Lost PreK spot after enrollment...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Given that you no longer have the spot - did the lottery they recreate your other waitlist?

they haven't officially unenrolled us yet, so we haven't seen anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you all. I just needed perspective. I feel like I'm *sacrificing* (yes strong language) elder child's opportunity for the sake of preK for my younger.

Don't do that. You were wiling to send the kids to different schools, so do that this year. Older child needs to go to the better school - don't keep them in a lesser situation in 4th grade for convenience. DCPS and DCPCS do pre-k well everywhere, your younger child will be fine. Hit the short waitlists, you're #4 currently on your waitlist at your current school, don't catastrophize and pull your fourth grader out of the better school.

[Anonymous]

Are you the H-A poster?

[Anonymous]

This happens with outgoing seniors as well. I knew a family who got sibling preference at a 5-12 charter, but when the outgoing 12th grader did not re-enroll, they lost the spot. Tragic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, this is the rule, and you’re stuck, OP. Agree it’s time to start looking through the short waitlists for PK3 and applying everywhere. Any chance of getting in at the new school for PK3?

I will say - I think this is a dumb rule. Once you’re enrolled, you should get to stay unless there’s actual fraud (ie, putting down a sibling that doesn’t exist or trying to pass a neighbor off as a sibling or something). I mean, plenty of people have a PK3 get in on sibling preference and then a couple years later, older sib leaves for BASIS after 4th - should little sib be kicked out then too??

Plus - assuming school A was first on your lotto list for PK3, if you didn’t have sibling preference she might have matched with your 2nd or 3rd choice school, and now they might be full. You can’t unring a bell!

The problem is that there are other families on that waitlist for School A who, like OP, do not have a sibling enrolled at the school. Why should OP's child jump the line ahead of them? That's what happened.

I am sympathetic to OP's situation but I also think it was something she could and should have anticipated, knowing she was relying on sibling preference to help her younger child get into School A but also might move the older child to a new school. It could have been prevented by either not attempting to move the older child this year, trying to get them both into the same school, or simply listing more back ups for the younger child for PK in case this exact scenario happened.

Also, her younger child may yet get a spot at School A. She's #4 on the waitlist and has IB preference. That's not a terrible position to be in in May, with plenty of waitlist movement to come. So this may all work out. But it will work out in a fair way that doesn't allow her younger child to take advantage of sibling preference to get a spot when they don't even have a sibling at the school.

I'm the PP, and the bolded doesn't help - if the PK3 kid listed schools below school A on her list, she wouldn't have matched with any of them, or even be on the waitlist, because she matched with School A, her first choice, with sibling preference. That's the reason I think this is a dumb policy. The only way to be "fair" is to now use the PK3 kids original lottery number to attempt to place them in schools 2-12 on her list. Well, if she would have matched at school #2, now what? Do they kick out whoever got the last seat so that this kid can go there because that's what would have happened if she hadn't had sibling preference during the initial lottery? And that means they match to their next highest school and it happens again? You're basically having to re-run the whole damn lottery because this one older sibling got into her dream school. That's not feasible - you can't unenroll people whose status hasn't changed! This is what I mean by you can't unring a bell.

There is no fair way to adjust once the older sibling enrolls elsewhere. The least unfair option is to just let enrolled siblings stay. Yes, technically, one person with the next highest number would have gotten a seat, but what's done is done and they don't even know that. It's a lottery, you get what you get. Unenrolling kids after enrollment with no fraud or other malicious behavior is an over-the-top reaction. Reorder kids on waitlists, sure, but unenrolling? That's so silly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, this is the rule, and you’re stuck, OP. Agree it’s time to start looking through the short waitlists for PK3 and applying everywhere. Any chance of getting in at the new school for PK3?

I will say - I think this is a dumb rule. Once you’re enrolled, you should get to stay unless there’s actual fraud (ie, putting down a sibling that doesn’t exist or trying to pass a neighbor off as a sibling or something). I mean, plenty of people have a PK3 get in on sibling preference and then a couple years later, older sib leaves for BASIS after 4th - should little sib be kicked out then too??

Plus - assuming school A was first on your lotto list for PK3, if you didn’t have sibling preference she might have matched with your 2nd or 3rd choice school, and now they might be full. You can’t unring a bell!

The problem is that there are other families on that waitlist for School A who, like OP, do not have a sibling enrolled at the school. Why should OP's child jump the line ahead of them? That's what happened.

I am sympathetic to OP's situation but I also think it was something she could and should have anticipated, knowing she was relying on sibling preference to help her younger child get into School A but also might move the older child to a new school. It could have been prevented by either not attempting to move the older child this year, trying to get them both into the same school, or simply listing more back ups for the younger child for PK in case this exact scenario happened.

