The Lawrence Virtual School will begin the school year with at least five times as many students as anticipated for the charter school’s first year.

One hundred sixty-five students will be logging in to take classes from the school, Principal Gary Lewis said Monday.

District officials, who had been anticipating enrolling about 30 students, were floored by the numbers.

“I think it’s very exciting to start a new venture like this and have such a great reception,” said Leni Salkind, president of the Lawrence school board.

At the enrollment deadline Friday, Lewis said, phones were ringing off the hook and fax machines were humming as students raced to get connected to the school.

“It was absolutely crazy,” he said.

Because the district accepted applications sent through the mail with a Friday postmark, Lewis didn’t have the final enrollment figure until Monday afternoon.

As a result of the big enrollment, the school board must have a special meeting later this week to authorize purchase of more computers for students.

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The virtual school’s first day will be Sept. 7, but the board won’t formally meet again until Sept. 13.

Earlier this month, the board authorized the purchase of up to 150 computers for the school. But with 165 students, the district must have more machines on hand to ensure each household with a student enrolled has a computer.

Salkind said she didn’t anticipate the additional computers would pose any problem.

The Lawrence Virtual School is the result of a $101,709 state grant the district received to open a charter school. The grant money goes toward start-up costs such as equipment and salaries.

The district also will receive $3,863 in state aid for each student enrolled in the virtual school, the same amount the district receives for students enrolled in traditional schools in the district.

The state aid for students will be used to purchase computers and curriculum products.

Driven partly by the success of the virtual school, the district has seen a bump in its overall enrollment this fall.

Preliminary enrollment figures released last week showed a total of 9,944 students across the district, 127 more students than last year and 261 more than projected. The 165 students enrolled in the virtual school means the district has an overall preliminary enrollment of 9,998 students.