Waitlisted for K at Two Rivers 4th -- Q for current families and waitlist gurus

[Anonymous]

We are #19 on the waitlist for TR4th for K. No sibling preference.

Looking at historical waitlist data, we would have made it off the waitlist last year by August, but in previous years would not have made it off until the October cut off (so presumably after school started in the fall).

Anyone have any insight into why the waitlist for this grades moved faster last year? Just Covid uncertainty or something else? We are very likely to accept the spot if we are offered before August, but very unlikely to take it after the school year starts because we like our IB (we just really like TR and our kid has several friends there) and because I just really dislike the idea of moving DC around like that right when they are getting settled in a new school year.

Would love any insight into how the TR waitlist has moved in the past, what we can expect in terms of time to decide, or any other advice. IB is L-T if that is relevant to anyone. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

We are at TR 4th and have had a good experience this year. I don't have any insider info apart from the historical data that you've surveyed. Looking at that, you seem to have an outside chance of getting in in August and a really good shot of getting in sometime in September. Switching after school starts would be annoying, but I know several kids joined each of my DCs' ECE and early elementary classes a couple of weeks - month after school started and all appear to have transitioned well based on what I've observed. And having friends there already will make it even easier of course.

All that being said, I'm surprised that you're looking to decamp from L-T. Folks I know seem pretty happy there.

[Anonymous]

The issue with L-T is that we didn't do PK there. We are excited about it as a school but didn't live here for PK3 and then didn't get in for PK4 (DC is at preschool program at daycare this year). But yes, we have heard nothing but good reviews.

The only schools we listed on our lottery were SWS (just curious) and TR4th, and we didn't expect to get in either place. But the two neighborhood families we are closest friends with are both at TR. The idea of going to the same school with them, and still having it be "in the neighborhood" and a walkable distance is really appealing.

We know this is a good problem to have! But we also know that often you only have a short period of time to make a decision to take a waitlist offer, so we want to figure out what our plan is now instead of getting a surprise in August and having to make a snap decision. It would also help us better prepare DC -- so far we've said nothing but they ask sometimes if they will be able to go to Kindergarten with their friends (the ones at TR) but then also sometimes asks if they will go to L-T (which they know about because of the playground and sports fields). We want to have our plan clear in our heads before we say anything either way.

[Anonymous]

It's kindergarten, not high school. Your child will adapt (within a few days, likely) if you switch them after the school year has begun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The issue with L-T is that we didn't do PK there. We are excited about it as a school but didn't live here for PK3 and then didn't get in for PK4 (DC is at preschool program at daycare this year). But yes, we have heard nothing but good reviews.

The only schools we listed on our lottery were SWS (just curious) and TR4th, and we didn't expect to get in either place. But the two neighborhood families we are closest friends with are both at TR. The idea of going to the same school with them, and still having it be "in the neighborhood" and a walkable distance is really appealing.

We know this is a good problem to have! But we also know that often you only have a short period of time to make a decision to take a waitlist offer, so we want to figure out what our plan is now instead of getting a surprise in August and having to make a snap decision. It would also help us better prepare DC -- so far we've said nothing but they ask sometimes if they will be able to go to Kindergarten with their friends (the ones at TR) but then also sometimes asks if they will go to L-T (which they know about because of the playground and sports fields). We want to have our plan clear in our heads before we say anything either way.

That all makes good sense. Well, I really hope you get off the waitlist at TR, and early enough to make things the easiest for your decision-making!

[Anonymous]

This is off topic but I know of at least 3 families at Two Rivers that live in Maryland and use a relatives address. Kind of sad when I think of DC families that want to attend but get waitlisted

[Anonymous]

I think you have a very good chance of making it off the list. FWIW I agree with other posters who have said that switching into the school year for K is a non-issue. I can tell you from experience that TR is adept at making kids feel welcome and helping them to adapt into the community. If you would take the spot in July then IMHO you'd be silly not to accept it in September.

