Is it like this every year?
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Anonymous
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It Is really tough in Ward 5 because there are sooo many schools. The available seats vastly exceeds the number of children living in the area. The Hill doesn't have as many desirable or even middling charters in the commutable area.
Having said that, you certainly can improve the quality of your school. Identify the needs and make a plan. |
Anonymous
Oh come on. IB parents get preference for preschool. This is not why the majority of EOTP kids leave their school is because they are OOB. The overwhelmingly majority of families leave because they know that in the upper grades, even as early as 2nd, it becomes evident that their kid’s academic needs will not be or is not met. |
Anonymous
IB kids get preference, but downtown leans on schools to offer more seats if they have room. People from NW sometimes choose Langley, Seaton, Garrison, or JO Wilson if it is near their office. This is all fine but of course people will go IB for K. |
Anonymous
And you really think those numbers are significant today? The only reason a school with have OOB preK seats is because the IB families don’t want their kids to go there. The number, if any of these schools have OOB kids, are insignificant. The elephant in the room - we all know what it is. These families are leaving for private, moving out of the city, or going charter because the majority of schools EOTP like ours are terrible in challenging our kids. And DCPS could care less, for all they care about is narrowing the achievement gap. Sure you might have a few Capital Hill elementary schools where most kids stay till 4th but that’s because they are overwhelmingly majority middle class so less of a spread in academic abilities and the PTA raises big money to add staff to the classroom. But in the end, many kids still leave after 4th for private, burbs, charters. |
Anonymous
Yes, I do think in a small school a handful of kids can make a difference in your K retention stats. It's unfair of downtown to put so much pressure on schools to offer OOB preschool seats and then ding them on retention. Parents aren't always aware of how these decisions happen, but downtown tends to push EOTP schools to offer more preschool than is really needed to serve their IB students. That's why the seats exist. I'm not trying to tell you that these EOTP schools are great, it's just a weird clash of pressures that downtown sets up. If an EOTP school is good enough that discerning Upper NW parents will commute far to attend it, doesn't that indicate that something good is happening in the preschool? |
Anonymous
It’s free daycare. Near the office. Representing a savings of thousands of dollars a year. I agree it’s “something good” for Ward 3 parents who have no free public preschool in their neighborhood. |
Anonymous
| Sorry but many of the EOTP schools probably will not expand the seats for PK3. The thing that most of you are missing is that the materials and furnishings for all PK expansion classrooms at Title I schools is paid for through the Head Start grant. The ECE Division at DCPS is hardly interested in providing more seats at schools like Garrison and Seaton which have very low Head Start eligibility percentages. Both schools are falling under 25% for Head Start eligibility. |
Anonymous
They're also near their building capacity, so I'm not even sure they have a Head Start-compliant classroom to use. But I do think DCPS is interested in providing more seats at exactly that kind of school-- reasonably well-functioning, but not so overcrowded that it would be difficult to provide Kindergarten seats for the OOB preschoolers who choose to stay. |
Anonymous
| Not to mention that all Title I HSSWM schools were mandated by Central Office to create supervision plans for their ECE program. Many schools struggled to do this so why would the ECE Division allow any schools that can’t even demonstrate this to add another classroom? |
Anonymous
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Realistically DCPS has too many schools providing Head Start services. Operating out of 60 Title I elementary schools is just too much and if DCPS wants to focus on improving educational outcomes they should only focus on the kids that need the services. If it was up to me, DCPS would only have Head Start services and support at the schools below.
All elementary school EOTR (wards 7 and 8) Tubman ES Raymond EC Brightwood EC LaSalle Backus EC Walker Jones EC Truesdell EC Cleveland ES Wheatley EC Dorothy Height ES Burroughs ES Langdon ES Langley ES Noyes ES Barnard ES |
Anonymous
So, how did you come up with that list?? Our IB Bunker Hill that is very much majority low income. Bunk Hill has had the best Prk review scores in the city years running. I love walking to our school and would hate to see it go, just join a larger school nearby. But I do agree school that are not Title one could have Prk phased out. But let's face it the free Prk also what keeps a LOT of families in the city at all. |
Anonymous
What is a supervision plan? |
Anonymous
This. A few of my daughter friends left Powell in both grades. These are the years to get into someplace else. |
Anonymous
This list is woefully incomplete. Add Brightwood, Whittier and Takoma. The reality is all Title 1 schools need it. But I would eliminate it for ECE if the ECE proportion of poor kids is far below the rate for the rest of the school. |
Anonymous
The children in grades K through 5 at Bunker Hill are very much low income but the Head Start eligibility percentage for Bunker Hill is hovering around 30-35%. That does not justify having Head Start services anymore. If DCPS does move forward with eliminating Head Start at some schools, many of the dual language Title I schools like Bancroft, Powell, and Marie Reed will probably see their Head Start program cut. However if DCPS wants to ensure that Head Start eligible kids, they should designate one or two of the PK classrooms as Head Start classrooms. Given the demographic changes, that’s the only way that DCPS can justify to the Federal Office of Head Start the need to continue offering Head Start at certain schools. |