It’s enrollment season! Our ICS registration experts collaborated to help prospective families navigate the school choice system & answer your most frequently asked questions about enrolling at a charter school.
As difficult as it may seem in these freezing temperatures, summer and back-to-school season will be here before you know it! If you’re a parent of a rising kindergartener especially, or one entering our school district for the first time, we know the enrollment process can be a confusing one to navigate.
In DeKalb County, we have “school choice,” meaning that their policy allows families the opportunity to attend other options beyond the one that’s zoned for their neighborhood—be it other public school programs, public charter schools, private schools, virtual learning, or homeschooling. This allows families to choose the educational environment that serves their children best.
While we fully embrace school choice and know that individualized education is so important, having so many different school options to choose from means each school’s enrollment process may be a bit different too.
The Charter School Model
International Community School is a public charter school authorized by DeKalb County School District. Any rising kindergartener through 5th grader across the are eligible to come to ICS. And just like all other schools in the district, we are completely free to attend!
“Charter schools were created to be hubs of innovation,” explains Principal Diamond Jefferies. “In our case, our innovative specialty is educating locally-born children alongside refugee and immigrant children. So DeKalb County lets us operate as a charter school, and in return, we collaborate with the district and share any practices that we’ve learned along the way.”
"Families deserve to have the freedom to choose the educational environment that serves their children best, regardless of financial ability or home address."
-Schoolchoicefacts.org
If we’re free to attend and open to anyone in our county, many parents ask why then does ICS require a lottery application each year, unlike other public neighborhood schools?
As a charter school, we’re capped at the number of students that we have seats for each year, and depending on the time of year, we almost always have a waitlist. We use an equitable process to determine who gets a seat, based on our core values. For example, we value family engagement so current siblings who attend ICS get weighted entry to the lottery. Our mission is educating refugee, immigrant, and local students together, so weighted entry goes to multilingual learners to keep our environment one of diverse mutual learners.
While we wish we could have the space for every single student who wants to attend, our ICS families see the difference when they come to see our community in action.
“It’s one of the first things parents notice,” said our Registrar LaPorcha Marbury. “They love that it’s an international school, and love the diversity.”
Tips for deciding on a school for your chilD
We firmly believe that every child is uniquely suited to learn and thrive in different environments—there is no one-size-fits-all for something as vital as your child’s education. Many factors go into picking a school for your kindergartener, especially one that you hope to stay at for the next several formative years!
Our registration team had some ideas on the most important questions to ask when trying to decide which school choice location is right for your child, whether that be at ICS or elsewhere.
1. Location. “One of the first things parents should notice about a school is its location, and its proximity to where they reside,” says Sharene Smith, an ICS Business Manager. “Most charter schools do not provide transportation. We are an anomaly in that we provide four bus routes that are free, serving students in the Clarkston and Stone Mountain areas.”
We have students who carpool from everywhere in DeKalb County from Brookhaven to Lithonia and everywhere in between, however the majority of our students do live within our transportation zone.
2. Student to Teacher Ratio. At ICS, every kindergarten class has a paraprofessional or teacher’s assistant in the class with them, a model which many other schools are moving away from.
Many of our teacher’s assistants speak the home languages of our international students. For younger children transitioning into a new environment away from home, we find that these on-staff translators are immensely helpful!
“We also know that early literacy is so important to matriculation, so we choose to prioritize this with increased staffing in kindergarten at ICS,” says Principal Jefferies.
We know many parents are concerned about the number of students per classroom (on average, this is about 23 students per classroom at ICS in our current building). Did you know that teacher qualifications and experience is often more predictive of student success than class size?
In addition to the high number of multilingual staff members, ICS teaching staff are also extremely qualified! 92% of our teachers hold a GaPSC certification, and nearly three-quarters of our staff attained additional ESOL credentials as well.
3. After-Care Options. Finally, prospective families look for quality aftercare options when determining the next step in their child’s education. ICS hosts many free after-school enrichment programs, such as Atlanta Track Club’s Kilometer Kids running program, Chorus, EcoAvengers, and New American Pathways Bright Futures tutoring program. Local DeKalb County Parks & Recreation programs partner with our school and pick up students. We also host YMCA basketball and soccer teams, and a paid 5-day-a-week aftercare option called The Club Afterschool.
92% of ICS teachers hold a GaPSC certification, and nearly three-quarters of our staff attained additional ESOL credentials as well.
Next Steps to Attend ICS
Say you’re interested in sending your student to ICS! Now what?
We invite you to register for an Open House to come experience our school’s Beloved Community in person!
The next step is filling out a lottery application online. Our lottery this year will close on February 8, 2024. The actual drawing for available seats will happen on February 13 at 4:00 p.m. We have a host of resources available to help you with this online application, and you can start by looking at our most frequently asked questions at icsgeorgia.org/enroll.
Finally, you can start gathering your required paperwork! Having your documents is NOT required to fill out a lottery application (you can leave that question blank on SchoolMint). However, if you want to get ahead of the game, you can begin tracking down the following papers we will need up at the school:
1. Immunization records. You will need an up-to-date immunization record from the state of Georgia. You can get this from either the health department or your pediatrician.
2. Hearing, Vision, and Dental form. Also called a 3300 form.
3. Unofficial transcript is needed if you are a student transferring to ICS from another school.
4. A copy of your child’s birth certificate, green card, passport, or I-94 form.
5. A social security card. You can sign a waiver if you do not wish or are unable to provide this.
6. Copies of parents’ ID cards.
7. Proof of residence (lease, most recent monthly mortgage statement, utilities bill within 30 days, current tax year property tax or deed). If there are extenuating circumstances in which you are unable to provide these, our front office is happy to assist you with alternative ways of enrollment.
With how DeKalb County’s School Choice system works, you could receive offers to multiple other schools. Congratulations on the many exciting choices ahead of you! We encourage parents to take the next few weeks to truly do their research on what environment will be best for your child. If you decide that place is ICS, it makes the enrollment process smoother to decline other schools’ offers.
Finally, don’t stress, families!
“Please, always give us a call! We are more than happy to answer questions, no matter where you are throughout the process,” says Ms. Smith. “We don’t want this to be a difficult process. We’ve worked over the years to make it as streamlined as possible for you!”
You can reach our front office Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., school holidays exempt.
What other enrollment questions do you have? Comment below, and we’re happy to help!
All enrollment information is current at the time of publishing this post in January 2024, but for the most up-to-date deadlines and policies, please refer to our ICS enrollment page and the Georgia Department of Education website!
hi,
i want to make an admission for my daughter.
Please fill out an application at this link: https://icsgeorgia.schoolmint.com/