26-27 Lottery data up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, charter elementary schools really have plummeted in demand.

For SY 19-20, there were 30 PCS with PK3 waitlists in the double digits (including LAMB even though they weren't in the common lottery, just cause, duh, they had huge waitlists back then).

This year? 13. The seven DCI feeders (DCB, MVP, MVC8, YY, LAMB, Stokes EE, Stokes BL), plus ITDS, Apple Tree Lincoln Park, EL Haynes, LEARN, Lee BL, and TR4.

And triple digit waitlists are basically an endangered species - just five and they're all DCI feeders (DCB, LAMB, Stokes BL, MVC8, YY). Back in SY 19-20 that was 14.

I would say overall, this is a great thing. Kids are getting spots they want. Way fewer kids settling for their 10th, 11th, 12th choice because they're shut out of so many options. Way more IB buy in for a wide variety of schools. This is waaaaay beyond what you'd expect with decreasing birth rates.

I had a PK3 kid in the years of insane waitlists and honestly the whole thing was pretty dumb. So much hype, so much stress, over a bunch of schools that aren't really that different from each other or from DCPS preschool.

There are fewer kids now, so some schools will have to shrink or close. It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out. But I'm so happy the days of waitlist craziness are behind us.

Using the OSSE enrollment audit spreadsheets from the current year and the 23-24 school year, so a two year comparison, it seems like total enrollment is down by 266 kids in PK3, 303 in PK4. Not a big difference in K and 1st but then 2nd grade is down by 270. 4th through 8th are up several hundred, but 6th is flat. 9 the is down the most, 408 kids. But the other high school grades are up-- 12th is up by 685!

It does seem like most of the preschool and lower elementary losses fell on the charter sector. Both sectors gained in upper elementary but in 6th DCPS gained and the charter sector shrank. The opposite for 9th grade, interestingly. So really a mixed bag, hard to make sense of.

PP here - yeah, this is interesting. I think a lot of what's happened is that back in the day, every UMC family just felt like they "needed" a HRCS, so no matter where they lived EOTP or what they actually thought of the specific schools, they put YY, DCB, MV, Stokes, ITDS, TR, Cap City, Haynes, CMI, Breakthrough, and then an Apple Tree and their IB as "backups." And a large number ended up at their IB and were disappointed, and all those folks were sitting on all the charter waitlists, making them so long.

But then, over time, hey, what do you know, it turns out our IB is actually not bad, and people in the neighborhood are now talking to people who are happy at their IB, and meanwhile the one neighbor who got into Cap City has got this long commute and what they have doesn't even sound all that much better? And now parents of younger kids are skipping all the HRCS (except for maybe a couple that are close by and/or have something they really like) and just putting their IB at/near the top of their list. Same number of kids (roughly) at the same schools, but they're not also sitting on the charter school waitlists driving the numbers sky high and feeling like they "lost".

Feels like a lot credit here is due to the unified lottery. When you just had to drive around and drop off a million applications, it feel like regular parenting due diligence, and if you got into an HRCS, you were psyched. Once you had to rank them ahead of time, people started actually evaluating them and realized they weren't worth the hype.

Totally this. But I do think some DCPS have genuinely improved. Stuart-Hobson in particular, and that's having a predictable effect on its feeders.

I think L-T gentrifying drove a lot of the new UMC kids at SH rather than the reverse.

I think it's both, but it only happens if the middle school is perceived to be acceptable or on an improving trajectory.

Stuart Hobson is objectively bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So if i follow coreectly, at this point the acceptable charter middle/high schools are both Latins, Basis (sort of), DCI, Inspired (ms only), Truth (sort of, and hs is brand new). No one has locked in feeder rights now that DCI feeders are large.

So everyone's in the same boat, with DCI feeders having a leg up but no longer guaranteed.

What a mess.

Agreed. What happens to all of those kids when the leg up doesn’t work out? Maybe some have an acceptable IB middle school, but most of the families we know are IB for MacFarland or Brookland middle school. If they have a bad enough number to get waitlisted at DCI, is SH, EH, or any of the other “middle tier”schools an option?

