DCI didn't offer any non-preference seats for 6th grade Chinese or Spanish - What gives?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I would say DCI is becoming the Deal middle school EOTP although it’s not part of DCPS.

It has a critical mass of grade level and above grade level kids. It’s a big enough school but not too big, with the plus that it doesn’t have the overcrowding issue like Deal. It has great facilities, and a large offering of sports, clubs, and extracurriculars like Deal. It has an IB curriculum like Deal.

Your choices for middle schools EOTP are DCI, Latin, and Basis. We toured Latin and Basis and the facilities are sadly lacking and so are the sports, clubs, and extracurriculars. We are not even going to play the lottery for Latin or Basis although we have a high performing kid. I’m sure many feeder families like us have made similar decisions.

Of the 3 middle schools above, DCI is most similar to your typical suburban middle school with good academics, facilities, sports, and extracurriculars. We had that experience, and it’s what we want for our DS.

DCI has passed the point now where they have buy in from middle and UMC families. And as the overwhelming majority of families track to DCI, the cohort of kids will become stronger and stronger, because the cohort coming up the feeder schools are stronger than what they were just 3 or 5 years ago.

Non-feeder kids won’t have any chance.

Hello Booster. Do you mean that the Spanish feeders will be allowed to consume the extra French seats?

I’m not a booster. What above is not true about my post? We looked hard at Latin and Basis and passed.

As to your question, I don’t know. But what is stopping the school from doing that when the expansion years hit.

I was under the impression that they have to offer some non-feeder seats per their charter agreement. But you seem to be awfully positive about it-- funny because Mundo continues to be a mess, Stokes continues to lag academically, and Latin and BASIS continue to appeal to feeder families within my social circle.

I was also under the impression that they have to offers some non-feeder seats per their charter agreement and (presuming from) prior year lottery data, so I checked. Looks like we were wrong:

https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/DCI-Restated-Agreement-2014_0.pdf

"3.2 Enrollment. A. Pursuant to §38-1802.01(c-1) of the Act, enrollment in DCI shall
be open to students in such grades who are residents of the District of Columbia, with priority
given to students who are matriculating from any one of the Member Schools (“Continuing
Member School Students”) in each case to the extent of the number of seats reserved for the
Continuing Students from each Member School. Students who are not residents of the District of
Columbia may be enrolled at DCI to the extent permitted by §38-1802.06 of the Act. DCI shall
determine whether each student resides in the District of Columbia according to guidelines
established by the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education (“OSSE”)."


Their five year report advises them to expand enrollment in order to accomodate incoming sixth graders from member schools AND applicants who don't have the member school designation. But, as others have said, there's the question of space.

https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/2019-2-28-DCI-5-Year-Review_Redacted_0.pdf

"The school has thus far been able to accommodate all students from all member schools
within its enrollment ceiling and has been able to provide appropriate facilities for
incoming students, in addition to having space to admit students applying from schools
other than the five member schools. However, most of the member schools have expanded
since the formation of DCI, and those that have not yet expanded have indicated they plan
to do so in the future. Most recently, E.W. Stokes PCS expanded to offer a campus in Ward
7, the first dual-language public charter school to operate East of the Anacostia River.
These expansions typically begin in lower grades, meaning that larger matriculating
classes can be foreseen in a few years. Therefore, it is likely that in the next several years,
DCI will need to expand its current program to be able to enroll all rising 6th graders from
its member schools and accept students from outside the member schools."

Then what DCI is likely going to do is if there are extra feeder seats not taken say from the French track, then the feeder kids from the Spanish track will have preference and get them and it won’t go to non-feeder kids.

Above is the obvious route as DCI was specifically created to provide a middle and high school path for the feeder school, they have a close working relationship with the feeder schools, and it’s to their benefit to have kids coming in who have had many years of the language.

No, feeder students don’t get first dibs on unfilled feeder starts from other schools. They go into the common waitlist with all of the non-preference kids. That’s current policy and not going to matter soon enough when all schools have more graduates than DCI seats. https://dcinternationalschool.org/about-us/faqs/

Wouldn't the feeder kids be on the top of the wait-list?

No, they would be ranked according to their master lottery number with everyone else. The preference only applies to the feeder school's seats. That's according to the My School DC rep - please call and confirm if you're curious. I would love to know if someone else gets the same answer that I did!

I called MSDC and asked (among other things) about whether sibling preference could be stacked with feeder preference and was told that DCI has not yet decided the answer to this question. Essentially, the language in the charter is ambiguous and DCI has never had to make a decision, and so while DCI is aware that they need to make a decision, the current answer is "we don't know whether students will be able to stack feeder preference with sibling preference."

The logic for stacking preferences really doesn't hold at the middle and high school level. Without a school bus system, it makes sense to prioritize having elementary siblings in one location. But by middle and high school, they can commute on their own and stacking preferences makes it much more inequitable for students that don't have an older sibling already. Stacking preferences means that kids with siblings are guaranteed a seat and everyone else has MUCH lower odds. How is that fair to the school community as a whole?

