DC DPR Summer Camp in-person Registration Experience
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
Does noone feel that this approach disadvantages a class of people in the city? A S.E. mother who has to go to the library to get online was not notified of this "last minute" decision to open certain camps early, all of which are West of an invisible dividing line? A single mother with no childcare options who is not online following these posts doesn't know she can show up at 7:45 get a ticket and relax in the comforts of Whole Foods? A registration location not readily accessible to public transportation.
Or do we simply not care? Those that need this the most will not have it. Those that can consider paying a college student to stand in line for them, now have it. |
Anonymous
| What about the handicapped single parent (not single by choice) who could not find someone to go for them nor watch their child(ren)? |
Anonymous
|
As I was leaving, I was encouraged to email the DPR director directly with feedback about this process. The woman I worked with wrote his name down on my copy of the camp policy information. I encourage everyone with an opinion about this to email him since they have vocalized his interest in receiving it - Jesus.Aguirre@dc.gov
I was surprised when she told me that, I even said "He really wants people to contact him directly?" and she said yes. |
Anonymous
|
I think an online lottery system for the high-demand camps is a great idea! The fact of the matter is, these camps are dirt-cheap. On top of that DPR offers a reduced rate so some people get the camp for as little as $25 per session. You simply cant beat it.
I commend DPR for trying something new, but they definitely needed more people to do registrations. The process was way too slow. If they had more folks (at least 15, they only had 5) Im sure the day would have gone a lot smoother. I was in the 70s and when I arrived the woman at the door told me she expected my wait to be about 45 minutes because they would be moving fast. She was way off. However, after going through the process, I dont think anything is wrong with it other than they just didnt have enough man-power for that kind of crowd. |
Anonymous
| I dont understand the argument that this is not fair to people in other parts of the city or people with less resources. If you live in SE and plan to take your child to one of the six "high-demand" locations for summer camp everyday, you cant make the trip on a Saturday across town to register them? You will travel across the city for nine weeks in the summer but not one Saturday morning? And if someone, with limited access to internet, waited until Monday to get online and register their kids for summer camp, wouldn't their chances for getting in be much of the same? DPR did advertise this change and definitely couldve done a better job, but I just think the people complaining about equal access arent really concerned with poor single mothers in SE, they themselves just dont want to be inconvenienced. They probably got in online last year and didnt see a problem with the system. But Im sure that if they didnt get in this year online, they would have been complaining about the online system and wanted in-person registration instead. People are so finicky. No system is perfect. |
Anonymous
|
what if you're working on saturday and can't get time off from your boss to go stand in line?
no one has even brought that point up, they're just assuming that anyone who doesn't show up sat morning is lazy. but working on a weekend is a reality for lots of folks. I'm not even a "poor single mother" as someone wrote earlier, and i often have to work a saturday shift. nurses? cops? this whole approach is completely selective and only benefits certain kinds of parents. meanwhile, an online lottery LIKE DCPS AND ITS ONLINE OUT OF BOUNDARY PROCESS is the most fair process. DCPS has long since stopped allowing parents to show up at the crack of dawn for a coveted spot. why is DPR taking us back to those days? I can't wait to hear about the fallout at noon today when everyone who wouldn't/couldn't/didn't go on saturday tries to sign up for one of these camps and finds that they're all full. Why didn't DPR only allow people to register for a select number of slots, and then leave some slots open for the online registration? i really can't believe people are defending this method, it is the most stupid thing i've seen the city do in a long, long time. |
Anonymous
|
The DCPS summer camps site now says:
"PLEASE NOTE: During Saturday’s early registration event at Guy Mason Recreation Center, a number of customers who registered chose not to sign up for all five (5) camp sessions. Additionally, other customers registered their children at different camp locations throughout the summer. " Does this mean the Saturday people were allowed to sign up for locations that weren't on the list for early registration? Now that would be unfair. |
Anonymous
| The sad thing is that you could sign up 3 kids without proof that they are your children. So, MD/VA children were signed up for slots that should of been offered to DC children first. |
Anonymous
There was a two step process to register after you received your number. The first step was to tell the DPR rep. Which site you wanted and then actually register. The first step checked off each spot that was available but did not ask for or record how many sessions each person would register for. So if during the first step someone said they wanted Friendship the DPR person would check off 1 of the 20ish spots available. Then in step two they only registered for Session 3, that 1 spot of 2o was taken for all 5 sessions. Until DPR reconciled their numbers they didn't have a way of knowing this. I'm pretty sure this is how it worked. I would be pissed if I was one of the last people there, told everything was full and then saw this message this morning saying there are still spots available. |
Anonymous
Yet another problem with this process. |
Anonymous
And while I am at it I will sign up my niece and nephew who lives in Bethesda. |
Anonymous
I totally agree. And online registration is totally jammed and not working. They really screwed up big time this year. |
Anonymous
| It was jammed the same way last year. This is not new. |
Anonymous
Thank you for raising this point. I'm bristling at the suggestion that the only reasons parents didn't/couldn't go was because they're lazy or don't want it enough. I went, registered my son into a location relatively close to our home. I go with DPR camp because it's pretty much the only option that's affordable, all-day and convenient to home and work. But I don't downplay for a moment the difficulty of finding someone to watch the kids at 6:30am on a Saturday. (And as we've discussed, if they repeat this next year, it'll likely be earlier. Anyone know a good sitter available at 4:30am?) There are plenty of parents out there who want an affordable camp at least as much as those of us who were able to get there, but because of work, childcare questions, etc., couldn't be there. |
Anonymous
| I was under the impression that you could only register for the camps that were listed on the site on Saturday. I am having no luck using the website. |