Hypothetical consequences of a lottery change

[Anonymous]

At my old Title 1 elementary school, I noticed there were a lot of white non-Latino families in lower grades and few or none in upper grades. I noticed most of the PTO parents were PreK and Kinder parents and by the time their kids got to 1st or 2nd they were gone via lottery. It honestly kind of annoys me that people come in trying to change the school but leave when something better comes up.

It got me thinking, what if, as a condition of accepting a Pre-K lottery spot, you weren’t allowed to use the lottery until Middle School, forcing you to commit to that school (or move)?

I’m not at all saying this should be the rule, I’m just curious what would be the outcomes, intentional and unintentional? How would you play differently if this was the case?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my old Title 1 elementary school, I noticed there were a lot of white non-Latino families in lower grades and few or none in upper grades. I wnoticed most of the PTO parents were PreK and Kinder parents and by the time their kids got to 1st or 2nd they were gone via lottery. It honestly kind of annoys me that people come in trying to change the school but leave when something better comes up.

It got me thinking, what if, as a condition of accepting a Pre-K lottery spot, you weren’t allowed to use the lottery until Middle School, forcing you to commit to that school (or move)?

I’m not at all saying this should be the rule, I’m just curious what would be the outcomes, intentional and unintentional? How would you play differently if this was the case?

I’m guessing they ran against no one and did their best for the school while there. Chasing out these types or, honestly, even resenting them is *so* self-defeating.

I think the most direct result of this policy change would be people unwilling to try schools and immediately moving to the burbs. You know, how DC was less than 20 years ago.

[Anonymous]

another way of achieving similar results would be to no longer have feeder rights if you lottery in to an OOB school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my old Title 1 elementary school, I noticed there were a lot of white non-Latino families in lower grades and few or none in upper grades. I noticed most of the PTO parents were PreK and Kinder parents and by the time their kids got to 1st or 2nd they were gone via lottery. It honestly kind of annoys me that people come in trying to change the school but leave when something better comes up.

It got me thinking, what if, as a condition of accepting a Pre-K lottery spot, you weren’t allowed to use the lottery until Middle School, forcing you to commit to that school (or move)?

I’m not at all saying this should be the rule, I’m just curious what would be the outcomes, intentional and unintentional? How would you play differently if this was the case?

Are you for real??? If you put your crazy idea in place and forced families to stay at title 1 schools then no one would put their kid in ECE in the school. They would move to the burbs and the schools would do worst.

Are you really that niave? You must be if you don’t understand or know why families leave.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are confused. You should be asking yourself why there aren't more parents of older kids attending PTO meetings or joining the board. If the answer is that the parents of older kids don't want to do these things, well you've just discovered why those other parents left. They were tired of being at a school with low parental involvement rates, and they also saw the writing on the wall and realized the burden on them as one of the few parents who volunteers and participates would only increase the longer they were at the school.

I am one of these parents. I didn't want to leave my neighborhood school and I wasn't trying to "change it" via volunteering. But I wanted my family to be at a school with higher parent participation rates, and now we are. We value family participation and it just didn't seem like something our old school cared about. So few families did it and the administration was often actively hostile to it.

[Anonymous]

I was a white parent at a title 1 school where maybe 10% of the students were white. I lived in bounds. Not every white parent is a lottery pick. We loved the school but left in 5th because the feeder pattern for middle and HS was terrible.

[Anonymous]

People would just not attend the school at all. They would move.

There is nothing gained by coercing people or trying to limit their options. It doesn't work. Its not a price people are willing to pay. The only thing that works is improving the quality of your school. It's very hard and frustrating when you don't have a good middle/high school feeder, but still, quality improvement is the only answer. And if your principal doesn't get it or isn't good at their job, there's little you can do. And I say this as a former PTO leader at a Title I.

[Anonymous]

It wouldn't work. You gotta stop fantasizing about rules changes or demographics coming to save you. It won't work. I would never have attended such a school in the first place, because I understand that it wouldn't work-- this rule wouldn't deliver the "critical mass" or long-term investment people are hoping for. And even if it somehow did, it wouldn't be enough.

I say this as a former PTA leader at a Title I-- a Title I so troubled that it couldn't even fill up two PK3 classrooms (this was 8 years ago). I used to think about these kinds of rules changes all the time, because I was casting about for something that would make a big impact. But it was a fantasy. A change of principal was key to turning things around. We were thrilled to retain kids from PK3 to PK4. We were absolutely overjoyed (and pretty surprised!) to retain them into K and 1st. Don't discount the benefit of retaining families for a few years! Even a little bit of continuity of kids and of families makes a big difference. Yes, people don't always stay long-- but they often have very good reasons for that, and their support while they attend is often genuine and valuable. I wouldn't want to give it up. A motivated ECE/lower elementary parent group can make a difference even if they don't stay. The funding they bring in, their volunteering efforts, whatever-- the school gets to keep it after they leave. Eventually I left too, but grants I wrote back then are still paying out their term. The walls I painted are still painted. Et cetera.