Except I'm pretty sure all other middle schools (Latin, BASIS, DCPS, etc) provide sibling preference. I hear what you're saying, but not stacking the preferences would make DCI the outlier.

But people haven’t been planning on a specific middle and high school pathway for those other schools. You spend 8 years at a feeder only to realize your non-preference odds are 20%, then how would you feel? How disruptive would that be to the upper grades of the feeder schools when families start bailing for the suburbs because they’re odds suck?

That's already happening. It's part of why MV upper grades are struggling so much.

Huh? Aren’t you tired of repeating the same with no data to prove your point?

Mundo Verde is a chicken and egg situation. DCI is still a guarantee for now, but families are leaving in elementary grades because of the instability in the school. Which makes the school more unstable in those grades.

Can you point me to the data?

You can see retention and re-enrollment data here.
https://osse.dc.gov/dcschoolreportcard/schoolsnapshot

When people's oldest child is not doing well because the upper grades are a mess, and their youngest child might not get into DCI anyway, why stay?

NP, don’t know which campus MV parent is at above but we are in upper grade at 8th St and agree are having a very good experience.

Data doesn’t lie and the re-enrollment at MV aligns with the other immersion charters ranging in 86-91% so no families are not leaving.

Why don't you tell us what happened to the P St Padres.

Don’t care because we are at 8th St and have our own parent organization for our campus.

But Padres are active at the P St campus.

[Anonymous]

Teacher turnover mid-year at P st is way higher than any kid should have to endure.

Test scores are low relative to demographics.

Waitlists are shorter than they have been in years, even when you account for the impact of Called Ocho seats.

Retention in ECE and lower elementary is pretty good, but in upper grades quite bad, people leave for Oyster if they can get in, or DCB, BASIS, or just move away. The saving grace for the expansion class is that P St can't attract a lot of 5th grade applicants to take up their DCI seats.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I would say DCI is becoming the Deal middle school EOTP although it’s not part of DCPS.

It has a critical mass of grade level and above grade level kids. It’s a big enough school but not too big, with the plus that it doesn’t have the overcrowding issue like Deal. It has great facilities, and a large offering of sports, clubs, and extracurriculars like Deal. It has an IB curriculum like Deal.

Your choices for middle schools EOTP are DCI, Latin, and Basis. We toured Latin and Basis and the facilities are sadly lacking and so are the sports, clubs, and extracurriculars. We are not even going to play the lottery for Latin or Basis although we have a high performing kid. I’m sure many feeder families like us have made similar decisions.

Of the 3 middle schools above, DCI is most similar to your typical suburban middle school with good academics, facilities, sports, and extracurriculars. We had that experience, and it’s what we want for our DS.

DCI has passed the point now where they have buy in from middle and UMC families. And as the overwhelming majority of families track to DCI, the cohort of kids will become stronger and stronger, because the cohort coming up the feeder schools are stronger than what they were just 3 or 5 years ago.

Non-feeder kids won’t have any chance.

Hello Booster. Do you mean that the Spanish feeders will be allowed to consume the extra French seats?

I’m not a booster. What above is not true about my post? We looked hard at Latin and Basis and passed.

As to your question, I don’t know. But what is stopping the school from doing that when the expansion years hit.

I was under the impression that they have to offer some non-feeder seats per their charter agreement. But you seem to be awfully positive about it-- funny because Mundo continues to be a mess, Stokes continues to lag academically, and Latin and BASIS continue to appeal to feeder families within my social circle.

I was also under the impression that they have to offers some non-feeder seats per their charter agreement and (presuming from) prior year lottery data, so I checked. Looks like we were wrong:

https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/DCI-Restated-Agreement-2014_0.pdf

"3.2 Enrollment. A. Pursuant to §38-1802.01(c-1) of the Act, enrollment in DCI shall
be open to students in such grades who are residents of the District of Columbia, with priority
given to students who are matriculating from any one of the Member Schools (“Continuing
Member School Students”) in each case to the extent of the number of seats reserved for the
Continuing Students from each Member School. Students who are not residents of the District of
Columbia may be enrolled at DCI to the extent permitted by §38-1802.06 of the Act. DCI shall
determine whether each student resides in the District of Columbia according to guidelines
established by the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education (“OSSE”)."


Their five year report advises them to expand enrollment in order to accomodate incoming sixth graders from member schools AND applicants who don't have the member school designation. But, as others have said, there's the question of space.

https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/2019-2-28-DCI-5-Year-Review_Redacted_0.pdf

"The school has thus far been able to accommodate all students from all member schools
within its enrollment ceiling and has been able to provide appropriate facilities for
incoming students, in addition to having space to admit students applying from schools
other than the five member schools. However, most of the member schools have expanded
since the formation of DCI, and those that have not yet expanded have indicated they plan
to do so in the future. Most recently, E.W. Stokes PCS expanded to offer a campus in Ward
7, the first dual-language public charter school to operate East of the Anacostia River.
These expansions typically begin in lower grades, meaning that larger matriculating
classes can be foreseen in a few years. Therefore, it is likely that in the next several years,
DCI will need to expand its current program to be able to enroll all rising 6th graders from
its member schools and accept students from outside the member schools."

