For a district qualifying under this paragraph whose charter
school tuition payments exceed 9 per cent of the
school district's net
school spending, the board shall only approve an application for the establishment of a commonwealth charter
school if an
applicant, or a provider with which an
applicant proposes to contract, has a record of operating at least 1
school or similar program that demonstrates academic success and organizational viability and serves student populations similar to those the proposed
school seeks to serve, from the following categories of students, those: (i) eligible for
free lunch; (ii) eligible for reduced price lunch; (iii) that require
special education; (iv) limited English - proficient of similar language proficiency level as measured by the Massachusetts English Proficiency Assessment examination; (v) sub-proficient, which shall mean students who have scored in the «needs improvement», «warning» or «failing» categories on the mathematics or English language arts exams of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System for 2 of the past 3 years or as defined by the department using a similar measurement; (vi) who are designated as at risk of dropping out of
school based on predictors determined by the department; (vii) who have dropped out of
school; or (viii) other at - risk students who should be targeted to eliminate achievement gaps among different groups of students.