I really have no clue what i'm doing-5 or more questions inside

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trust me as someone on the Hill in bounds for Maury. All of the DCPS preK on the Hill are really hard to get into. Rank LT first if you are happy with it and commute is important. SWS might not be the greatest commute as it’ll be in a swing space further East from you. Maury, Brent, and Peabody are a zero chance if enrollments follow the same pattern. Payne, Tyler, Wilson, and Miner don’t let many kids out of bounds and many times only after waitlisting, but are possible with a good draw. If you NEED a slot be sure to list Appletree Oklahoma Avenue (you can also list Appletree Lincoln Park and while easier to get into then the public’s still not a guarantee). One of the only schools that had slots for everyone last year/went through their whole waitlist. Stevens isn’t open yet and will be really competitive because quite a few seats are going to be set aside for at risk students leaving fewer general seats. Good news there is there are no preferences other than at risk so again with a good draw, who knows?

Also be aware that Capitol Hill Montessori is currently in a swing space in Columbia Heights.

[Anonymous]

One thing nobody seems to have raised is whether you need before & after care. For a single mom looking to save daycare cost, that might matter.Even if a school has it, the hours may be different. You can check this on the lottery site.

L-T has after-care but not before care.

SWS has both.

Capitol Hill Montessori has both and aftercare runs until 6:30.

Obviously, this may not matter to you at all, but if it does, check now.

Maybe this doesn't matter to you, but if it does, that might affect the way you list them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing nobody seems to have raised is whether you need before & after care. For a single mom looking to save daycare cost, that might matter.Even if a school has it, the hours may be different. You can check this on the lottery site.

L-T has after-care but not before care.

SWS has both.

Capitol Hill Montessori has both and aftercare runs until 6:30.

Obviously, this may not matter to you at all, but if it does, check now.

Maybe this doesn't matter to you, but if it does, that might affect the way you list them.

L-T opens its doors for pre-school recess at 8:05, however.

[Anonymous]

SWS swing space will be located near 2 Rivers Young campus Jan 2021 - June2022. DCPS will provide buses from SWS to/from the swing space.

[Anonymous]

PARCC scores matter to some and not to others. They let you know if the children at the school are meeting basic proficiency levels (or not). Unfortunately, DCPS charters and schools EOTP have low PARCC scores (below 75 percent). If you care about that, and you'd like your kid in a school where the kids meeting basic proficiency levels in reading or math, and you want public, you'll have to move WOTP. That will help you come Kindergarten, but for PK4 you don't have much of a choice.

[Anonymous]

OP, don't worry about PARCC scores - the test is poorly designed and mainly just measures demographics/parents' income. Note: every state that adopted the PARCC a decade back, two dozen, has scrapped it by now. Only DC clings to it to this crappy test.

Very few Upper Middle Class parents will go with a DC public school that isn't majority high SES (socio-economic status) past 1st grade. For PreK, you're just looking for a spot that works with your commute. For K and 1st, you're looking for more. From 2nd-5th, you probably want a majority, or even overwhelmingly (read Brent, SWS, Maury, possibly LT) high SES school. Call me racist, but white percentages count for a lot in a majority white neighborhood like Capitol Hill. Look at them on the DCPS school profiles pages and try to lottery accordingly in the coming years.

[Anonymous]

Once a large cohort of UMC has embraced an ES school in the upper grades....you know that it will probably work out for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PARCC scores matter to some and not to others. They let you know if the children at the school are meeting basic proficiency levels (or not). Unfortunately, DCPS charters and schools EOTP have low PARCC scores (below 75 percent). If you care about that, and you'd like your kid in a school where the kids meeting basic proficiency levels in reading or math, and you want public, you'll have to move WOTP. That will help you come Kindergarten, but for PK4 you don't have much of a choice.

There are multiple schools EOTP with PARCC scores that are equal to those of the upper NW elementary schools. That you don’t know this invalidates your whole answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PARCC scores matter to some and not to others. They let you know if the children at the school are meeting basic proficiency levels (or not). Unfortunately, DCPS charters and schools EOTP have low PARCC scores (below 75 percent). If you care about that, and you'd like your kid in a school where the kids meeting basic proficiency levels in reading or math, and you want public, you'll have to move WOTP. That will help you come Kindergarten, but for PK4 you don't have much of a choice.

There are multiple schools EOTP with PARCC scores that are equal to those of the upper NW elementary schools. That you don’t know this invalidates your whole answer.

Ha! Show me the scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PARCC scores matter to some and not to others. They let you know if the children at the school are meeting basic proficiency levels (or not). Unfortunately, DCPS charters and schools EOTP have low PARCC scores (below 75 percent). If you care about that, and you'd like your kid in a school where the kids meeting basic proficiency levels in reading or math, and you want public, you'll have to move WOTP. That will help you come Kindergarten, but for PK4 you don't have much of a choice.

There are multiple schools EOTP with PARCC scores that are equal to those of the upper NW elementary schools. That you don’t know this invalidates your whole answer.

Ha! Show me the scores.

Brent
Maury
School-within-School

https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/release_content/attachments/2019%20PARCC%20Results%20Deck_final.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, don't worry about PARCC scores - the test is poorly designed and mainly just measures demographics/parents' income. Note: every state that adopted the PARCC a decade back, two dozen, has scrapped it by now. Only DC clings to it to this crappy test.

