DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Creative Minds is too far for you and it wouldn't be worth it. They don't have good scores relative to their demographics, and they're planning to move locations in the next 5 years or so. And they experienced a big drop in enrollment this year.

Suggest you look into Seaton and Thomson.

Any insight on why they experienced a big drop in enrollment?

I don't know. I've always thought it was overrated so maybe people are catching on. Maybe the possibility of them moving locations is putting people off.

CMI is one of those schools that seems so great to PK parents but then falters at the transition to more serious academics in middle elementary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Creative Minds is too far for you and it wouldn't be worth it. They don't have good scores relative to their demographics, and they're planning to move locations in the next 5 years or so. And they experienced a big drop in enrollment this year.

Suggest you look into Seaton and Thomson.

Any insight on why they experienced a big drop in enrollment?

I don't know. I've always thought it was overrated so maybe people are catching on. Maybe the possibility of them moving locations is putting people off.

CMI is one of those schools that seems so great to PK parents but then falters at the transition to more serious academics in middle elementary.

I have friends who went there and got out, and said their kids learned literally nothing at CMI in middle elementary. Lotteried into good DCPS schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Creative Minds is too far for you and it wouldn't be worth it. They don't have good scores relative to their demographics, and they're planning to move locations in the next 5 years or so. And they experienced a big drop in enrollment this year.

Suggest you look into Seaton and Thomson.

Thomson parent with friends at Seaton (and Creative Minds). I second this!

Happy to answer questions about Thomson and I am sure Seaton parents can be helpful too. We love and highly recommend Thomson (our in-bound). We attended a Seaton open house before we moved to the Thomson boundary and were impressed. Friends' kids are having a good experience at Seaton. Now that both schools feed John Francis, I think they're great, under-the-radar options. (Especially Thomson, but I'm totally biased there).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Creative Minds is too far for you and it wouldn't be worth it. They don't have good scores relative to their demographics, and they're planning to move locations in the next 5 years or so. And they experienced a big drop in enrollment this year.

Suggest you look into Seaton and Thomson.

Thomson parent with friends at Seaton (and Creative Minds). I second this!

Happy to answer questions about Thomson and I am sure Seaton parents can be helpful too. We love and highly recommend Thomson (our in-bound). We attended a Seaton open house before we moved to the Thomson boundary and were impressed. Friends' kids are having a good experience at Seaton. Now that both schools feed John Francis, I think they're great, under-the-radar options. (Especially Thomson, but I'm totally biased there).

Same poster, adding that another friend is having a great experience at Cleveland. From what she has said, I think it's another under-valued option, especially if you like Spanish immersion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's a wild list, geographically.

If you tell us the grade you're going into and how long you plan to stay in DC, and what your in-boundary school is, people can be quite helpful.

My child will start Pre-k 3. My in-boundary school is Van Ness, but I’m willing to commute for the right school. The list of schools I listed were just a few schools that were given to me to review.

Have you been to an open house at Van Ness? Go before going anywhere else -- you might be pleasantly surprised, and there would be many benefits to your life (commute, neighbors).

K is a much better year to try the lottery for other, better schools, if that is what you want.

My kids both attended PK at Van Ness (as well as the rest of elementary), and it really has a fabulous PK program and a wonderful diverse community of families. It's been nice living in the same neighborhood where our kids go to school and most of their friends also live--lots of playdates at Yards Park and Canal Park. I've heard good things about Appletree SW, which I think is a good backup if you don't don't get a PK slot. That gives you a manageable commute until you could get an IB slot at Van Ness for Kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The PPs are all right, but I’d emphasize that PK3 being all lottery means you do have to be strategic. You’re probably not getting into any of those if you don’t have a high enough lottery number to get a PK3 seat without sibling preference at Van Ness, especially SWS and definitely not Maury. And Van Ness is great, especially for early grades and then you’d already have a community if you end up not being able to lottery for a better feeder pattern for a couple years. I’d put Van Ness first. Then Appletrees are your safeties and I’d add Amidon Bowen close to you in SW to the list, also a good school specially in the early elementary years though they also tend to not have many or any OOB seats for PK. Depends on the year and it’s been steadily becoming more popular. I personally wouldn’t waste a choice on Brent due to the swing space but like a PP said that might be one of the few “better” schools that you have a chance at, and if you don’t mind it then you’d have a nice renovated, higher performing school til middle school or whenever you give up and move to upper NW or out of DC like most others.

I'm the PP who mentioned all the Capitol Hill schools. I think they're worth looking at but I wholeheartedly agree with the strategy outlined here.

FWIW my kid is happily at Van Ness now, though we didn't get in for PK3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's a wild list, geographically.

If you tell us the grade you're going into and how long you plan to stay in DC, and what your in-boundary school is, people can be quite helpful.

My child will start Pre-k 3. My in-boundary school is Van Ness, but I’m willing to commute for the right school. The list of schools I listed were just a few schools that were given to me to review.