Also, her younger child may yet get a spot at School A. She's #4 on the waitlist and has IB preference. That's not a terrible position to be in in May, with plenty of waitlist movement to come. So this may all work out. But it will work out in a fair way that doesn't allow her younger child to take advantage of sibling preference to get a spot when they don't even have a sibling at the school.

I'm the PP, and the bolded doesn't help - if the PK3 kid listed schools below school A on her list, she wouldn't have matched with any of them, or even be on the waitlist, because she matched with School A, her first choice, with sibling preference. That's the reason I think this is a dumb policy. The only way to be "fair" is to now use the PK3 kids original lottery number to attempt to place them in schools 2-12 on her list. Well, if she would have matched at school #2, now what? Do they kick out whoever got the last seat so that this kid can go there because that's what would have happened if she hadn't had sibling preference during the initial lottery? And that means they match to their next highest school and it happens again? You're basically having to re-run the whole damn lottery because this one older sibling got into her dream school. That's not feasible - you can't unenroll people whose status hasn't changed! This is what I mean by you can't unring a bell.

There is no fair way to adjust once the older sibling enrolls elsewhere. The least unfair option is to just let enrolled siblings stay. Yes, technically, one person with the next highest number would have gotten a seat, but what's done is done and they don't even know that. It's a lottery, you get what you get. Unenrolling kids after enrollment with no fraud or other malicious behavior is an over-the-top reaction. Reorder kids on waitlists, sure, but unenrolling? That's so silly.

She could have made her original lottery list with the IB school last.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, this is the rule, and you’re stuck, OP. Agree it’s time to start looking through the short waitlists for PK3 and applying everywhere. Any chance of getting in at the new school for PK3?

I will say - I think this is a dumb rule. Once you’re enrolled, you should get to stay unless there’s actual fraud (ie, putting down a sibling that doesn’t exist or trying to pass a neighbor off as a sibling or something). I mean, plenty of people have a PK3 get in on sibling preference and then a couple years later, older sib leaves for BASIS after 4th - should little sib be kicked out then too??

Plus - assuming school A was first on your lotto list for PK3, if you didn’t have sibling preference she might have matched with your 2nd or 3rd choice school, and now they might be full. You can’t unring a bell!

The problem is that there are other families on that waitlist for School A who, like OP, do not have a sibling enrolled at the school. Why should OP's child jump the line ahead of them? That's what happened.

I am sympathetic to OP's situation but I also think it was something she could and should have anticipated, knowing she was relying on sibling preference to help her younger child get into School A but also might move the older child to a new school. It could have been prevented by either not attempting to move the older child this year, trying to get them both into the same school, or simply listing more back ups for the younger child for PK in case this exact scenario happened.

Also, her younger child may yet get a spot at School A. She's #4 on the waitlist and has IB preference. That's not a terrible position to be in in May, with plenty of waitlist movement to come. So this may all work out. But it will work out in a fair way that doesn't allow her younger child to take advantage of sibling preference to get a spot when they don't even have a sibling at the school.

I'm the PP, and the bolded doesn't help - if the PK3 kid listed schools below school A on her list, she wouldn't have matched with any of them, or even be on the waitlist, because she matched with School A, her first choice, with sibling preference. That's the reason I think this is a dumb policy. The only way to be "fair" is to now use the PK3 kids original lottery number to attempt to place them in schools 2-12 on her list. Well, if she would have matched at school #2, now what? Do they kick out whoever got the last seat so that this kid can go there because that's what would have happened if she hadn't had sibling preference during the initial lottery? And that means they match to their next highest school and it happens again? You're basically having to re-run the whole damn lottery because this one older sibling got into her dream school. That's not feasible - you can't unenroll people whose status hasn't changed! This is what I mean by you can't unring a bell.

There is no fair way to adjust once the older sibling enrolls elsewhere. The least unfair option is to just let enrolled siblings stay. Yes, technically, one person with the next highest number would have gotten a seat, but what's done is done and they don't even know that. It's a lottery, you get what you get. Unenrolling kids after enrollment with no fraud or other malicious behavior is an over-the-top reaction. Reorder kids on waitlists, sure, but unenrolling? That's so silly.

She could have made her original lottery list with the IB school last.

Then what happens when the kid gets an amazing number and matches with the first school (or any of the schools above the IB) and gets dropped from the IB waitlist? If the IB is the true first choice, this situation is kind of a disaster. I agree with the PP. It's a crazy broken setup.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, this is the rule, and you’re stuck, OP. Agree it’s time to start looking through the short waitlists for PK3 and applying everywhere. Any chance of getting in at the new school for PK3?