Very few Upper Middle Class parents will go with a DC public school that isn't majority high SES (socio-economic status) past 1st grade. For PreK, you're just looking for a spot that works with your commute. For K and 1st, you're looking for more. From 2nd-5th, you probably want a majority, or even overwhelmingly (read Brent, SWS, Maury, possibly LT) high SES school. Call me racist, but white percentages count for a lot in a majority white neighborhood like Capitol Hill. Look at them on the DCPS school profiles pages and try to lottery accordingly in the coming years.

I'm not on the Hill so maybe this is why (but EOTP), but what I want is a school that's solidly middle class. Not upper, or at least not too upper, just regular middle. Then include perhaps a few high and some low income as well. This is what doesn't exist in DC. I'm part of the problem because I'm UMC but I don't want my kids going to school with too many people that have as much or more money than us, or much much less. Perhaps that's controversial, I'm not sure, but I just haven't found this so we're in a charter with a lot of wealthy/UMC people and a significant number of low income and probably not a whole lot in between. It's close as I have seen though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, don't worry about PARCC scores - the test is poorly designed and mainly just measures demographics/parents' income. Note: every state that adopted the PARCC a decade back, two dozen, has scrapped it by now. Only DC clings to it to this crappy test.

Very few Upper Middle Class parents will go with a DC public school that isn't majority high SES (socio-economic status) past 1st grade. For PreK, you're just looking for a spot that works with your commute. For K and 1st, you're looking for more. From 2nd-5th, you probably want a majority, or even overwhelmingly (read Brent, SWS, Maury, possibly LT) high SES school. Call me racist, but white percentages count for a lot in a majority white neighborhood like Capitol Hill. Look at them on the DCPS school profiles pages and try to lottery accordingly in the coming years.

I'm not on the Hill so maybe this is why (but EOTP), but what I want is a school that's solidly middle class. Not upper, or at least not too upper, just regular middle. Then include perhaps a few high and some low income as well. This is what doesn't exist in DC. I'm part of the problem because I'm UMC but I don't want my kids going to school with too many people that have as much or more money than us, or much much less. Perhaps that's controversial, I'm not sure, but I just haven't found this so we're in a charter with a lot of wealthy/UMC people and a significant number of low income and probably not a whole lot in between. It's close as I have seen though.

If you want this you need to move to a place with more middle class people. For example: Rockville, Olney, much of PG County, South Arlington, the Alexandria part of Fairfax, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PARCC scores matter to some and not to others. They let you know if the children at the school are meeting basic proficiency levels (or not). Unfortunately, DCPS charters and schools EOTP have low PARCC scores (below 75 percent). If you care about that, and you'd like your kid in a school where the kids meeting basic proficiency levels in reading or math, and you want public, you'll have to move WOTP. That will help you come Kindergarten, but for PK4 you don't have much of a choice.

There are multiple schools EOTP with PARCC scores that are equal to those of the upper NW elementary schools. That you don’t know this invalidates your whole answer.

Ha! Show me the scores.

Brent
Maury
School-within-School

https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/release_content/attachments/2019%20PARCC%20Results%20Deck_final.pdf

[Drops microphone!!!]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, don't worry about PARCC scores - the test is poorly designed and mainly just measures demographics/parents' income. Note: every state that adopted the PARCC a decade back, two dozen, has scrapped it by now. Only DC clings to it to this crappy test.

Very few Upper Middle Class parents will go with a DC public school that isn't majority high SES (socio-economic status) past 1st grade. For PreK, you're just looking for a spot that works with your commute. For K and 1st, you're looking for more. From 2nd-5th, you probably want a majority, or even overwhelmingly (read Brent, SWS, Maury, possibly LT) high SES school. Call me racist, but white percentages count for a lot in a majority white neighborhood like Capitol Hill. Look at them on the DCPS school profiles pages and try to lottery accordingly in the coming years.

I'm not on the Hill so maybe this is why (but EOTP), but what I want is a school that's solidly middle class. Not upper, or at least not too upper, just regular middle. Then include perhaps a few high and some low income as well. This is what doesn't exist in DC. I'm part of the problem because I'm UMC but I don't want my kids going to school with too many people that have as much or more money than us, or much much less. Perhaps that's controversial, I'm not sure, but I just haven't found this so we're in a charter with a lot of wealthy/UMC people and a significant number of low income and probably not a whole lot in between. It's close as I have seen though.

Maybe it depends on what you mean by "solidly middle class." If you mean solidly middle class for DC (i.e., 2 Feds), then this fairly accurately describes L-T. If you mean actually solidly middle class in the nationwide demographic sense, then it definitely does not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PARCC scores matter to some and not to others. They let you know if the children at the school are meeting basic proficiency levels (or not). Unfortunately, DCPS charters and schools EOTP have low PARCC scores (below 75 percent). If you care about that, and you'd like your kid in a school where the kids meeting basic proficiency levels in reading or math, and you want public, you'll have to move WOTP. That will help you come Kindergarten, but for PK4 you don't have much of a choice.

There are multiple schools EOTP with PARCC scores that are equal to those of the upper NW elementary schools. That you don’t know this invalidates your whole answer.

Ha! Show me the scores.

Brent
Maury
School-within-School

https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/release_content/attachments/2019%20PARCC%20Results%20Deck_final.pdf

I said below 75 percent, so using that threshold you can't include SWS or Brent. Maury is above that, but was below 70 percent last year. Even if we said your list is close and included them, that's still 3 schools out of how many EOTP? 60? More? But ok, I'll reword my statement -- the GREAT MAJORITY of schools EOTP have low PARCC scores.