2024 DCPS Lottery
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Anonymous
| I applied to all the schools everyone says on previous threads are almost impossible to get into. Brent, Maury, School within School and Ludlow Taylor for 2nd grade. Crossing fingers and toes. I applied after I noticed my son's current school is seriously lacking in math. I have also observed some bullying on the playground. I hope he gets in and for the rest of you playing this DCPS lottery for the 2024-2025 school year "May the odds be ever in your favor." |
Anonymous
| You should most likely get into ONE of those schools for 2nd grade. |
Anonymous
| Are you sure Brent's math curriculum is better than what you have at your current school? Are you just going by Brent's popularity or do you have actual information? (I did not find Brent math instruction to be that great, but your school could be doing a worse job; just as long as you aren't going by general reputation alone.) |
Anonymous
No school in existence is going to have *zero* bullying |
Anonymous
|
Via Standardized test score results, absolutely Brent is doing much better than most schools in D.C. and is doing much better than my son's current school. Almost three times better.
On the zero bullying you are right. It is why my son has been in martial arts for a while. However, what I noticed was the general teacher's lack of response to the bullying. That was what I found worrying. |
Anonymous
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Just curious, How do you know your kids school is lacking math?
Just an example…My second grader got some optional homework. We did at home and he was able to do it by himself (During the P/T conference the teacher explained that homework was about what was taught the week before.) I was talking to other moms about homework and this mom was convinced that the school was not teaching what was in the homework because her kids couldn’t do it, so she just didn’t do it or talk to the teacher about it. You cannot wait until you get MAP results to see how behind your kid is at school. |
Anonymous
To echo what the prior poster said, make sure to actually talk to folks to get a comparison before you change your kids school setting. Worst case scenario is you would have to change again. There have been a lot of posts on here about Brent families feeling like they need to use mathnasium or beast academy to supplement. I have also met people who have shared that same concern about other schools in the upper grades. Again, not saying that it is 100% accurate for all families but it is worth looking into depending on what you need. Standardized tests correlate to a lot of things, including the education level of the parents and how often they are able to supplement. The quality of instruction is part of it but by no means the only piece. There was another thread a week or so ago talking about how some of the strongest instruction happens in schools that don't have the highest test scores, because those teachers are working twice as hard to help bring kids from behind up to grade level. So if a higher achieving kid ends up with one of those teachers they really excel. I read that post (of course, I can't remember what thread it was on now) It really resonated because my kids are now in upper elementary an middle school, having gone through a title 1 school that may not have the best scores. However, the teacher experience and growth the kids show is huge, and our kids have really done well. Anyway, just food for thought and my regular reminder not to judge schools by test scores alone because there's a lot going on behind the scenes both for high scoring schools, and less high scoring schools. |
Anonymous
| My son is doing better than his peers in math. I am afraid he will not be challenged next year and that is why I applied at the better schools. Seeing how easy math was for him, and how easy the math is in the school led me on the journey to investigate how different DC schools were performing in math and reading as he is well beyond their level of reading also. That is how I came to discover the DC lottery for the first time. It is also how I came to discover Brent, Maury, School within School, and Ludlow Taylor as the high performers for both math and reading in the Capitol Hill area. |
Anonymous
Just as a flag: Brent is about the head into swing space. Because very few kids stay for 5th (way under half the class), a rising 2nd grader would get a ton of disruption & chaos for limited time in a new building. I would absolutely not do that (even though I think Brent is generally a fine school). Make sure you have Brent listed in its true order of preference on your list (and it's not too late to reorder if you didn't know about swing space), because it will knock you off waiting lists for schools you list under it if you get in (and it may be an easier admit than expected this year because of the swing space angle). |
Anonymous
+1. |
Anonymous
SWS is anti-differentiation. If you have a high performing student (higher than grade level), I would absolutely not choose there looking for extra challenge. If you're just looking for grade level challenge, it's a fine choice with a large cohort of high performers. |
Anonymous
I would not assume that. L-T is historically the easiest of those to get into, but picked up 50 additional students between last year and this one. The rising 2nd grade is pretty big. Brent might actually be easiest with people avoiding swing space. |
Anonymous
| Good luck OP! I hope you either land somewhere better or that your current situation improves. I might reach out to the school regarding bullying you've witnessed. I sometimes feel our school is lackluster in its response to certain playground behaviors. It's worth it to at least reach out. |
Anonymous
|
OP, my kids at Brent were not encouraged to get ahead of their grade level in math, as of a couple of years ago. I admit that I may not have advocated for them correctly.
Brent had a "fifth grade math for fourth graders" class maybe 5 years ago, but canceled it the year before pandemic (again, maybe it's back now, I don't know). Things may have changed now, as things tend to shift quickly, but you really should talk to current Brent families if you get a lottery spot, before enrolling. The one thing that may be different is that among families whose kids are not doing well in math, either parents step in or hire tutors. So in that sense it still may be a better atmosphere overall, but no effort was spent on encouraging advanced kids to push forward. Teachers told me several times that they are working on going "deeper," and my kid was bored, but luckily enjoyed being left alone and focused on reading. |
Anonymous
| What is swing space? |