynne Shapiro at 201-876-0102. Families may call Lynne Shapiro on Thursday, January 19, 2012, and any day thereafter, to find out lottery results.

The process is as follows:

• For each grade, the students are divided into two groups: In-District and Out-of-District
• Each family’s lottery number is placed in a lottery bin. We choose from the Hoboken residents’ bin first and then we go to the lottery bin containing lottery numbers from families outside of the district.
• As numbers are chosen, a list is established.
• The list is posted publicly. Open spaces within this grade are first assigned to the Hoboken resident list.
• If that list is fulfilled, the Out-of-District list follows.
• Sometimes in the upper grades, we will exhaust our waiting lists completely. At that point, with no one on any list, someone who walks in might get a spot.
• This process continues for each grade.

As expected, we usually have the most open spots (30) in Kindergarten however, due to attrition, we often have openings in other grades.

With Kindgergarten, Elysian can have as many as 30 spots open for new families, however this number varies each year since families with children already enrolled in Elysian are guaranteed a spot in Kindergarten for siblings. There is preference for siblings in every grade.

After the lottery date, anyone else who comes in for admission for the upcoming school year, goes on a waiting list (also separated into Hoboken and non-Hoboken). Hoboken residents are always given first preference.

Once the academic year passes, families who were not enrolled must re-register for the lottery by the January deadline in order to get onto the new waiting lists. Old waiting lists are destroyed at the end of the academic year.