Then what DCI is likely going to do is if there are extra feeder seats not taken say from the French track, then the feeder kids from the Spanish track will have preference and get them and it won’t go to non-feeder kids.

Above is the obvious route as DCI was specifically created to provide a middle and high school path for the feeder school, they have a close working relationship with the feeder schools, and it’s to their benefit to have kids coming in who have had many years of the language.

No, feeder students don’t get first dibs on unfilled feeder starts from other schools. They go into the common waitlist with all of the non-preference kids. That’s current policy and not going to matter soon enough when all schools have more graduates than DCI seats. https://dcinternationalschool.org/about-us/faqs/

Wouldn't the feeder kids be on the top of the wait-list?

No, they would be ranked according to their master lottery number with everyone else. The preference only applies to the feeder school's seats. That's according to the My School DC rep - please call and confirm if you're curious. I would love to know if someone else gets the same answer that I did!

I called MSDC and asked (among other things) about whether sibling preference could be stacked with feeder preference and was told that DCI has not yet decided the answer to this question. Essentially, the language in the charter is ambiguous and DCI has never had to make a decision, and so while DCI is aware that they need to make a decision, the current answer is "we don't know whether students will be able to stack feeder preference with sibling preference."

The logic for stacking preferences really doesn't hold at the middle and high school level. Without a school bus system, it makes sense to prioritize having elementary siblings in one location. But by middle and high school, they can commute on their own and stacking preferences makes it much more inequitable for students that don't have an older sibling already. Stacking preferences means that kids with siblings are guaranteed a seat and everyone else has MUCH lower odds. How is that fair to the school community as a whole?

Except I'm pretty sure all other middle schools (Latin, BASIS, DCPS, etc) provide sibling preference. I hear what you're saying, but not stacking the preferences would make DCI the outlier.

But people haven’t been planning on a specific middle and high school pathway for those other schools. You spend 8 years at a feeder only to realize your non-preference odds are 20%, then how would you feel? How disruptive would that be to the upper grades of the feeder schools when families start bailing for the suburbs because they’re odds suck?

That's already happening. It's part of why MV upper grades are struggling so much.

Huh? Aren’t you tired of repeating the same with no data to prove your point?

Mundo Verde is a chicken and egg situation. DCI is still a guarantee for now, but families are leaving in elementary grades because of the instability in the school. Which makes the school more unstable in those grades.

Can you point me to the data?

You can see retention and re-enrollment data here.
https://osse.dc.gov/dcschoolreportcard/schoolsnapshot

When people's oldest child is not doing well because the upper grades are a mess, and their youngest child might not get into DCI anyway, why stay?

NP, don’t know which campus MV parent is at above but we are in upper grade at 8th St and agree are having a very good experience.

Data doesn’t lie and the re-enrollment at MV aligns with the other immersion charters ranging in 86-91% so no families are not leaving.

Why don't you tell us what happened to the P St Padres.

Don’t care because we are at 8th St and have our own parent organization for our campus.

But Padres are active at the P St campus.

But what happened the past few years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher turnover mid-year at P st is way higher than any kid should have to endure.

Test scores are low relative to demographics.

Waitlists are shorter than they have been in years, even when you account for the impact of Called Ocho seats.

Retention in ECE and lower elementary is pretty good, but in upper grades quite bad, people leave for Oyster if they can get in, or DCB, BASIS, or just move away. The saving grace for the expansion class is that P St can't attract a lot of 5th grade applicants to take up their DCI seats.

Not at the school but numbers don’t lie. Re-enrollment at P st falls in the range of other immersion charters PP before quoted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am still confused when the different feeders will hit the limit of not having guaranteed spots. When will that happen for each school, or has it happened already?

In 2-3 years depending on the school.

As someone posted, there is nothing in DCI’s charter agreement that says they have to take non-feeder kids so by then there is no chance any non-feeder kids will get seats. DCI is going to give feeder kids all the seats they have.

[Anonymous]

On a positive note, we went to the open house and DCI allows study abroad programs in high school which we thought was amazing.

The kids who do it usually do it in the early years before starting the requirements for the IB diploma junior year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On a positive note, we went to the open house and DCI allows study abroad programs in high school which we thought was amazing.

The kids who do it usually do it in the early years before starting the requirements for the IB diploma junior year.

Forgot to add this is a game changing experience in high school and will help to advance your kid to full fluency if they already are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am still confused when the different feeders will hit the limit of not having guaranteed spots. When will that happen for each school, or has it happened already?

In 2-3 years depending on the school.

As someone posted, there is nothing in DCI’s charter agreement that says they have to take non-feeder kids so by then there is no chance any non-feeder kids will get seats. DCI is going to give feeder kids all the seats they have.

I believe it's next year for Stokes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher turnover mid-year at P st is way higher than any kid should have to endure.

Test scores are low relative to demographics.

