Filtering out kids who's parents aren't willing or able to complete the application process is the cherry-picking.
The admissions people take some time to represent the whole story or big picture to prospective parents, because the school is not for everybody. I don't think it's cherry-picking to encourage parents to find the best school for their children, even if it isn't yours.
The school accepted applications from parents who had had unsatisfactory experiences at former schools, who were willing to go through the extra steps to try to get better outcomes for their students. The school had its share of free-and-reduced-lunch students and students with individual education plans and such.
I heard parents give heartfelt thanks to everyone at the school who had helped their child overcome what other schools termed learning disabilities. Is it the opposite of cherry-picking to accept a student other schools have, in effect, given up on? I believe the small size of the school and individualized attention helped many students in similar situations.
Why? Because "cherry-picking" is bad and the best things for children are good?
It's, of course, exactly cherry-picking to find the children with the most interested and motivated parents, then filter them down to the ones that you like best. Fuck the kids with bad or no parents.
This isn't a moral condemnation of you, it's just the fact-based explanation for why schools that you have to apply to produce better academic outcomes than default public schooling. If those public schools could just drop the cohort of students whose parents couldn't be arsed to apply to a special school, their quality would also go up.
There is bias in everything, but at least they aren't adding more than needs there needs to be.
At some point, some school is going to have to take the kids who don’t bother applying, since we can’t put 100% of schools behind an application and preserve its benefits, and we should not be surprised that such schools do worse, if the ones who do apply happen to be better.
Admission is by lottery if there are more applicants than places, not by cherry-picking applicants. They hire teachers with subject-matter degrees and experience: they have some PhDs and a couple ABDs (all but dissertation). Half-jokingly they said they didn't look to hire people with teaching certificates, but wouldn't hold that against them. I had a master's degree in computer science and worked summers to get another master's.
The school was smaller (maybe 700 total students K-12; the class of 2022 graduated 26), which right there, I think, made for fewer behavior problems. There was a well-thought-out discipline policy which was enforced by the administration and backed up by the board and most parents. After all, parents had made a choice to not go to the regular district schools but enroll in this school instead.
I agree that the odds are much better for school success with smaller sizes, a focused curriculum (whether it's International Baccalaureate, Core Knowledge, STEM, arts, or whatever), highly qualified teachers, and supportive parents.