In our local schools- one lottery is held in a giant auditorium with a thousand people in attendance, another in a small library with a few parents who care enough to attend. It depends on how the school addresses it. Just like school board meetings are held publicly but only a handful of people attend, public is public only if the public cares to show up.
I encourage anyone working with schools to not trust what anyone at the front counter tells you. If you do, you will believe that you have no access to your child's cumulative record, that if you want to see it it will cost you money, that you can't see what your child's score was on a particular test, that you can't attend the lottery and that your child has become a ward of the school from 8-4 and you have no say in the matter.
These are all things I've heard people here were told by the front counter.