Waitlists are shorter than they have been in years, even when you account for the impact of Called Ocho seats.

Retention in ECE and lower elementary is pretty good, but in upper grades quite bad, people leave for Oyster if they can get in, or DCB, BASIS, or just move away. The saving grace for the expansion class is that P St can't attract a lot of 5th grade applicants to take up their DCI seats.

Not at the school but numbers don’t lie. Re-enrollment at P st falls in the range of other immersion charters PP before quoted.

But why compare it only to immersion charters? Stokes has the same problem of sibling access as MV does.

[Anonymous]

So what happens in grades 7, 8, and 9? Do feeder kids shut out for 6th still get preference?

I can't help but note there were a lot of offers for those grades last year... Wonder why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:6 pages of this thread with people obsessing about non-feeder spots.

It’s not going to happen so move on and make other plans. Even if there are a few spots, your chance is going to be basically in the single digits.

So make other plans and worry less about things that are totally out of your control.

Honestly, I would just move to the burbs, be done with it, and have a sure middle and high school track.

The earlier you do that, the better for your kid. Very disruptive to move in later elementary or middle school.

+1 8 pages now with people obsessing about DCI and its feeder when they don’t attend either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:6 pages of this thread with people obsessing about non-feeder spots.

It’s not going to happen so move on and make other plans. Even if there are a few spots, your chance is going to be basically in the single digits.

So make other plans and worry less about things that are totally out of your control.

Honestly, I would just move to the burbs, be done with it, and have a sure middle and high school track.

The earlier you do that, the better for your kid. Very disruptive to move in later elementary or middle school.

+1 8 pages now with people obsessing about DCI and its feeder when they don’t attend either.

Those are exactly the people who I would expect to be interested.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would say DCI is becoming the Deal middle school EOTP although it’s not part of DCPS.

It has a critical mass of grade level and above grade level kids. It’s a big enough school but not too big, with the plus that it doesn’t have the overcrowding issue like Deal. It has great facilities, and a large offering of sports, clubs, and extracurriculars like Deal. It has an IB curriculum like Deal.

Your choices for middle schools EOTP are DCI, Latin, and Basis. We toured Latin and Basis and the facilities are sadly lacking and so are the sports, clubs, and extracurriculars. We are not even going to play the lottery for Latin or Basis although we have a high performing kid. I’m sure many feeder families like us have made similar decisions.

Of the 3 middle schools above, DCI is most similar to your typical suburban middle school with good academics, facilities, sports, and extracurriculars. We had that experience, and it’s what we want for our DS.

DCI has passed the point now where they have buy in from middle and UMC families. And as the overwhelming majority of families track to DCI, the cohort of kids will become stronger and stronger, because the cohort coming up the feeder schools are stronger than what they were just 3 or 5 years ago.

Non-feeder kids won’t have any chance.

Hello Booster. Do you mean that the Spanish feeders will be allowed to consume the extra French seats?

I’m not a booster. What above is not true about my post? We looked hard at Latin and Basis and passed.

As to your question, I don’t know. But what is stopping the school from doing that when the expansion years hit.

I was under the impression that they have to offer some non-feeder seats per their charter agreement. But you seem to be awfully positive about it-- funny because Mundo continues to be a mess, Stokes continues to lag academically, and Latin and BASIS continue to appeal to feeder families within my social circle.

I was also under the impression that they have to offers some non-feeder seats per their charter agreement and (presuming from) prior year lottery data, so I checked. Looks like we were wrong:

https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/DCI-Restated-Agreement-2014_0.pdf

"3.2 Enrollment. A. Pursuant to §38-1802.01(c-1) of the Act, enrollment in DCI shall
be open to students in such grades who are residents of the District of Columbia, with priority
given to students who are matriculating from any one of the Member Schools (“Continuing
Member School Students”) in each case to the extent of the number of seats reserved for the
Continuing Students from each Member School. Students who are not residents of the District of
Columbia may be enrolled at DCI to the extent permitted by §38-1802.06 of the Act. DCI shall
determine whether each student resides in the District of Columbia according to guidelines
established by the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education (“OSSE”)."


Their five year report advises them to expand enrollment in order to accomodate incoming sixth graders from member schools AND applicants who don't have the member school designation. But, as others have said, there's the question of space.

https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/2019-2-28-DCI-5-Year-Review_Redacted_0.pdf

"The school has thus far been able to accommodate all students from all member schools
within its enrollment ceiling and has been able to provide appropriate facilities for
incoming students, in addition to having space to admit students applying from schools
other than the five member schools. However, most of the member schools have expanded
since the formation of DCI, and those that have not yet expanded have indicated they plan
to do so in the future. Most recently, E.W. Stokes PCS expanded to offer a campus in Ward
7, the first dual-language public charter school to operate East of the Anacostia River.
These expansions typically begin in lower grades, meaning that larger matriculating
classes can be foreseen in a few years. Therefore, it is likely that in the next several years,
DCI will need to expand its current program to be able to enroll all rising 6th graders from
its member schools and accept students from outside the member schools."

