Fellow PK3 newbies, post your lottery nerves here!
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Anonymous
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I feel like I’m back in the 2WW. The deadline hasn’t even passed yet and I am so worried about where my son will place. Most of us have the true pandemic babies and I worry about the influx of kids and if this year will be radically different bc of the birthing boom. There’s also less availability due to all the preferences. My boring app only has an only child with a not great IB, so I really need literally anywhere else to accept me.
Even if it’s just me typing here, this will be my place to come and have my semi-freak out before going back to life as usual. Has your child been in daycare? Nanny? Mine was home for 18 months but has been in center-based care since 6/21. He’s good at school but it took a while for him to adjust and I’m concerned about starting the process again. When he moved to the 2y class, he kept talking about his old teacher but periodically would see her in the building so I can only imagine how much more it’ll be in a huge school with everything new. Just wondering if it’s just me that’s literally counting down the days until 3/31??? |
Anonymous
| Is there really a birthing boom? Cite? |
Anonymous
OP here. I just did a quick google search and found the articles below. While not super significant, it’s hard for first-time parents/parents of 1 child with all of the preferences allowed to siblings trying to get the few available positions per school. https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2022/06/the-pandemic-baby-bust-and-rebound “Kearney spoke at a recent webinar hosted by the National Academies’ Societal Experts Action Network (SEAN) and Committee on Population that explored how the pandemic affected birth rates in the U.S., along with longer-term trends in birth rates. Added to peoples’ economic concerns, she said, was a public health crisis that might lead them to worry about health implications and the ability to access medical facilities. The closest comparable event is the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918-1919, which led to a large decrease in birth rates despite the absence of modern contraceptives. By analyzing data on birth rates for late 2020 and 2021, Kearney and her colleagues calculated that there were 62,000 fewer conceptions than usual during the first few months of the pandemic, which led to a baby bust six to nine months later. (That number also may include some early-term miscarriages and abortions, she noted.) But that trend reversed in summer and fall 2020, with 51,000 more conceptions than usual, which suggests that many people delayed their conceptions, said Kearney.” https://time.com/6223625/covid-pandemic-birth-rates/ “While there was in fact an overall reduction in the birth rate—measured as the annual number of births per thousand people in a population—across the country, the NBER researchers, analyzing data and microdata from the National Center for Health Statistics and the California Department of Health, determined that the decrease didn’t look the way many observers had predicted it would, with births driven down across the board. Rather, travel restrictions likely played a role: The rate of births from women born outside the U.S., which accounted for nearly 23% of births in 2019, plummeted in 2020. And soon after, the rate of births for U.S.-born mothers began to grow.” |
Anonymous
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Just tell us your list and we'll tell you the likely outcome.
If you're going to be successful as a parent in this school system, you will need to find your chill. |
Anonymous
| I understand this is stressful, but please do yourself and your child a favor and try to put this in perspective. The system is not perfect but we're lucky to live somewhere with universal free PK. You say your IB is not so great - for PK? Almost all DCPS are solid on PK. Your child is going to be okay. If you're worried about him adjusting to a large school, did you add some smaller schools to your list? There are some schools that have ECE-only campuses, or are just small in general... |
Anonymous
| Preferences didn't change this year - what do you mean "less availability"? You're dealing with the same preferences that we all have. |
Anonymous
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I don’t know if there was a birthing boom for first children during the pandemic, but anecdotally people of my acquaintance who already had a child when the pandemic tended to delay having a second, third, etc. (or decided to stick with one). Probably because finding consistent
childcare was super challenging. So I have a theory that there may be fewer kids with sibling preference entering the lottery over the next couple years…. |
Anonymous
| My 3yo was born pre pandemic (Jan 2020). I’m pretty sure we’ll get into our in bounds school (it’s not popular for non locals) and if not we’ll stay at our daycare. Honestly not terribly excited to start having to deal with all the random days off/summer camps/etc. 🤷♀️ |
Anonymous
Perhaps OP means that they aren't eligible for Equitable Access preferences, which are rolling out to more schools this year and likely reduce the number of non-preference seats? I don't think it's really enough to make a noticeable difference, but that's the only change I can think of. |
Anonymous
Thanks, I know everything will work out and he’ll for sure get into Bunker Hill if nothing else. It is good for ECE but my concern is for the years past that. I live in Brookland and work in SW so that’s why the list seems haphazard. I mapped out typical commutes in Waze and WMATA from home to school and school to work so these are all doable in theory. School Selections Ranked in Your Preferred Order 1st Choice Inspired Teaching Demonstration PCS https://www.inspiredteachingschool.org/apps/pages/learn 2nd Choice DC Bilingual PCS http://dcbilingual.org/ 3rd Choice Washington Yu Ying PCS http://www.washingtonyuying.org 4th Choice E.W. Stokes – Brookland (French Language Program) https://ewstokes.org 5th Choice E.W. Stokes – Brookland (Spanish Language Program) https://ewstokes.org 6th Choice School-Within-School http://schoolwithinschool.org/ 7th Choice School Without Walls @ Francis-Stevens http://www.swwfs.org 8th Choice Latin American Montessori Bilingual (LAMB) PCS https://www.lambpcs.org/ 9th Choice Burroughs Elementary School https://www.jbecstem.com/ 10th Choice Center City PCS – Brightwood http://www.centercitypcs.org/how-to-enroll/new-students/registration/ 11th Choice Langdon Elementary School http://Langdondc.com 12th Choice Bunker Hill Elementary School http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Bunker+Hill+Elementary+School |
Anonymous
| You're sure to get Bunker Hill, so no worries! ITS is a lot easier to get into starting in K, so you're very likely to have a spot there before it really matters that much. It will be fine! I promise. |
Anonymous
| The good news is that if you don't get into any of these, or you decide you don't want Bunker Hill, you'll have a good shot after the lottery at Appletree SW or Stevens (both of which are PK3 only). |
Anonymous
sorry, PK3 and PK4 only! |
Anonymous
Thank you for this. I am extremely happy that he has so many options for quality care. I tend to get overwhelmed easily and was just obsessing over this. I’m going to try to “big picture” this and see that everything really will work out. I just wish 3/31 was here already. |
Anonymous
Yeah I saw someone mentioned in a post that YY would have less seats due to increased equitable access and how other schools were introducing it too. |