What information do individual schools have about lottery applications?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it true that your enrolled school knows if you’re playing the lottery (I.e., considering leaving)?

If so that’s pretty lousy, as it could leave school administrators with the feeling that your family is not totally invested in staying.

They know and and it does lack or investment. Also, administrators have eyes on local forums (Facebook groups, etc.) and they watch your school inquiries and “crossing fingers for a a good number.” School choice is school choice. But it doesn’t go unnoticed.

From myschool dc faqs:

Will the school my child is currently enrolled in be notified that I am submitting an application through the lottery?
No. My School DC does not notify students' current schools. Additionally, submitting a My School DC application does not impact your child’s enrollment at their current school.

[Anonymous]

Right. I think they just know total #s. (Eg) X 4th graders entered the lottery.

I never heard that schools you apply to know if you’re in their top 3. I think that’s made up by the PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right. I think they just know total #s. (Eg) X 4th graders entered the lottery.

I never heard that schools you apply to know if you’re in their top 3. I think that’s made up by the PP.

I feel like the admittedly drunk pp is just replying to themselves on this thread.

I’m happy at our school but played the lottery last year because I wondered if charters might more reliably open (ha!) and this year for the long shot of JKLM. I would hate for the school to think I’m not committed because I throw in an unserious app.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right. I think they just know total #s. (Eg) X 4th graders entered the lottery.

I never heard that schools you apply to know if you’re in their top 3. I think that’s made up by the PP.

No, they know how many of their lottery applicants ranked the school in their top 3. Not how many of their current students. This may not be true anymore, but I know that it was a few years ago because I was recruitment chair for the PTA and the principal showed me the document.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it true that your enrolled school knows if you’re playing the lottery (I.e., considering leaving)?

If so that’s pretty lousy, as it could leave school administrators with the feeling that your family is not totally invested in staying.

They know and and it does lack or investment. Also, administrators have eyes on local forums (Facebook groups, etc.) and they watch your school inquiries and “crossing fingers for a a good number.” School choice is school choice. But it doesn’t go unnoticed.

Funny I asked this last year and got the - they do not care answer.

Well of course they're going to say that. But they do-- especially if you are in PTO leadership or your child scores 5s/is obviously bright.

Totally agree here.

there hasn't been a PARCC test administered in 3 years. Plus they really do not care. At All.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it true that your enrolled school knows if you’re playing the lottery (I.e., considering leaving)?

If so that’s pretty lousy, as it could leave school administrators with the feeling that your family is not totally invested in staying.

They know and and it does lack or investment. Also, administrators have eyes on local forums (Facebook groups, etc.) and they watch your school inquiries and “crossing fingers for a a good number.” School choice is school choice. But it doesn’t go unnoticed.

Funny I asked this last year and got the - they do not care answer.

Well of course they're going to say that. But they do-- especially if you are in PTO leadership or your child scores 5s/is obviously bright.

Totally agree here.

there hasn't been a PARCC test administered in 3 years. Plus they really do not care. At All.

They totally do care if they are trying to get their numbers up, or if they will have to hire or lay off a teacher because of it.

[Anonymous]

Wow I really hope that thing about schools knowing which of their current families submitted lottery applications is a lie! We are/were considering moving this summer for reasons totally unrelated to schools, since we love our school. But I threw in a lottery app with a few charters in reasonable locations for our potential move this year just in case, since we have no idea where exactly we might end up. If we don't move (which is looking likely given the current state of the housing market), I can't see us leaving our current school. And if we do move, we're as likely to wind up in a nearby suburb as another part of DC, so we might be leaving for a school in MD or VA anyway, making our lottery app moot.

Anyway, I'd just hate to think our school knows about this application and thinks we are thinking of jumping ship out of dissatisfaction because nothing could be further from the truth.

I hate the lottery system. Stuff like this is dumb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it true that your enrolled school knows if you’re playing the lottery (I.e., considering leaving)?

If so that’s pretty lousy, as it could leave school administrators with the feeling that your family is not totally invested in staying.

They know and and it does lack or investment. Also, administrators have eyes on local forums (Facebook groups, etc.) and they watch your school inquiries and “crossing fingers for a a good number.” School choice is school choice. But it doesn’t go unnoticed.

Funny I asked this last year and got the - they do not care answer.

Well of course they're going to say that. But they do-- especially if you are in PTO leadership or your child scores 5s/is obviously bright.

