Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified runs school-of-choice lottery; Lanata Bay dual‑immersion kindergarten fully accommodated

Staff member from the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District led a public school‑of‑choice lottery session for Cornerstone and the dual‑immersion program at Lanata Bay. The district reviewed March application totals, explained seat‑assignment rules and sibling priority, ran randomized lists, and outlined the notification timeline.

The presenter said Lanata Bay’s dual‑immersion kindergarten had 28 seats and 27 requests, so all listed applicants will receive confirmations and no lottery was required for that program. For Cornerstone, the district said two transitional‑kindergarten (TK) classes will be offered this fall (40 TK seats total) but the district received 44 TK requests, meaning four applicants cannot be accommodated because of the program cap. “That is not a district setting. That is a state law,” the staff member said when describing the TK cap.

Cornerstone’s kindergarten will have two classes and about 25 new seats. The district received 32 kindergarten requests at Cornerstone; six of those applicants had a sibling already confirmed at the site, leaving 19 seats for new applicants and meaning seven applicants exceed baseline capacity.

The staff member explained how the district applies a sibling priority and a class‑size averaging rule for kindergarten through third grade. Because state rules require maintaining an average of less than 24.5 students across K–3 for the first seven months, and because some existing first‑through‑third classes already exceed 24 students, the district set Cornerstone’s initial baseline capacity for grades 1–3 to zero to preserve the average.

To run the lottery, the district splits applicants into two pots—siblings of current students and new applicants—and treats each seat and application individually. Each applicant is assigned a unique numerical ID during the school‑of‑choice process; those ID numbers were entered into random.org’s list function and randomized 10 times. The staff member said the district printed and saved the randomized lists and will use them to identify selected students.

District staff reported processing 89 requests during this session and said all applicants will receive a status confirmation email by the end of the next day. Families may also check their application status in Aeries. The staff member said the district will not maintain a wait list because it can give families a “false sense” of an opportunity to get in; instead, families who are not selected may reapply between May 15 and June 15. The presenter also noted there is no appeal process for the lottery outcome.

The session concluded after staff displayed the randomized lists and described next steps for notifying families.