I mean, despite the "middle tier" rhetoric, Stuart Hobson is harder to get into than BASIS recently, so no... the few kids not getting into DCI aren't getting a top 1/3rd lottery number as SH requires. EH maybe, but trending in the direction of harder to get into, so I wouldn't count on it. Jefferson seems to be the best bet?

Silly statement. You cannot compare the difficulty of matching between a DCPS boundary school and any charter. SH is a 100% chance if you are IB. Latin and BASIS are what they are.

There's a lot of data and reasonable conclusions to draw. Yours just isn't omne of them.

You’re expecting someone who doesn’t understand the ramifications of a poor middle school experience to understand statistics. Give it up. Let them think it’s harder to get in Hobson than Basis. Enjoy amplify science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, charter elementary schools really have plummeted in demand.

For SY 19-20, there were 30 PCS with PK3 waitlists in the double digits (including LAMB even though they weren't in the common lottery, just cause, duh, they had huge waitlists back then).

This year? 13. The seven DCI feeders (DCB, MVP, MVC8, YY, LAMB, Stokes EE, Stokes BL), plus ITDS, Apple Tree Lincoln Park, EL Haynes, LEARN, Lee BL, and TR4.

And triple digit waitlists are basically an endangered species - just five and they're all DCI feeders (DCB, LAMB, Stokes BL, MVC8, YY). Back in SY 19-20 that was 14.

I would say overall, this is a great thing. Kids are getting spots they want. Way fewer kids settling for their 10th, 11th, 12th choice because they're shut out of so many options. Way more IB buy in for a wide variety of schools. This is waaaaay beyond what you'd expect with decreasing birth rates.

I had a PK3 kid in the years of insane waitlists and honestly the whole thing was pretty dumb. So much hype, so much stress, over a bunch of schools that aren't really that different from each other or from DCPS preschool.

There are fewer kids now, so some schools will have to shrink or close. It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out. But I'm so happy the days of waitlist craziness are behind us.

Using the OSSE enrollment audit spreadsheets from the current year and the 23-24 school year, so a two year comparison, it seems like total enrollment is down by 266 kids in PK3, 303 in PK4. Not a big difference in K and 1st but then 2nd grade is down by 270. 4th through 8th are up several hundred, but 6th is flat. 9 the is down the most, 408 kids. But the other high school grades are up-- 12th is up by 685!

It does seem like most of the preschool and lower elementary losses fell on the charter sector. Both sectors gained in upper elementary but in 6th DCPS gained and the charter sector shrank. The opposite for 9th grade, interestingly. So really a mixed bag, hard to make sense of.

PP here - yeah, this is interesting. I think a lot of what's happened is that back in the day, every UMC family just felt like they "needed" a HRCS, so no matter where they lived EOTP or what they actually thought of the specific schools, they put YY, DCB, MV, Stokes, ITDS, TR, Cap City, Haynes, CMI, Breakthrough, and then an Apple Tree and their IB as "backups." And a large number ended up at their IB and were disappointed, and all those folks were sitting on all the charter waitlists, making them so long.

But then, over time, hey, what do you know, it turns out our IB is actually not bad, and people in the neighborhood are now talking to people who are happy at their IB, and meanwhile the one neighbor who got into Cap City has got this long commute and what they have doesn't even sound all that much better? And now parents of younger kids are skipping all the HRCS (except for maybe a couple that are close by and/or have something they really like) and just putting their IB at/near the top of their list. Same number of kids (roughly) at the same schools, but they're not also sitting on the charter school waitlists driving the numbers sky high and feeling like they "lost".

Feels like a lot credit here is due to the unified lottery. When you just had to drive around and drop off a million applications, it feel like regular parenting due diligence, and if you got into an HRCS, you were psyched. Once you had to rank them ahead of time, people started actually evaluating them and realized they weren't worth the hype.

Totally this. But I do think some DCPS have genuinely improved. Stuart-Hobson in particular, and that's having a predictable effect on its feeders.

I think L-T gentrifying drove a lot of the new UMC kids at SH rather than the reverse.

I think it's both, but it only happens if the middle school is perceived to be acceptable or on an improving trajectory.

Stuart Hobson is objectively bad.

