By JIM BARON

CUMBERLAND — Gearing up for a possible opening this fall, Blackstone Valley Prep, the so-called mayoral academy established by Mayor Daniel McKee, has begun taking applications for enrollment lottery.

The lottery is open to any parent whose children would be eligible to begin kindergarten this fall in Cumberland, Central Falls, Lincoln or Pawtucket.
Applications will be accepted until Friday, June 26. The lottery will be conducted in public on June 30 at 7 p.m. at the Blackstone River Theatre at 549 Broad St.
There is no guarantee that Blackstone Valley Prep will be able to open in Valley Falls this September; although it received unanimous approval for recommendation yesterday from the Rhode Island Board of Regents Committee on Charter Schools. Bill Fischer, spokesman for the school, said the regents have asked the school, as part of the application process, to identify at least 50 percent of the students who would be attending. The only way to do that, Fischer said, is to go ahead and hold the lottery.
If the school does open this September, Fischer said, it would be for kindergarten students only, not for K through 2 as its founders had hoped.
If it turns out the school does not open in September — the board of regents must give its approval and the General Assembly must allocate funding before the school can open its doors — then students will still be eligible to attend kindergarten at the school in their respective communities that they would normally attend, Fischer said.
“We’re going to prepare to open in September,” he said, “but if that doesn’t happen we will keep working at it.
“We are thrilled to be taking the next step in the process of making quality, high-performing schools available to all eligible students,” McKee said in a written statement. “We will be taking every possible avenue to make parents of the Blackstone Valley aware of this opportunity.”
Seth Andrew, founder of the Democracy Prep School in the Harlem section of New York City said his school has had “an overwhelming parent response because of how aggressive we have been about grass-roots community outreach. Mayor McKee and I welcome literally every family in the Blackstone Valley to apply so we can achieve a representative sample of the beautiful diversity of the Blackstone Valley in our inaugural kindergarten class.”
RIMA (Rhode Island Mayoral Academies) is planning to implement an advertising campaign and grass roots initiatives to publicize the lottery that will include newspaper advertisements, both in English and Spanish, leaflet drops, day-care visits, and outreach to parents, teachers, principals and community organizations. 
Applications can be downloaded at www.mayoralacademies.org or by calling RIMA at 323-2004. The one-page sheet requests information about the prospective student as well as his or her parents or guardians.
More information on submitting an enrollment lottery application, as well as the application (beginning May 28) itself, can be found at www.mayoralacademies.org, or by calling RIMA at (401) 323-2004.