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Committee hears pleas to tighten lottery controls after members report access concerns
Summary
A board member said too many staff have edit access to student-lottery records and asked the district to centralize change authority and add read-only access for schools; members asked staff to review procedures and recommended public transparency measures.
Committee members raised concerns about who can edit and modify the district’s school-lottery roster and asked staff to study tighter controls and transparency measures.
A member who reviewed the Discovery lottery said multiple departments and school offices had access that allowed changes after the draw and proposed limiting edit rights to a single central office while granting principals read-only access. "My suggestion is to only have one department, the department that pulls the lottery, actually have access to it," the member said, arguing that would reduce opportunities to "game the system."
Members proposed practical controls rather than policy changes that would conflict with state magnet rules: regular cross-checks of enrollment against lottery offers (for example, checking the October 1 enrollment roster against lottery results), an implementation review by central IT and the superintendent’s office, and a simple parent-facing explanation of how the lottery is run.
The committee did not adopt formal changes at the meeting but signaled support for staff to evaluate technical safeguards and operational controls and to return with recommendations; several members suggested a small ad hoc review group if the issue requires more than a staff memo.
