Is there data on student retention by school and grade?

[Anonymous]

One data point I’d love to have for elementary schools is what percentage of kids in, say, the 1st grade at a school will finish out 4th grade there. Speaks to community, transience, how happy families are there, etc, and would have a real impact on any individual kid’s experience. Even if you’ve got a great school with great teachers, if half your friends leave every year, that’s rough.

This site kinda gets to that:

https://edscape.dc.gov/page/student-enrollment-pathways

But since it doesn’t tell you the total number of students each year, and most of the bars are “n < 10” you can’t calculate a percent. I guess you could cross reference with enrollment by year and grade but that would be onerous. Does this data exist anywhere in a more digestible format?

[Anonymous]

Not that I'm aware of.

I know they utilize historical retention ratios in the budget process so maybe if you looked in the budget process documents. https://dcpsbudget.com/

I will say, even at schools that perform reasonably well, retention isn't that high. People leave for all kinds of reasons and this is just a more transient area. And remember, just because people change schools doesn't mean they move away. It's not like living in a small town where the only way to leave the school is to leave the town. My DD has stayed friends with kids who left her school, and was reunited with some of them when she changed schools for 5th.

[Anonymous]

Even if you did cross-reference by year and grade, it wouldn't tell you what you want to know. Because you wouldn't know if the kids who left were recent additions or had been there all along.

[Anonymous]

I don't think it matters that much socially. They're going to change up the classroom groupings so your kids friend patterns will change anyway. The problem is if the higher performers leave and are replaced with kids who are less prepared, so the high performing group shrinks and the average level drifts downward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think it matters that much socially. They're going to change up the classroom groupings so your kids friend patterns will change anyway. The problem is if the higher performers leave and are replaced with kids who are less prepared, so the high performing group shrinks and the average level drifts downward.

Honestly given that lower income people are much much more transient than high income, it could come out as a wash. It would be hard to interpret lack of retention as any sort of signal about school quality.

[Anonymous]

Also, urban setting with people moving in and out because of elections; doge; etc.

We had one kid leave for private because the parents went there and a spot opened and finances were available. That wasn't their plan, their younger child remains and they would have finished the school (ES) if possible.

If the oldest stayed in DCPS I don't think she would have gone to the pathway MS school because they moved and the commute for ES, work and MS would be insane.

[Anonymous]

This Edscape page kind of gets at it. https://edscape.dc.gov/page/grade-progression-ratio

But the dashboard seems to be down at the moment.