Based on increasing enrollment of in-boundary students and the length of their waitlist, it seems that your opinion of Stuart-Hobson is not shared by all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, charter elementary schools really have plummeted in demand.

For SY 19-20, there were 30 PCS with PK3 waitlists in the double digits (including LAMB even though they weren't in the common lottery, just cause, duh, they had huge waitlists back then).

This year? 13. The seven DCI feeders (DCB, MVP, MVC8, YY, LAMB, Stokes EE, Stokes BL), plus ITDS, Apple Tree Lincoln Park, EL Haynes, LEARN, Lee BL, and TR4.

And triple digit waitlists are basically an endangered species - just five and they're all DCI feeders (DCB, LAMB, Stokes BL, MVC8, YY). Back in SY 19-20 that was 14.

I would say overall, this is a great thing. Kids are getting spots they want. Way fewer kids settling for their 10th, 11th, 12th choice because they're shut out of so many options. Way more IB buy in for a wide variety of schools. This is waaaaay beyond what you'd expect with decreasing birth rates.

I had a PK3 kid in the years of insane waitlists and honestly the whole thing was pretty dumb. So much hype, so much stress, over a bunch of schools that aren't really that different from each other or from DCPS preschool.

There are fewer kids now, so some schools will have to shrink or close. It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out. But I'm so happy the days of waitlist craziness are behind us.

Using the OSSE enrollment audit spreadsheets from the current year and the 23-24 school year, so a two year comparison, it seems like total enrollment is down by 266 kids in PK3, 303 in PK4. Not a big difference in K and 1st but then 2nd grade is down by 270. 4th through 8th are up several hundred, but 6th is flat. 9 the is down the most, 408 kids. But the other high school grades are up-- 12th is up by 685!

It does seem like most of the preschool and lower elementary losses fell on the charter sector. Both sectors gained in upper elementary but in 6th DCPS gained and the charter sector shrank. The opposite for 9th grade, interestingly. So really a mixed bag, hard to make sense of.

PP here - yeah, this is interesting. I think a lot of what's happened is that back in the day, every UMC family just felt like they "needed" a HRCS, so no matter where they lived EOTP or what they actually thought of the specific schools, they put YY, DCB, MV, Stokes, ITDS, TR, Cap City, Haynes, CMI, Breakthrough, and then an Apple Tree and their IB as "backups." And a large number ended up at their IB and were disappointed, and all those folks were sitting on all the charter waitlists, making them so long.

But then, over time, hey, what do you know, it turns out our IB is actually not bad, and people in the neighborhood are now talking to people who are happy at their IB, and meanwhile the one neighbor who got into Cap City has got this long commute and what they have doesn't even sound all that much better? And now parents of younger kids are skipping all the HRCS (except for maybe a couple that are close by and/or have something they really like) and just putting their IB at/near the top of their list. Same number of kids (roughly) at the same schools, but they're not also sitting on the charter school waitlists driving the numbers sky high and feeling like they "lost".

Feels like a lot credit here is due to the unified lottery. When you just had to drive around and drop off a million applications, it feel like regular parenting due diligence, and if you got into an HRCS, you were psyched. Once you had to rank them ahead of time, people started actually evaluating them and realized they weren't worth the hype.

Totally this. But I do think some DCPS have genuinely improved. Stuart-Hobson in particular, and that's having a predictable effect on its feeders.

I think L-T gentrifying drove a lot of the new UMC kids at SH rather than the reverse.

I think it's both, but it only happens if the middle school is perceived to be acceptable or on an improving trajectory.

Stuart Hobson is objectively bad.

Based on increasing enrollment of in-boundary students and the length of their waitlist, it seems that your opinion of Stuart-Hobson is not shared by all.

There is one poster who is constantly posting that SH is not good. There was also a poster (maybe it’s the same person?) who claimed they were a tutor for a bunch of SH kids and that it’s not a good school. I think it’s the same person who is also constantly posting that DCPS has low standards. I kind of wish that Jeff forced handles on this particular forum so we could know. Or at least allow you to see post history for this form.

[Anonymous]

(Sniff.) “Basis just isn’t a good fit for every child.”

Children flock to other schools.