I will say - I think this is a dumb rule. Once you’re enrolled, you should get to stay unless there’s actual fraud (ie, putting down a sibling that doesn’t exist or trying to pass a neighbor off as a sibling or something). I mean, plenty of people have a PK3 get in on sibling preference and then a couple years later, older sib leaves for BASIS after 4th - should little sib be kicked out then too??

Plus - assuming school A was first on your lotto list for PK3, if you didn’t have sibling preference she might have matched with your 2nd or 3rd choice school, and now they might be full. You can’t unring a bell!

The problem is that there are other families on that waitlist for School A who, like OP, do not have a sibling enrolled at the school. Why should OP's child jump the line ahead of them? That's what happened.

I am sympathetic to OP's situation but I also think it was something she could and should have anticipated, knowing she was relying on sibling preference to help her younger child get into School A but also might move the older child to a new school. It could have been prevented by either not attempting to move the older child this year, trying to get them both into the same school, or simply listing more back ups for the younger child for PK in case this exact scenario happened.

Also, her younger child may yet get a spot at School A. She's #4 on the waitlist and has IB preference. That's not a terrible position to be in in May, with plenty of waitlist movement to come. So this may all work out. But it will work out in a fair way that doesn't allow her younger child to take advantage of sibling preference to get a spot when they don't even have a sibling at the school.

I'm the PP, and the bolded doesn't help - if the PK3 kid listed schools below school A on her list, she wouldn't have matched with any of them, or even be on the waitlist, because she matched with School A, her first choice, with sibling preference. That's the reason I think this is a dumb policy. The only way to be "fair" is to now use the PK3 kids original lottery number to attempt to place them in schools 2-12 on her list. Well, if she would have matched at school #2, now what? Do they kick out whoever got the last seat so that this kid can go there because that's what would have happened if she hadn't had sibling preference during the initial lottery? And that means they match to their next highest school and it happens again? You're basically having to re-run the whole damn lottery because this one older sibling got into her dream school. That's not feasible - you can't unenroll people whose status hasn't changed! This is what I mean by you can't unring a bell.

There is no fair way to adjust once the older sibling enrolls elsewhere. The least unfair option is to just let enrolled siblings stay. Yes, technically, one person with the next highest number would have gotten a seat, but what's done is done and they don't even know that. It's a lottery, you get what you get. Unenrolling kids after enrollment with no fraud or other malicious behavior is an over-the-top reaction. Reorder kids on waitlists, sure, but unenrolling? That's so silly.

She could have made her original lottery list with the IB school last.

Then what happens when the kid gets an amazing number and matches with the first school (or any of the schools above the IB) and gets dropped from the IB waitlist? If the IB is the true first choice, this situation is kind of a disaster. I agree with the PP. It's a crazy broken setup.

Yes, you have to be more thoughtful about this when you have multiple children. You cannot treat your lottery preference for each child independently; you need to consider them together.

MySchool tries to make some reasonable allowances to help families juggle: "After being matched, an applicant will be placed on the waitlist for any school their sibling is matched to even if it is a school ranked below the matched school."

Personally, I kept my older child at their IB until my younger child got through PK because it was the only way to guarantee a seat for my younger child.

Sibling preference is nice but it's not a panacea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, this is the rule, and you’re stuck, OP. Agree it’s time to start looking through the short waitlists for PK3 and applying everywhere. Any chance of getting in at the new school for PK3?

I will say - I think this is a dumb rule. Once you’re enrolled, you should get to stay unless there’s actual fraud (ie, putting down a sibling that doesn’t exist or trying to pass a neighbor off as a sibling or something). I mean, plenty of people have a PK3 get in on sibling preference and then a couple years later, older sib leaves for BASIS after 4th - should little sib be kicked out then too??

Plus - assuming school A was first on your lotto list for PK3, if you didn’t have sibling preference she might have matched with your 2nd or 3rd choice school, and now they might be full. You can’t unring a bell!

The problem is that there are other families on that waitlist for School A who, like OP, do not have a sibling enrolled at the school. Why should OP's child jump the line ahead of them? That's what happened.

I am sympathetic to OP's situation but I also think it was something she could and should have anticipated, knowing she was relying on sibling preference to help her younger child get into School A but also might move the older child to a new school. It could have been prevented by either not attempting to move the older child this year, trying to get them both into the same school, or simply listing more back ups for the younger child for PK in case this exact scenario happened.