Last year's WL was a bit of an outlier for all of DCPS/PCSB, but especially for TR. I don't want to derail this and lots has been written about it on DCUM, but regardless of whether you think kids should have returned to in person learning TR did a piss poor job of communicating, setting expectations and then executing on what they said they were going to do. As a consequence I think the reputation of the school and confidence in the Exec leadership was shaken and that may have trickled down to word of mouth and impacted yield rates on waitlist offers. It remains to be seen whether that reputational harm will persist, although as someone who loves the school and was fortunate to get in very early on I worry that noticeably shorter waitlist this year is a leading indicator that they have more restorative work to do.

I also understand what you mean by it being a neighborhood school. Many grades feel very much that way (although we were a bit unlucky and our kid's year was not that way - jealous). TR has been great for us. I would not hesitate to take the spot if offered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you have a very good chance of making it off the list. FWIW I agree with other posters who have said that switching into the school year for K is a non-issue. I can tell you from experience that TR is adept at making kids feel welcome and helping them to adapt into the community. If you would take the spot in July then IMHO you'd be silly not to accept it in September.

Last year's WL was a bit of an outlier for all of DCPS/PCSB, but especially for TR. I don't want to derail this and lots has been written about it on DCUM, but regardless of whether you think kids should have returned to in person learning TR did a piss poor job of communicating, setting expectations and then executing on what they said they were going to do. As a consequence I think the reputation of the school and confidence in the Exec leadership was shaken and that may have trickled down to word of mouth and impacted yield rates on waitlist offers. It remains to be seen whether that reputational harm will persist, although as someone who loves the school and was fortunate to get in very early on I worry that noticeably shorter waitlist this year is a leading indicator that they have more restorative work to do.

I also understand what you mean by it being a neighborhood school. Many grades feel very much that way (although we were a bit unlucky and our kid's year was not that way - jealous). TR has been great for us. I would not hesitate to take the spot if offered.

Excellent observations, on many levels.

[Anonymous]

I would think really hard about choosing TR over LT. As in, I would not do it in a million years. Lots of kids start LT in K and especially given PK3 didn’t really happen for this grade (2 hours virtual for 2/3rds of the year and then some kids got in for in person but with very strict protocols for 1/3rd of the year), I think the “harm” in starting “late” is even less than usual. Starting after K gets harder, but even then it’s not a disaster.

I have experience with both schools and our experience with TR for our oldest was sufficiently bad that we moved IB for LT so all of our kids could go there. We also had multiple transfers from TR last year, though I have heard the pandemic was unusually bad.

I would tour LT on Thursday morning if you haven’t yet. Going to a school because you know two families there is… not what I would do and I suspect you will regret it. Also, when at least one of those families leaves by 2nd because the school can’t accommodate above grade level kids at all and doesn’t try to, you will really regret it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would think really hard about choosing TR over LT. As in, I would not do it in a million years. Lots of kids start LT in K and especially given PK3 didn’t really happen for this grade (2 hours virtual for 2/3rds of the year and then some kids got in for in person but with very strict protocols for 1/3rd of the year), I think the “harm” in starting “late” is even less than usual. Starting after K gets harder, but even then it’s not a disaster.

I have experience with both schools and our experience with TR for our oldest was sufficiently bad that we moved IB for LT so all of our kids could go there. We also had multiple transfers from TR last year, though I have heard the pandemic was unusually bad.

I would tour LT on Thursday morning if you haven’t yet. Going to a school because you know two families there is… not what I would do and I suspect you will regret it. Also, when at least one of those families leaves by 2nd because the school can’t accommodate above grade level kids at all and doesn’t try to, you will really regret it.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is off topic but I know of at least 3 families at Two Rivers that live in Maryland and use a relatives address. Kind of sad when I think of DC families that want to attend but get waitlisted

Have you reported them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would think really hard about choosing TR over LT. As in, I would not do it in a million years. Lots of kids start LT in K and especially given PK3 didn’t really happen for this grade (2 hours virtual for 2/3rds of the year and then some kids got in for in person but with very strict protocols for 1/3rd of the year), I think the “harm” in starting “late” is even less than usual. Starting after K gets harder, but even then it’s not a disaster.

I have experience with both schools and our experience with TR for our oldest was sufficiently bad that we moved IB for LT so all of our kids could go there. We also had multiple transfers from TR last year, though I have heard the pandemic was unusually bad.