Then what DCI is likely going to do is if there are extra feeder seats not taken say from the French track, then the feeder kids from the Spanish track will have preference and get them and it won’t go to non-feeder kids.

Above is the obvious route as DCI was specifically created to provide a middle and high school path for the feeder school, they have a close working relationship with the feeder schools, and it’s to their benefit to have kids coming in who have had many years of the language.

No, feeder students don’t get first dibs on unfilled feeder starts from other schools. They go into the common waitlist with all of the non-preference kids. That’s current policy and not going to matter soon enough when all schools have more graduates than DCI seats. https://dcinternationalschool.org/about-us/faqs/

Wouldn't the feeder kids be on the top of the wait-list?

No, they would be ranked according to their master lottery number with everyone else. The preference only applies to the feeder school's seats. That's according to the My School DC rep - please call and confirm if you're curious. I would love to know if someone else gets the same answer that I did!

I called MSDC and asked (among other things) about whether sibling preference could be stacked with feeder preference and was told that DCI has not yet decided the answer to this question. Essentially, the language in the charter is ambiguous and DCI has never had to make a decision, and so while DCI is aware that they need to make a decision, the current answer is "we don't know whether students will be able to stack feeder preference with sibling preference."

The logic for stacking preferences really doesn't hold at the middle and high school level. Without a school bus system, it makes sense to prioritize having elementary siblings in one location. But by middle and high school, they can commute on their own and stacking preferences makes it much more inequitable for students that don't have an older sibling already. Stacking preferences means that kids with siblings are guaranteed a seat and everyone else has MUCH lower odds. How is that fair to the school community as a whole?

Except I'm pretty sure all other middle schools (Latin, BASIS, DCPS, etc) provide sibling preference. I hear what you're saying, but not stacking the preferences would make DCI the outlier.

But people haven’t been planning on a specific middle and high school pathway for those other schools. You spend 8 years at a feeder only to realize your non-preference odds are 20%, then how would you feel? How disruptive would that be to the upper grades of the feeder schools when families start bailing for the suburbs because they’re odds suck?

That's already happening. It's part of why MV upper grades are struggling so much.

Huh? Aren’t you tired of repeating the same with no data to prove your point?

Mundo Verde is a chicken and egg situation. DCI is still a guarantee for now, but families are leaving in elementary grades because of the instability in the school. Which makes the school more unstable in those grades.

Can you point me to the data?

You can see retention and re-enrollment data here.
https://osse.dc.gov/dcschoolreportcard/schoolsnapshot

When people's oldest child is not doing well because the upper grades are a mess, and their youngest child might not get into DCI anyway, why stay?

Their retention is still higher than a lot of DCPS schools, and similar to let’s say Shepherd (who has good middle schools). I am not sure why you are always trolling about a school that you have no experience with, but my kids go to MV and the things that I read here are just false or extremely exaggerated.

People leave Shepherd in mid-elementary for private Jewish schools. That’s not a great example because it’s very neighborhood specific. The waitlists speak for themselves. MV over expanded and is struggling in a way the other DCI feeders aren’t (yet?).

Enrollment data tell you nothing, since you don't know why people are leaving, but here you have other schools loved by DCUM with similar numbers.

Janney 86%
Lafayette 84%
Marie Reed 84%
Oyster 87%
Sheperd 88%
Langley 70% (this really is a struggling school)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would say DCI is becoming the Deal middle school EOTP although it’s not part of DCPS.

It has a critical mass of grade level and above grade level kids. It’s a big enough school but not too big, with the plus that it doesn’t have the overcrowding issue like Deal. It has great facilities, and a large offering of sports, clubs, and extracurriculars like Deal. It has an IB curriculum like Deal.

Your choices for middle schools EOTP are DCI, Latin, and Basis. We toured Latin and Basis and the facilities are sadly lacking and so are the sports, clubs, and extracurriculars. We are not even going to play the lottery for Latin or Basis although we have a high performing kid. I’m sure many feeder families like us have made similar decisions.

Of the 3 middle schools above, DCI is most similar to your typical suburban middle school with good academics, facilities, sports, and extracurriculars. We had that experience, and it’s what we want for our DS.

DCI has passed the point now where they have buy in from middle and UMC families. And as the overwhelming majority of families track to DCI, the cohort of kids will become stronger and stronger, because the cohort coming up the feeder schools are stronger than what they were just 3 or 5 years ago.

Non-feeder kids won’t have any chance.

Hello Booster. Do you mean that the Spanish feeders will be allowed to consume the extra French seats?

I’m not a booster. What above is not true about my post? We looked hard at Latin and Basis and passed.

As to your question, I don’t know. But what is stopping the school from doing that when the expansion years hit.

I was under the impression that they have to offer some non-feeder seats per their charter agreement. But you seem to be awfully positive about it-- funny because Mundo continues to be a mess, Stokes continues to lag academically, and Latin and BASIS continue to appeal to feeder families within my social circle.

