Amends TCA Section 49-13-113.

Present law requires a public charter school to enroll an eligible pupil who submits a timely application, unless the number of applications exceeds the capacity of a program, class, grade level, or building. An enrollment preference is provided to students that attended the charter school during the previous school year. If the number of applications exceeds the capacity of a program, class, grade level, or building, the charter school must select students through a lottery. The enrollment preference for returning students excludes those students from entering into a lottery. Under present law, if an enrollment lottery is conducted, a public charter school must give enrollment preferences in the following order: (A) Students enrolled in a pre-K program operated by the charter school sponsor; (B) Students enrolled in a charter school that has an articulation agreement with the enrolling public charter school; provided, that the articulation agreement has been approved by the authorizer; (C) Siblings of students already enrolled in the public charter school; (D) Students residing within the geographic boundaries of the LEA in which the public charter school is located who were enrolled in another public school during the previous school year; and (E) Students residing outside the geographic boundaries of the LEA in which the public charter school is located. This bill adds that if an enrollment lottery is conducted, then a public charter school may give enrollment preference to "at-risk" students (generally those students who qualify for free or reduced price school lunch). This bill authorizes a public charter school to request information to verify that a student is "at-risk", but states that the school may not require such information. This bill revises the lottery priority list set out above in (A)-(E) to add the at-risk students to be the second on the priority list, if such enrollment preference is used by the public charter school. This bill also specifies, in regard to the priority for students residing outside the geographic boundaries of the LEA in which the public charter school is located, that such will be allowed if permitted pursuant to the authorizer's out-of-district enrollment policy.