Anonymous wrote:We had a spot for DS in a charter but were on the wait list for our local ES (PS). Got a call at the end of week 1 and decided to move. Painful for us and DS. From the postings on these boards it seems there is a lot of this going on. Problem being people have no incentive to commit to a place until school starts. What if people were required to put down a refundable deposit for their place, say $100 which they lost if they pulled their child after a certain date. Could be waived for families that meet FARMS criteria.
At 3 years old, your DC will get over it pretty quickly. It's only been a week. Why do you feel bad about going to your local school?
Charter schools and public schools can't, legally, charge for school. Preschool is not compulsory, so there's no way to really enforce this type of thing anyway. School funding is based on October deadline, so the schools have no incentive to scare people off with a $100 deposit.
It might be more realistic to address the current chaos by reducing the number of DCPS OOB lottery picks to 4 from 6 (do you really want to go to your 6th choice?) and to require a "use it or lose it" intent to enroll deadline of September 15th or 2 weeks after school starts for charter and OOB school spots. This would be for for non-compulsory years of preschool and pre-k only.