I'm now at a charter school that is doing pretty well and goes through 8th. And I've learned a lot from that. I've learned that people come and go from DC. Even a well-performing school with a decent middle school will have turnover, because this is a city where people come and go. And every school has people who are unhappy with it-- even if test scores overall are good. The difference is, this school is able to attract strong students, because of its reputation for quality teaching and its adequate middle school. So the school is able to maintain overall academic performance despite turnover. Stopping turnover is impossible. It will not happen.

I've also seen schools with a strong cohort of supposedly committed higher-income parents falter. Two Rivers, CMI, and SSMA are examples. It happens for a lot of reasons but the quality of leadership is at the root. Controlling your own middle school and having a lot of parents who say they will stay is just not enough. The only thing that's enough is 1) quality academics and 2) teachers and staff skilled at managing behavior. Those things stem from leadership, and if you don't have a leader who understands those things and is willing to implement change to improve them, it'll be very hard to see any significant improvement. It breaks my heart when parents work so hard but DCPS or their charter lets them down with poor leadership (Miner, I see you).

Anyway, that's just my take on things, but I hope it is helpful to you, OP. You can get a lot of good advice on this board from people with Title I experience if you ask for it.

[Anonymous]

We stayed at our Title 1 school through fourth grade because we liked it. That's the only way you can keep families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We stayed at our Title 1 school through fourth grade because we liked it. That's the only way you can keep families.

This.

Losing people in 1st and 2nd means there's a lot of room for improvement within the elementary school. Losing people after 4th means it's about middle/high.

[Anonymous]

OP, please report back when your kids are in late elementary.

I can imagine I said things like this when my kids were in ECE. But then you get to late elementary/middle school and see the classroom and teaching start to break down to serve kids who have very severe deficits that have gotten worse over the years, and you realize no amount of volunteering will help.

Just look to middle school. These schools are judged solely by their quality -- the "parent involvement" has no impact.

[Anonymous]

People don't just move because they are looking for something "better" or even just because of MS feed. Sometimes a school is just not a good fit. We left our school in 2nd because the school culture was very sports-focused and our shy, un-sporty kid struggled to fit in. We moved not for demographics or MS feed but because the new school had more cultural focus on, and after school activities, focused on things our kid was into, like writing and art.

DC is a school lottery system. People are going to move around for a variety of reasons because the system is set up to make that possible. I do sometimes wish we lived in a place where everyone just attended their IB schools, there would be advantages to that. But we don't. If there is a way to use the lottery to improve your child's school experience, whether that's academically or socially or otherwise, why wouldn't you? And why would you judge other parents for doing so?

[Anonymous]

As a white mom of a child in ECE who has also been very involved with their Title I school's PTO, the type of comments from OP are so demoralizing. It's frustrating when someone subscribes motive for another person volunteering based on their race and age of child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a white mom of a child in ECE who has also been very involved with their Title I school's PTO, the type of comments from OP are so demoralizing. It's frustrating when someone subscribes motive for another person volunteering based on their race and age of child.

Yes, characterizing the involvement of ECE parents in the PTO as "trying to change" the school is not an accurate reflection of why most parents joint the PTO when their kids are in early grades. For me it was just a desire to be involved, get to know other parents, and support whatever the school was already doing however I could. I wasn't trying to take over or tell anyone how to run the school. In fact most of the time it was the opposite -- as a newer parent at the school, getting involved in the PTO was a way for me to learn from veteran parents, teachers, and administrators about the school. I just didn't know anything when it all started. I also have an only child so every single age/grade/phase is a first time experience for me, I've found the more information I have, the better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my old Title 1 elementary school, I noticed there were a lot of white non-Latino families in lower grades and few or none in upper grades. I noticed most of the PTO parents were PreK and Kinder parents and by the time their kids got to 1st or 2nd they were gone via lottery. It honestly kind of annoys me that people come in trying to change the school but leave when something better comes up.

It got me thinking, what if, as a condition of accepting a Pre-K lottery spot, you weren’t allowed to use the lottery until Middle School, forcing you to commit to that school (or move)?

I’m not at all saying this should be the rule, I’m just curious what would be the outcomes, intentional and unintentional? How would you play differently if this was the case?

Are you for real??? If you put your crazy idea in place and forced families to stay at title 1 schools then no one would put their kid in ECE in the school. They would move to the burbs and the schools would do worst.

Are you really that niave? You must be if you don’t understand or know why families leave.

Thanks for reading the whole post.