I was also under the impression that they have to offers some non-feeder seats per their charter agreement and (presuming from) prior year lottery data, so I checked. Looks like we were wrong:

https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/DCI-Restated-Agreement-2014_0.pdf

"3.2 Enrollment. A. Pursuant to §38-1802.01(c-1) of the Act, enrollment in DCI shall
be open to students in such grades who are residents of the District of Columbia, with priority
given to students who are matriculating from any one of the Member Schools (“Continuing
Member School Students”) in each case to the extent of the number of seats reserved for the
Continuing Students from each Member School. Students who are not residents of the District of
Columbia may be enrolled at DCI to the extent permitted by §38-1802.06 of the Act. DCI shall
determine whether each student resides in the District of Columbia according to guidelines
established by the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education (“OSSE”)."


Their five year report advises them to expand enrollment in order to accomodate incoming sixth graders from member schools AND applicants who don't have the member school designation. But, as others have said, there's the question of space.

https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/2019-2-28-DCI-5-Year-Review_Redacted_0.pdf

"The school has thus far been able to accommodate all students from all member schools
within its enrollment ceiling and has been able to provide appropriate facilities for
incoming students, in addition to having space to admit students applying from schools
other than the five member schools. However, most of the member schools have expanded
since the formation of DCI, and those that have not yet expanded have indicated they plan
to do so in the future. Most recently, E.W. Stokes PCS expanded to offer a campus in Ward
7, the first dual-language public charter school to operate East of the Anacostia River.
These expansions typically begin in lower grades, meaning that larger matriculating
classes can be foreseen in a few years. Therefore, it is likely that in the next several years,
DCI will need to expand its current program to be able to enroll all rising 6th graders from
its member schools and accept students from outside the member schools."

Then what DCI is likely going to do is if there are extra feeder seats not taken say from the French track, then the feeder kids from the Spanish track will have preference and get them and it won’t go to non-feeder kids.

Above is the obvious route as DCI was specifically created to provide a middle and high school path for the feeder school, they have a close working relationship with the feeder schools, and it’s to their benefit to have kids coming in who have had many years of the language.

No, feeder students don’t get first dibs on unfilled feeder starts from other schools. They go into the common waitlist with all of the non-preference kids. That’s current policy and not going to matter soon enough when all schools have more graduates than DCI seats. https://dcinternationalschool.org/about-us/faqs/

Wouldn't the feeder kids be on the top of the wait-list?

No, they would be ranked according to their master lottery number with everyone else. The preference only applies to the feeder school's seats. That's according to the My School DC rep - please call and confirm if you're curious. I would love to know if someone else gets the same answer that I did!

I called MSDC and asked (among other things) about whether sibling preference could be stacked with feeder preference and was told that DCI has not yet decided the answer to this question. Essentially, the language in the charter is ambiguous and DCI has never had to make a decision, and so while DCI is aware that they need to make a decision, the current answer is "we don't know whether students will be able to stack feeder preference with sibling preference."

The logic for stacking preferences really doesn't hold at the middle and high school level. Without a school bus system, it makes sense to prioritize having elementary siblings in one location. But by middle and high school, they can commute on their own and stacking preferences makes it much more inequitable for students that don't have an older sibling already. Stacking preferences means that kids with siblings are guaranteed a seat and everyone else has MUCH lower odds. How is that fair to the school community as a whole?

Except I'm pretty sure all other middle schools (Latin, BASIS, DCPS, etc) provide sibling preference. I hear what you're saying, but not stacking the preferences would make DCI the outlier.

But people haven’t been planning on a specific middle and high school pathway for those other schools. You spend 8 years at a feeder only to realize your non-preference odds are 20%, then how would you feel? How disruptive would that be to the upper grades of the feeder schools when families start bailing for the suburbs because they’re odds suck?

That's already happening. It's part of why MV upper grades are struggling so much.

Huh? Aren’t you tired of repeating the same with no data to prove your point?

Mundo Verde is a chicken and egg situation. DCI is still a guarantee for now, but families are leaving in elementary grades because of the instability in the school. Which makes the school more unstable in those grades.

Can you point me to the data?

You can see retention and re-enrollment data here.
https://osse.dc.gov/dcschoolreportcard/schoolsnapshot

When people's oldest child is not doing well because the upper grades are a mess, and their youngest child might not get into DCI anyway, why stay?

Their retention is still higher than a lot of DCPS schools, and similar to let’s say Shepherd (who has good middle schools). I am not sure why you are always trolling about a school that you have no experience with, but my kids go to MV and the things that I read here are just false or extremely exaggerated.

People leave Shepherd in mid-elementary for private Jewish schools. That’s not a great example because it’s very neighborhood specific. The waitlists speak for themselves. MV over expanded and is struggling in a way the other DCI feeders aren’t (yet?).

Enrollment data tell you nothing, since you don't know why people are leaving, but here you have other schools loved by DCUM with similar numbers.

Janney 86%
Lafayette 84%
Marie Reed 84%
Oyster 87%
Sheperd 88%
Langley 70% (this really is a struggling school)

It's all well and good to talk about re-enrollment, but let's look at the full data set. Here are some other data points from similar schools.