I would tour LT on Thursday morning if you haven’t yet. Going to a school because you know two families there is… not what I would do and I suspect you will regret it. Also, when at least one of those families leaves by 2nd because the school can’t accommodate above grade level kids at all and doesn’t try to, you will really regret it.

I agree that the above is something to consider, though we are upper elementary at TR4 and are more than happy to stay through 5th because it works for us. But our situation is perhaps “unique” because we have no expectation or desire for the school to accommodate our above grade level kids, mainly because we don’t think any DC public school really could (or should). Ours kids are both JHU/CTYers and take advantage of lots of those opportunities. They are both many years above grade level in math and ELA of course and beyond want any reasonable differentiation could meet. BUT…they love TR4 and are absolutely learning a lot by being there, clearly stimulated to my satisfaction. They get their hardcore intellectual challenges elsewhere and it works for us.

And we’ll be going private for middle anyway.

But LT probably is the safer choice for most folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would think really hard about choosing TR over LT. As in, I would not do it in a million years. Lots of kids start LT in K and especially given PK3 didn’t really happen for this grade (2 hours virtual for 2/3rds of the year and then some kids got in for in person but with very strict protocols for 1/3rd of the year), I think the “harm” in starting “late” is even less than usual. Starting after K gets harder, but even then it’s not a disaster.

I have experience with both schools and our experience with TR for our oldest was sufficiently bad that we moved IB for LT so all of our kids could go there. We also had multiple transfers from TR last year, though I have heard the pandemic was unusually bad.

I would tour LT on Thursday morning if you haven’t yet. Going to a school because you know two families there is… not what I would do and I suspect you will regret it. Also, when at least one of those families leaves by 2nd because the school can’t accommodate above grade level kids at all and doesn’t try to, you will really regret it.

I agree that the above is something to consider, though we are upper elementary at TR4 and are more than happy to stay through 5th because it works for us. But our situation is perhaps “unique” because we have no expectation or desire for the school to accommodate our above grade level kids, mainly because we don’t think any DC public school really could (or should). Ours kids are both JHU/CTYers and take advantage of lots of those opportunities. They are both many years above grade level in math and ELA of course and beyond want any reasonable differentiation could meet. BUT…they love TR4 and are absolutely learning a lot by being there, clearly stimulated to my satisfaction. They get their hardcore intellectual challenges elsewhere and it works for us.


And we’ll be going private for middle anyway.

But LT probably is the safer choice for most folks.

I think this gets at something. If you are the sort of family that has the resources, bandwidth, and inclination to greatly accelerated your kids outside of school, then TR vs LT vs whatever on the Hill probably isn't a big deal because no DC public schools provides anything akin to a gifted program, which means that you're at mercy of how much the school is willing to put into differentiation, and how effectively. It certainly helps to have an "advanced" cohort, but even then we're not talking about kids that are universally in the 98+ percentile, for the most part. And now with things like Russian Math, AOPS, and the like, the trend is moving towards out-of-school programming to truly accelerate kids versus relying on any public school to do the heavy lifting in that regard. If you're relying on the school, you're not keeping up, sadly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is off topic but I know of at least 3 families at Two Rivers that live in Maryland and use a relatives address. Kind of sad when I think of DC families that want to attend but get waitlisted

Have you reported them?

There are people in DCPS/DC Government who are paid very well to do this. Parents shouldn't feel obligated to do someone else's job.

[Anonymous]

Run as fast as you can from Two Rivers. Like a PP said, they did a piss poor job of reopening last year, but their poor COVID response just exposed the cracks that were already there. This year they added extra classrooms in each grade to allow for strict adherence to social distancing (desks are taped off and kids are not allowed to go near each other). While smaller classrooms sound like a positive change, they hired with people who are not certified to teach to fill those lead teaching spots (had only been teachers’ aids before.) While DCPS second graders are learning multiplication, 2nd graders at TR are still doing basic addition and subtraction. The school will only get worse as more unhappy families and qualified teachers leave. We are at a DCPS school now and the difference is night and day.