If Van Ness is your in-bound, do that. It's a very solid school. Appletree SW or Lincoln Park is a decent backup, as is Amidon Bowen. I know folks who didn't get into Van Ness for PreK-3 even though it's their IB.

I would definitely not commute to any of the non-Appletree charters you mention over Van Ness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Creative Minds is too far for you and it wouldn't be worth it. They don't have good scores relative to their demographics, and they're planning to move locations in the next 5 years or so. And they experienced a big drop in enrollment this year.

Suggest you look into Seaton and Thomson.

Any insight on why they experienced a big drop in enrollment?

I don't know. I've always thought it was overrated so maybe people are catching on. Maybe the possibility of them moving locations is putting people off.

CMI is one of those schools that seems so great to PK parents but then falters at the transition to more serious academics in middle elementary.

It's in the board minutes, which they just belatedly posted for the semester. https://www.creativemindspcs.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Board-Meeting-Minutes-09.09.24-combined_1.pdf

Basically there's a citywide decrease in enrollment, but not all schools are equally affected and it's very interesting to observe how it's playing out. CMI had a target of 596, but came in at 530, so it's an 11% shortfall-- really significant. Obviously this affects their budget. Something to keep a close eye on. It doesn't say which grade levels are most affected. But looking at lottery data, I can see waitlists cleared for most grades other than PK3 and PK4 (another red flag).

[Anonymous]

Don’t underestimate how incredibly nice it day-to-day is to live nearby for preK and/early elementary. I agree with the earlier posters that dcps in your neighborhood is good/fine. There is nothing about any of the schools on your initial list that makes them long-term more viable than the nearby dcps option. I would maybe suggest a list with something like school within school, peabody, van ness (some would just rank this 1), amidon as first serious back-up, all the nearby the appletree schools as next backup. You will not get Maury for preK but you can lottery for Maury or other capitol hill options for K and up if that makes sense for you.

[Anonymous]

I took another look at your initial list. inspired teaching, lee east end, and global citizens east end are worth ranking. cmi is not (too far). you will not get maury for ece. appletree is a solid backup ensuring you match somewhere but it is ece only.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The PPs are all right, but I’d emphasize that PK3 being all lottery means you do have to be strategic. You’re probably not getting into any of those if you don’t have a high enough lottery number to get a PK3 seat without sibling preference at Van Ness, especially SWS and definitely not Maury. And Van Ness is great, especially for early grades and then you’d already have a community if you end up not being able to lottery for a better feeder pattern for a couple years. I’d put Van Ness first. Then Appletrees are your safeties and I’d add Amidon Bowen close to you in SW to the list, also a good school specially in the early elementary years though they also tend to not have many or any OOB seats for PK. Depends on the year and it’s been steadily becoming more popular. I personally wouldn’t waste a choice on Brent due to the swing space but like a PP said that might be one of the few “better” schools that you have a chance at, and if you don’t mind it then you’d have a nice renovated, higher performing school til middle school or whenever you give up and move to upper NW or out of DC like most others.

Since AppleTree: Waterfront is only Pre-k 3 & Pre-k 4, would Bowen be the feeder?

AppleTree is a charter, there is no feeder. The program ends and you need to lottery for something else or go to your IB school for K.

[Anonymous]

New poster here whose kids both did prek3-5 at Van Ness as our IB school. 100% agree with what everyone else said. Being walking distance for preschool (and up) for all those years was amazing.

[Anonymous]

Our oldest when to our DCPS title I IB school and it was fine. Our kids are at inspired now and while we are very happy there and I like the school I must admit that our second kid had a comparable preK experience to our oldest. Maybe they had a little more time outside. There is no way I’d commute up here for school if our IB was Van Ness. But that’s me. I can’t think of a single preK that I’d be willing to trek across town for. We trekked across town for daycare, because there were not good options near where we lived at the time. There are good options for preK all over.

I’d consider Lee East (or whatever it’s called) if you’re very committed to Montessori but also would not commute to Brookland with a preschooler.


As others said, for preK I’d look first at the commutes, a then build my lottery list strategically based on that and likelihood of matching based on prior years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New poster here whose kids both did prek3-5 at Van Ness as our IB school. 100% agree with what everyone else said. Being walking distance for preschool (and up) for all those years was amazing.

Another Van Ness parent whose child attended from PK3-5 here. It's truly been a wonderful experience with caring and knowledgeable staff and a great community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I took another look at your initial list. inspired teaching, lee east end, and global citizens east end are worth ranking. cmi is not (too far). you will not get maury for ece. appletree is a solid backup ensuring you match somewhere but it is ece only.

I’m going to look into those schools. Does anyone have feedback on Inspired Teaching, Lee Montessori: East End, and Global Citizens? It seems as though Creative Mind might not be as good as I thought.