ITDS 89.2%
Yu Ying 94.86%
LAMB 92.99%

I'm not sure how the mid-year withdrawal data fits with the re-enrollment data, but I will note MV P St is losing a lot of kids mid-year. More than 5% of the total enrollment, and more than a lot of similar schools.

Also, in the OSSE enrollment audit data, the total enrollment at P St. is 34 kids LOWER this year than it was the prior school year. What's that about? Not a positive sign.

MV P St's waitlists are also considerably shorter than they were last year. I know waitlists are generally down this year, but still this seems a massive drop. Last year they offered 40 PK3 seats, matched 40 and waitlisted 263 (so a total of 303). This year they only offered 33 PK3 seats, matched 33 and waitlisted 141 (so a total of 174 plus 14 EA so total of 188). For K the situation is downright alarming. Last year they offered 90 seats, matched 80 and waitlisted 1 (total of 81). This year they offered 60 seats, matched 56 and waitlisted 6 (total of 62). Plus 16 EA matches, so total of 78. So two years in a row, they haven't filled their seats in the initial lottery for K. You can say "numbers don't lie", but you have to account for all the numbers. Anyone care to explain?

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Anonymous wrote:I would say DCI is becoming the Deal middle school EOTP although it’s not part of DCPS.

It has a critical mass of grade level and above grade level kids. It’s a big enough school but not too big, with the plus that it doesn’t have the overcrowding issue like Deal. It has great facilities, and a large offering of sports, clubs, and extracurriculars like Deal. It has an IB curriculum like Deal.

Your choices for middle schools EOTP are DCI, Latin, and Basis. We toured Latin and Basis and the facilities are sadly lacking and so are the sports, clubs, and extracurriculars. We are not even going to play the lottery for Latin or Basis although we have a high performing kid. I’m sure many feeder families like us have made similar decisions.

Of the 3 middle schools above, DCI is most similar to your typical suburban middle school with good academics, facilities, sports, and extracurriculars. We had that experience, and it’s what we want for our DS.

DCI has passed the point now where they have buy in from middle and UMC families. And as the overwhelming majority of families track to DCI, the cohort of kids will become stronger and stronger, because the cohort coming up the feeder schools are stronger than what they were just 3 or 5 years ago.

Non-feeder kids won’t have any chance.

Hello Booster. Do you mean that the Spanish feeders will be allowed to consume the extra French seats?

I’m not a booster. What above is not true about my post? We looked hard at Latin and Basis and passed.

As to your question, I don’t know. But what is stopping the school from doing that when the expansion years hit.

I was under the impression that they have to offer some non-feeder seats per their charter agreement. But you seem to be awfully positive about it-- funny because Mundo continues to be a mess, Stokes continues to lag academically, and Latin and BASIS continue to appeal to feeder families within my social circle.

I was also under the impression that they have to offers some non-feeder seats per their charter agreement and (presuming from) prior year lottery data, so I checked. Looks like we were wrong:

https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/DCI-Restated-Agreement-2014_0.pdf

"3.2 Enrollment. A. Pursuant to §38-1802.01(c-1) of the Act, enrollment in DCI shall
be open to students in such grades who are residents of the District of Columbia, with priority
given to students who are matriculating from any one of the Member Schools (“Continuing
Member School Students”) in each case to the extent of the number of seats reserved for the
Continuing Students from each Member School. Students who are not residents of the District of
Columbia may be enrolled at DCI to the extent permitted by §38-1802.06 of the Act. DCI shall
determine whether each student resides in the District of Columbia according to guidelines
established by the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education (“OSSE”)."


Their five year report advises them to expand enrollment in order to accomodate incoming sixth graders from member schools AND applicants who don't have the member school designation. But, as others have said, there's the question of space.

https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/2019-2-28-DCI-5-Year-Review_Redacted_0.pdf

"The school has thus far been able to accommodate all students from all member schools
within its enrollment ceiling and has been able to provide appropriate facilities for
incoming students, in addition to having space to admit students applying from schools
other than the five member schools. However, most of the member schools have expanded
since the formation of DCI, and those that have not yet expanded have indicated they plan
to do so in the future. Most recently, E.W. Stokes PCS expanded to offer a campus in Ward
7, the first dual-language public charter school to operate East of the Anacostia River.
These expansions typically begin in lower grades, meaning that larger matriculating
classes can be foreseen in a few years. Therefore, it is likely that in the next several years,
DCI will need to expand its current program to be able to enroll all rising 6th graders from
its member schools and accept students from outside the member schools."

Then what DCI is likely going to do is if there are extra feeder seats not taken say from the French track, then the feeder kids from the Spanish track will have preference and get them and it won’t go to non-feeder kids.

Above is the obvious route as DCI was specifically created to provide a middle and high school path for the feeder school, they have a close working relationship with the feeder schools, and it’s to their benefit to have kids coming in who have had many years of the language.

