Delaware Charter School Lotteries: How They Work and When

The 60-second version

Delaware charters use the same portal and the same statewide calendar as district choice. You apply at SchoolChoiceDE.org, one application per child, to as many charters and districts as you like. The difference is what happens after you hit submit: each charter runs its own lottery, under preferences written into its own charter document. There is no single “charter lottery day,” and charters don’t have a deadline of their own separate from the statewide one.

Three things to hold onto: register at your school of residence first or your application may not count; the window is the deadline that matters; and accepting a charter seat is a one-year commitment in writing.

How charter admission differs from district choice

District schools work down a priority order set by state law. Charters run under a different law (14 Del. C. § 506). In short, a charter may restrict admission only three ways: by age/grade, by lottery when it has more applicants than seats, and by gender for a same-gender school. Everything else is a preference. Preferences are optional, and a school only has the ones written into its charter.

So at every charter, the real question is what does this school’s own admissions policy say? The preferences the law allows include siblings, children of employees, founders’ children (capped at 5% of enrollment), military-connected dependents, residents of the school’s home district, and a 5-mile radius around the school. SchoolChoiceDE.org advises families to review the choice policy for every school they plan to apply to, which is usually on the school’s Choice or Admissions page. That advice matters, because the same application goes through very different processes:

• Newark Charter and EastSide each have a 5-mile-radius preference.
• Charter School of Wilmington offers seats in preference order. It uses a random lottery only to break ties between applicants with the same preference, and among applicants who have no preference.
• MOT enters every completed on-time application into its lottery “without regard to preference status,” then offers the seats in preference order.

Same application, different process at each school.

Register first — this is the one that voids applications

SchoolChoiceDE.org’s instruction is plain: register your student at their school of residence before applying for school choice. Online registration opens Thursday, October 15, 2026. Odyssey Charter’s own lottery rules spell out the consequence: an application without that registration is marked incomplete, and an incomplete application doesn’t go into the lottery.

Newark Charter’s admissions policy adds a deadline to the same problem. If your choice application can’t be matched to a registration in your home district’s records, you have 72 business hours after the window closes to fix it. After that, the application is left out of Newark Charter’s lottery. Register early. It’s free, and every charter application depends on it.

The window for 2027–28

State law sets the outer limits: applications are accepted from the first Monday in November through the second Wednesday in January (14 Del. C. § 403). For 2027–28, the official dates posted at SchoolChoiceDE.org are Monday, November 2, 2026 at 8:00 AM through Wednesday, January 13, 2027 at 11:59 PM.

The portal also has two rules about late applications. Charters, vo-tech and magnet schools may keep accepting applications after January 13, 2027 to fill open seats, and schools that hold a lottery include applications received by January 14, 2027. Kindergarten applications are accepted until the first day of school. Treat these as a backup, not a plan.

Lottery and acceptance: what February and March look like

After the window closes, each school runs its own lottery. The portal’s 2027–28 dates: schools have until Friday, February 26, 2027 to tell families whether they got an invitation, and families have until Friday, March 19, 2027 to accept.

Then the rules that catch people:

• You can hold several invitations but accept only one. Accepting one automatically declines the rest. If you’re not taking any, decline them — that’s how the school knows.
• Silence isn’t neutral. MOT’s policy says a family that doesn’t respond by the acceptance deadline is treated as having declined.
• Waitlists are real, but they expire. The portal keeps a waitlist until the first day of the school year you applied for, even if you’ve accepted a seat somewhere else. Individual charters can run theirs longer: MOT keeps its list until the last day of the school year. None of the charter policies we read carries a waitlist into the next year.
• Accepting a charter seat is a signed one-year commitment. After you accept, you sign a Certification of Intent to Enroll, which keeps your child enrolled there for at least a year unless there is good cause.
• Watch your spam folder. Portal email comes from [email protected].

Lottery dates by school

No charter we checked has posted an exact 2027–28 lottery date, and we won’t guess at one. A wrong date here could cost a family a seat. Here’s what each school has posted, as of October 14, 2026:

• Newark Charter — its admissions policy says the lottery is held in February, and its admissions page says notifications go out in early February 2027. Its K–12 open house is Thursday, December 10, 2026, 6:00–8:00 PM.
• EastSide — its enrollment policy says that if a lottery is needed, it’s held in February, after the application period.
• MOT — its posted admissions policy says the state’s Data Service Center runs the lottery in February each year.
• Charter School of Wilmington — admission runs through a required assessment, not just the lottery. Its admissions page lists assessment sessions on Saturday, January 9 or Sunday, January 10, 2027, and notification letters by late February. The school also says its key dates will be posted once finalized, so confirm them with CSW.
• Odyssey — its enrollment pages still show the 2026–27 cycle. That year, the lottery ran in January or February and results went out by February 27, 2026.

We’ll add exact dates as charters publish them. Until then, ask the school directly, and plan around the statewide window and the February 26 notification deadline.

Frequently asked questions

When is the charter application deadline for the 2027–28 school year? It’s the same statewide choice deadline for everyone — Wednesday, January 13, 2027 at 11:59 PM, with the window opening Monday, November 2, 2026 at 8:00 AM. Those are the official dates posted at SchoolChoiceDE.org.

Does each charter school have its own lottery date? Yes. You apply through SchoolChoiceDE.org, but each charter runs its own lottery after the window closes, under the preferences written into its own charter. Newark Charter, EastSide and MOT all say in their posted policies that their lotteries run in February. Every district and school has until Friday, February 26, 2027 to tell families whether they got an invitation.

Do I have to register at my neighborhood school before applying to a charter? Yes, and families lose seats over this step. SchoolChoiceDE.org tells you to register your student at their school of residence before applying; online registration opens October 15, 2026. Odyssey spells out what happens if you don’t in its own rules: without that registration the application is incomplete, and an incomplete application doesn’t go into the lottery.

What am I agreeing to when I accept a charter seat? If you accept a charter invitation, you have to sign a Certification of Intent to Enroll. It commits your child to stay enrolled at that charter for at least one year unless there is good cause. You sign it after the charter invites you and you accept. SchoolChoiceDE.org states this requirement for charter invitations only.

Where to check

• SchoolChoiceDE.org — the application, the official dates, and the list of participating charters
• The Delaware School Choice Guide — the full process, district priorities, and a charter-by-charter cheat sheet
• Choosing a School in Delaware — how the public, charter, private, and homeschool lanes compare
• Each charter’s own Choice or Admissions page — where its preference order and lottery date are published. The ones cited above: Newark Charter · EastSide · MOT · Charter School of Wilmington · Odyssey
• The law — 14 Del. C. chapter 4 (school choice) and chapter 5 (charters, including § 506 on admissions)