“Wait, wait, why aren’t you coming here? When we said Basis wasn’t a good fit for you, we didn’t mean you should want to go somewhere else instead!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, charter elementary schools really have plummeted in demand.

For SY 19-20, there were 30 PCS with PK3 waitlists in the double digits (including LAMB even though they weren't in the common lottery, just cause, duh, they had huge waitlists back then).

This year? 13. The seven DCI feeders (DCB, MVP, MVC8, YY, LAMB, Stokes EE, Stokes BL), plus ITDS, Apple Tree Lincoln Park, EL Haynes, LEARN, Lee BL, and TR4.

And triple digit waitlists are basically an endangered species - just five and they're all DCI feeders (DCB, LAMB, Stokes BL, MVC8, YY). Back in SY 19-20 that was 14.

I would say overall, this is a great thing. Kids are getting spots they want. Way fewer kids settling for their 10th, 11th, 12th choice because they're shut out of so many options. Way more IB buy in for a wide variety of schools. This is waaaaay beyond what you'd expect with decreasing birth rates.

I had a PK3 kid in the years of insane waitlists and honestly the whole thing was pretty dumb. So much hype, so much stress, over a bunch of schools that aren't really that different from each other or from DCPS preschool.

There are fewer kids now, so some schools will have to shrink or close. It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out. But I'm so happy the days of waitlist craziness are behind us.

Using the OSSE enrollment audit spreadsheets from the current year and the 23-24 school year, so a two year comparison, it seems like total enrollment is down by 266 kids in PK3, 303 in PK4. Not a big difference in K and 1st but then 2nd grade is down by 270. 4th through 8th are up several hundred, but 6th is flat. 9 the is down the most, 408 kids. But the other high school grades are up-- 12th is up by 685!

It does seem like most of the preschool and lower elementary losses fell on the charter sector. Both sectors gained in upper elementary but in 6th DCPS gained and the charter sector shrank. The opposite for 9th grade, interestingly. So really a mixed bag, hard to make sense of.

PP here - yeah, this is interesting. I think a lot of what's happened is that back in the day, every UMC family just felt like they "needed" a HRCS, so no matter where they lived EOTP or what they actually thought of the specific schools, they put YY, DCB, MV, Stokes, ITDS, TR, Cap City, Haynes, CMI, Breakthrough, and then an Apple Tree and their IB as "backups." And a large number ended up at their IB and were disappointed, and all those folks were sitting on all the charter waitlists, making them so long.

But then, over time, hey, what do you know, it turns out our IB is actually not bad, and people in the neighborhood are now talking to people who are happy at their IB, and meanwhile the one neighbor who got into Cap City has got this long commute and what they have doesn't even sound all that much better? And now parents of younger kids are skipping all the HRCS (except for maybe a couple that are close by and/or have something they really like) and just putting their IB at/near the top of their list. Same number of kids (roughly) at the same schools, but they're not also sitting on the charter school waitlists driving the numbers sky high and feeling like they "lost".

Feels like a lot credit here is due to the unified lottery. When you just had to drive around and drop off a million applications, it feel like regular parenting due diligence, and if you got into an HRCS, you were psyched. Once you had to rank them ahead of time, people started actually evaluating them and realized they weren't worth the hype.

Totally this. But I do think some DCPS have genuinely improved. Stuart-Hobson in particular, and that's having a predictable effect on its feeders.

I think L-T gentrifying drove a lot of the new UMC kids at SH rather than the reverse.

I think it's both, but it only happens if the middle school is perceived to be acceptable or on an improving trajectory.

Stuart Hobson is objectively bad.

Based on increasing enrollment of in-boundary students and the length of their waitlist, it seems that your opinion of Stuart-Hobson is not shared by all.

There is one poster who is constantly posting that SH is not good. There was also a poster (maybe it’s the same person?) who claimed they were a tutor for a bunch of SH kids and that it’s not a good school. I think it’s the same person who is also constantly posting that DCPS has low standards. I kind of wish that Jeff forced handles on this particular forum so we could know. Or at least allow you to see post history for this form.

Dcps DOES have low standards. And threatening the MANY posters who pointed this out with banning is just another way to silence parents. I wish I could see your posting history too!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:(Sniff.) “Basis just isn’t a good fit for every child.”