No, feeder students don’t get first dibs on unfilled feeder starts from other schools. They go into the common waitlist with all of the non-preference kids. That’s current policy and not going to matter soon enough when all schools have more graduates than DCI seats. https://dcinternationalschool.org/about-us/faqs/

Wouldn't the feeder kids be on the top of the wait-list?

No, they would be ranked according to their master lottery number with everyone else. The preference only applies to the feeder school's seats. That's according to the My School DC rep - please call and confirm if you're curious. I would love to know if someone else gets the same answer that I did!

I called MSDC and asked (among other things) about whether sibling preference could be stacked with feeder preference and was told that DCI has not yet decided the answer to this question. Essentially, the language in the charter is ambiguous and DCI has never had to make a decision, and so while DCI is aware that they need to make a decision, the current answer is "we don't know whether students will be able to stack feeder preference with sibling preference."

The logic for stacking preferences really doesn't hold at the middle and high school level. Without a school bus system, it makes sense to prioritize having elementary siblings in one location. But by middle and high school, they can commute on their own and stacking preferences makes it much more inequitable for students that don't have an older sibling already. Stacking preferences means that kids with siblings are guaranteed a seat and everyone else has MUCH lower odds. How is that fair to the school community as a whole?

Except I'm pretty sure all other middle schools (Latin, BASIS, DCPS, etc) provide sibling preference. I hear what you're saying, but not stacking the preferences would make DCI the outlier.

But people haven’t been planning on a specific middle and high school pathway for those other schools. You spend 8 years at a feeder only to realize your non-preference odds are 20%, then how would you feel? How disruptive would that be to the upper grades of the feeder schools when families start bailing for the suburbs because they’re odds suck?

That's already happening. It's part of why MV upper grades are struggling so much.

Huh? Aren’t you tired of repeating the same with no data to prove your point?

Mundo Verde is a chicken and egg situation. DCI is still a guarantee for now, but families are leaving in elementary grades because of the instability in the school. Which makes the school more unstable in those grades.

Can you point me to the data?

You can see retention and re-enrollment data here.
https://osse.dc.gov/dcschoolreportcard/schoolsnapshot

When people's oldest child is not doing well because the upper grades are a mess, and their youngest child might not get into DCI anyway, why stay?

Their retention is still higher than a lot of DCPS schools, and similar to let’s say Shepherd (who has good middle schools). I am not sure why you are always trolling about a school that you have no experience with, but my kids go to MV and the things that I read here are just false or extremely exaggerated.

People leave Shepherd in mid-elementary for private Jewish schools. That’s not a great example because it’s very neighborhood specific. The waitlists speak for themselves. MV over expanded and is struggling in a way the other DCI feeders aren’t (yet?).

Enrollment data tell you nothing, since you don't know why people are leaving, but here you have other schools loved by DCUM with similar numbers.

Janney 86%
Lafayette 84%
Marie Reed 84%
Oyster 87%
Sheperd 88%
Langley 70% (this really is a struggling school)

It's all well and good to talk about re-enrollment, but let's look at the full data set. Here are some other data points from similar schools.

ITDS 89.2%
Yu Ying 94.86%
LAMB 92.99%

I'm not sure how the mid-year withdrawal data fits with the re-enrollment data, but I will note MV P St is losing a lot of kids mid-year. More than 5% of the total enrollment, and more than a lot of similar schools.

Also, in the OSSE enrollment audit data, the total enrollment at P St. is 34 kids LOWER this year than it was the prior school year. What's that about? Not a positive sign.

MV P St's waitlists are also considerably shorter than they were last year. I know waitlists are generally down this year, but still this seems a massive drop. Last year they offered 40 PK3 seats, matched 40 and waitlisted 263 (so a total of 303). This year they only offered 33 PK3 seats, matched 33 and waitlisted 141 (so a total of 174 plus 14 EA so total of 188). For K the situation is downright alarming. Last year they offered 90 seats, matched 80 and waitlisted 1 (total of 81). This year they offered 60 seats, matched 56 and waitlisted 6 (total of 62). Plus 16 EA matches, so total of 78. So two years in a row, they haven't filled their seats in the initial lottery for K. You can say "numbers don't lie", but you have to account for all the numbers. Anyone care to explain?

I think the answer is obvious- there isn’t a lot of other choices. For me my inbound is not an option for middle school, so we are sticking it out despite being deeply unhappy with nearly every decision our executive director makes. I know lots of people at Mundo who are deeply unhappy- high teacher turnover, weak academics, etc. The majority just don’t have the funds or ability to make a sudden move. So you supplement- kumon, mathnesium, private tutors, etc. Even those with the willingness and ability to move are reenrolling this year just in case - you never know if a home sale falls through or your housing in Virginia or Maryland gets too expensive or is unavailable. For us, we don’t leave lamb despite being unhappy because we have 2 older kids in dci and don’t want to risk the youngest not getting a spot in a few short years. Sure- we got into stokes and Mundo Verde which seem even worse than lamb. Oyster is across down and has a lot of downsides too. I think the reenrollment numbers only tell you how hard it is to switch schools- nothing beyond that.