MOUNTAIN HOME — An employee at Richard McKenna secondary school enrolled a student whose family they had a “strong personal relationship” with, bypassing others on the school’s waitlist, according to documents obtained by EdNews.

A subsequent investigation by school leaders found that the employee directed a subordinate to pass over two students, who were next on the waitlist because the employee thought they were less ideal candidates, according to a letter sent to the Idaho Public Charter School Commission this month.

Documents obtained by EdNews don’t reveal the names of employees involved in the investigation, but the school’s principal, Jessie Ward, has been placed on leave, Richard McKenna Superintendent Jon Wood confirmed. Ward did not immediately respond to request for comment from EdNews.

Charter schools must hold an enrollment lottery if grades are at capacity. Students typically receive preferential treatment if a sibling already attends the school. Otherwise, the lottery is usually random. Specific lottery processes are outlined in a school’s charter. Deviating from the process essentially means the school has broken its charter agreement and must notify its authorizer — in this case, the charter commission.

Wood notified the Idaho Public Charter School Commission of the situation on Aug. 14 and provided updates over the next month. Wood submitted a corrective action plan to the commission on Monday.

Commission Executive Director Rachel Burk said the plan “appropriately addresses” concerns in the investigation.

The commission “will continue to monitor compliance as part of its regular oversight,” Burk said Tuesday.

The incident is a first for the commission, which is unaware of any other similar lottery waitlist management violations, Burk said.

Wood said he could not comment on the employment status of the staff involved or provide names, but the school has started disciplinary proceedings.

‘We are deeply embarrassed by this incident’

On Aug. 14, Wood and William Lamb, chair of Richard McKenna’s board of trustees, sent a letter to the charter commission detailing the incident three days after it was discovered.

Richard McKenna is a group of charter schools in Mountain Home offering in-person Montessori courses for grades K-6, a junior high campus, and a brick-and-mortar high school. The charter also operates the oldest virtual high school in the state.

The letter says an investigation found that an employee directed a subordinate employee to enroll an applicant from the lottery waitlist into an open seat when the student wasn’t next in line.

“Our preliminary investigation suggests a strong personal relationship between that supervising employee and the family of the waitlisted student,” the letter reads.

The charter started disciplinary proceedings, realigned enrollment with the original lottery results, and planned to continue investigating as of mid-August.

“We take the sanctity of the lottery process seriously, as it is designed to ensure equitable access to charter schools for all students, and we are deeply embarrassed by this incident,” Wood wrote.

Ward emailed the commission the same day Wood sent his letter.

Ward said she started at the school last year and was “given very little to no guidance.”

She asked the commission to answer questions she had about the charter lottery.

Wood again wrote to the commission on Sept. 3 detailing how the investigation revealed two more lottery violations.

Applicants were “skipped when they had reached the top of the list, and the next student on the list was offered the seat instead,” Wood wrote. “To our great dismay, the reason given for skipping these applicants was that they were considered less than ideal in some way.”

The school staffers indicated they believed the students were less desirable based on experiences with the families and students in a neighboring school system.

The school froze all enrollment processing during the investigation. This allowed the school to offer the inappropriately skipped applicants enrollment after the investigation. A review of several years of lottery and enrollment proceedings showed the issue was not systemic and was isolated to the involved employees, Wood told EdNews.

School tightens lottery process

The school’s corrective action plan, submitted Monday, adds oversight and divides enrollment duties among multiple staff members.

The school uses PowerSchool SchoolChoice as the platform to run the lottery and manage waitlists. The system tracks and timestamps all changes to records.

However, the school did not routinely monitor the system or those logs. The incident was discovered when another staff member reviewed system logs for an unrelated reason.

The school will now split the duties of enrolling students across multiple employees. One person will move students from the waitlist to the seated list, and another will offer the seat to the family.

The central office will review the lottery on at least a monthly basis.

“Participants in the instigating incident claimed a lack of training around lottery and waitlist procedures,” the plan reads. “Digital evidence, including email communications, access logs of training documents, and attendance at training meetings, contradicts this claim.”

In the future, staff will be required to sign a written acknowledgement that they know and understand the policies and procedures to prevent such claims. The acknowledgment could also help with disciplinary proceedings like termination hearings and Professional Standards Commission complaints, the plan says.

Burk said Richard McKenna handled the situation appropriately and approved the corrective plan.

“The school was transparent throughout the process, investigated the full scope of the issue, corrected the impact on affected families, and put additional safeguards in place to prevent future violations,” Burk wrote.

Wood told EdNews he takes the lottery process seriously, especially because it’s supposed to ensure equitable access for families.

“We’re going to work hard to restore trust with the community,” Wood said.

EdNews filed a public records request for more emails related to the incident.