Totally agree here.

there hasn't been a PARCC test administered in 3 years. Plus they really do not care. At All.

They totally do care if they are trying to get their numbers up, or if they will have to hire or lay off a teacher because of it.

You really don't understand how the PARCC scores were used. Forget that there is no current data. No one gets hired or fired over PARCC scores

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow I really hope that thing about schools knowing which of their current families submitted lottery applications is a lie! We are/were considering moving this summer for reasons totally unrelated to schools, since we love our school. But I threw in a lottery app with a few charters in reasonable locations for our potential move this year just in case, since we have no idea where exactly we might end up. If we don't move (which is looking likely given the current state of the housing market), I can't see us leaving our current school. And if we do move, we're as likely to wind up in a nearby suburb as another part of DC, so we might be leaving for a school in MD or VA anyway, making our lottery app moot.

Anyway, I'd just hate to think our school knows about this application and thinks we are thinking of jumping ship out of dissatisfaction because nothing could be further from the truth.

I hate the lottery system. Stuff like this is dumb.

The school doesn't care and it's a given that parents will keep options open. This is especially true but not limited to approaching MS. Sometimes it's positioning siblings to have better options. Or a family wants language immersion. Or commute related to job. The schools generally want to retain families who want to stay but they don't take it personally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it true that your enrolled school knows if you’re playing the lottery (I.e., considering leaving)?

If so that’s pretty lousy, as it could leave school administrators with the feeling that your family is not totally invested in staying.

They know and and it does lack or investment. Also, administrators have eyes on local forums (Facebook groups, etc.) and they watch your school inquiries and “crossing fingers for a a good number.” School choice is school choice. But it doesn’t go unnoticed.

Funny I asked this last year and got the - they do not care answer.

Well of course they're going to say that. But they do-- especially if you are in PTO leadership or your child scores 5s/is obviously bright.

Totally agree here.

there hasn't been a PARCC test administered in 3 years. Plus they really do not care. At All.

They totally do care if they are trying to get their numbers up, or if they will have to hire or lay off a teacher because of it.

You really don't understand how the PARCC scores were used. Forget that there is no current data. No one gets hired or fired over PARCC scores

No, teachers get hired or fired based on enrollment. If a ton of students leave, or a ton of students want to enter, they may have to make a hiring decision. It's not based on PARCC.

But they do care if their high performers leave, even without PARCC they can tell by iready or just generally smartness of kid.

[Anonymous]

It's the other parents you have to worry about finding out.

They're the ones who take it personally; not anyone at the school.

[Anonymous]

This thread is so bizarre. I refuse to believe that my children are such special snowflakes that anyone but their friends would really care if they left the school. And I definitely don’t think admin are trolling Facebook pages to see who lotteries? Like wtf. Our principal looks like she’s two covid positive notifications from a nervous breakdown, I really doubt she’s checking dcum threads and the like.

[Anonymous]

I think in smaller schools everyone is so in each other's business that you know who is trying to leave. Especially if it's a charter that does a lot of fundraising, because losing certain families will hit your annual fund pretty hard. Those families will also make a lot of noise on their way out if the are dissatisfied with the school. Admin and the PTA is definitely paying attention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think in smaller schools everyone is so in each other's business that you know who is trying to leave. Especially if it's a charter that does a lot of fundraising, because losing certain families will hit your annual fund pretty hard. Those families will also make a lot of noise on their way out if the are dissatisfied with the school. Admin and the PTA is definitely paying attention.

This. Or if someone does a ton of work for the PTA-- there might not be anyone else willing to do it. Or if there are only two kids who are way ahead in math, your kid and my kid, then I would definitely care. But would it be my business to gossip about? Absolutely not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think in smaller schools everyone is so in each other's business that you know who is trying to leave. Especially if it's a charter that does a lot of fundraising, because losing certain families will hit your annual fund pretty hard. Those families will also make a lot of noise on their way out if the are dissatisfied with the school. Admin and the PTA is definitely paying attention.

This. Or if someone does a ton of work for the PTA-- there might not be anyone else willing to do it. Or if there are only two kids who are way ahead in math, your kid and my kid, then I would definitely care. But would it be my business to gossip about? Absolutely not.

And because at certain schools, as the years go on, the cohort of higher-performing kids gets smaller and smaller. So everyone's asking themselves if this is the year their kid won't have an appropriate reading group or whatever. And they all know they have to leave because the middle school feeder sucks, the only question is when.