Also, her younger child may yet get a spot at School A. She's #4 on the waitlist and has IB preference. That's not a terrible position to be in in May, with plenty of waitlist movement to come. So this may all work out. But it will work out in a fair way that doesn't allow her younger child to take advantage of sibling preference to get a spot when they don't even have a sibling at the school.

I'm the PP, and the bolded doesn't help - if the PK3 kid listed schools below school A on her list, she wouldn't have matched with any of them, or even be on the waitlist, because she matched with School A, her first choice, with sibling preference. That's the reason I think this is a dumb policy. The only way to be "fair" is to now use the PK3 kids original lottery number to attempt to place them in schools 2-12 on her list. Well, if she would have matched at school #2, now what? Do they kick out whoever got the last seat so that this kid can go there because that's what would have happened if she hadn't had sibling preference during the initial lottery? And that means they match to their next highest school and it happens again? You're basically having to re-run the whole damn lottery because this one older sibling got into her dream school. That's not feasible - you can't unenroll people whose status hasn't changed! This is what I mean by you can't unring a bell.

There is no fair way to adjust once the older sibling enrolls elsewhere. The least unfair option is to just let enrolled siblings stay. Yes, technically, one person with the next highest number would have gotten a seat, but what's done is done and they don't even know that. It's a lottery, you get what you get. Unenrolling kids after enrollment with no fraud or other malicious behavior is an over-the-top reaction. Reorder kids on waitlists, sure, but unenrolling? That's so silly.

She could have made her original lottery list with the IB school last.

Then what happens when the kid gets an amazing number and matches with the first school (or any of the schools above the IB) and gets dropped from the IB waitlist? If the IB is the true first choice, this situation is kind of a disaster. I agree with the PP. It's a crazy broken setup.

I say this as a person with 3 close in age kids who absolutely benefits, but the lottery in general MASSIVELY favors families with more kids... and the only justification is keeping kids at the same school. They should not get yet another benefit when that scenario isn't happening anyway.

[Anonymous]

So what happens if someone has three kids. A prek student getting a seat and two siblings. One says at the school and the other gets into charter. Does the prek student lose their seat? Even if one sibling goes to the charter, but the other stays?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So what happens if someone has three kids. A prek student getting a seat and two siblings. One says at the school and the other gets into charter. Does the prek student lose their seat? Even if one sibling goes to the charter, but the other stays?

Why would the PK student lose their seat? They still have sibling preference through the sibling staying at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, this is the rule, and you’re stuck, OP. Agree it’s time to start looking through the short waitlists for PK3 and applying everywhere. Any chance of getting in at the new school for PK3?

I will say - I think this is a dumb rule. Once you’re enrolled, you should get to stay unless there’s actual fraud (ie, putting down a sibling that doesn’t exist or trying to pass a neighbor off as a sibling or something). I mean, plenty of people have a PK3 get in on sibling preference and then a couple years later, older sib leaves for BASIS after 4th - should little sib be kicked out then too??

Plus - assuming school A was first on your lotto list for PK3, if you didn’t have sibling preference she might have matched with your 2nd or 3rd choice school, and now they might be full. You can’t unring a bell!

Presumably, by the time the older sibling goes off to basis or Latin, the younger sibling is attending by right. The pre-K inbound preference exist because many pre-Ks are oversubscribed.

[Anonymous]

There is no way you should ever sacrifice the older child’s placement for the benefit of the younger child. It is much easier to find a solid option for PK than it is for 4th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, this is the rule, and you’re stuck, OP. Agree it’s time to start looking through the short waitlists for PK3 and applying everywhere. Any chance of getting in at the new school for PK3?

I will say - I think this is a dumb rule. Once you’re enrolled, you should get to stay unless there’s actual fraud (ie, putting down a sibling that doesn’t exist or trying to pass a neighbor off as a sibling or something). I mean, plenty of people have a PK3 get in on sibling preference and then a couple years later, older sib leaves for BASIS after 4th - should little sib be kicked out then too??

Plus - assuming school A was first on your lotto list for PK3, if you didn’t have sibling preference she might have matched with your 2nd or 3rd choice school, and now they might be full. You can’t unring a bell!

Presumably, by the time the older sibling goes off to basis or Latin, the younger sibling is attending by right. The pre-K inbound preference exist because many pre-Ks are oversubscribed.

The older sibling only needs to attend the school the year the younger sibling gets in via sibling preference. Younger sibling could continue on the following year regardless of older sibling's enrollment.

[Anonymous]

That 4th spot on a waitlist may very well work out, but you should add some post-lottery apps at other schools now just in case — since you’ll be at the end of waitlists.