Children flock to other schools.

“Wait, wait, why aren’t you coming here? When we said Basis wasn’t a good fit for you, we didn’t mean you should want to go somewhere else instead!”

Why don’t then go to Stuart Hobson then? Oh bc it has dismal curriculum offerings and terrible parcc scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, charter elementary schools really have plummeted in demand.

For SY 19-20, there were 30 PCS with PK3 waitlists in the double digits (including LAMB even though they weren't in the common lottery, just cause, duh, they had huge waitlists back then).

This year? 13. The seven DCI feeders (DCB, MVP, MVC8, YY, LAMB, Stokes EE, Stokes BL), plus ITDS, Apple Tree Lincoln Park, EL Haynes, LEARN, Lee BL, and TR4.

And triple digit waitlists are basically an endangered species - just five and they're all DCI feeders (DCB, LAMB, Stokes BL, MVC8, YY). Back in SY 19-20 that was 14.

I would say overall, this is a great thing. Kids are getting spots they want. Way fewer kids settling for their 10th, 11th, 12th choice because they're shut out of so many options. Way more IB buy in for a wide variety of schools. This is waaaaay beyond what you'd expect with decreasing birth rates.

I had a PK3 kid in the years of insane waitlists and honestly the whole thing was pretty dumb. So much hype, so much stress, over a bunch of schools that aren't really that different from each other or from DCPS preschool.

There are fewer kids now, so some schools will have to shrink or close. It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out. But I'm so happy the days of waitlist craziness are behind us.

Using the OSSE enrollment audit spreadsheets from the current year and the 23-24 school year, so a two year comparison, it seems like total enrollment is down by 266 kids in PK3, 303 in PK4. Not a big difference in K and 1st but then 2nd grade is down by 270. 4th through 8th are up several hundred, but 6th is flat. 9 the is down the most, 408 kids. But the other high school grades are up-- 12th is up by 685!

It does seem like most of the preschool and lower elementary losses fell on the charter sector. Both sectors gained in upper elementary but in 6th DCPS gained and the charter sector shrank. The opposite for 9th grade, interestingly. So really a mixed bag, hard to make sense of.

PP here - yeah, this is interesting. I think a lot of what's happened is that back in the day, every UMC family just felt like they "needed" a HRCS, so no matter where they lived EOTP or what they actually thought of the specific schools, they put YY, DCB, MV, Stokes, ITDS, TR, Cap City, Haynes, CMI, Breakthrough, and then an Apple Tree and their IB as "backups." And a large number ended up at their IB and were disappointed, and all those folks were sitting on all the charter waitlists, making them so long.

But then, over time, hey, what do you know, it turns out our IB is actually not bad, and people in the neighborhood are now talking to people who are happy at their IB, and meanwhile the one neighbor who got into Cap City has got this long commute and what they have doesn't even sound all that much better? And now parents of younger kids are skipping all the HRCS (except for maybe a couple that are close by and/or have something they really like) and just putting their IB at/near the top of their list. Same number of kids (roughly) at the same schools, but they're not also sitting on the charter school waitlists driving the numbers sky high and feeling like they "lost".

Feels like a lot credit here is due to the unified lottery. When you just had to drive around and drop off a million applications, it feel like regular parenting due diligence, and if you got into an HRCS, you were psyched. Once you had to rank them ahead of time, people started actually evaluating them and realized they weren't worth the hype.

Totally this. But I do think some DCPS have genuinely improved. Stuart-Hobson in particular, and that's having a predictable effect on its feeders.

I think L-T gentrifying drove a lot of the new UMC kids at SH rather than the reverse.

I think it's both, but it only happens if the middle school is perceived to be acceptable or on an improving trajectory.

Stuart Hobson is objectively bad.

Based on increasing enrollment of in-boundary students and the length of their waitlist, it seems that your opinion of Stuart-Hobson is not shared by all.

I think there are a few middle schools (EH, Wells, maybe Brookland) that are moving in SH’s direction too. I think buy-in from strong elementary schools is key. I’d send my kids to SH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:(Sniff.) “Basis just isn’t a good fit for every child.”

Children flock to other schools.

“Wait, wait, why aren’t you coming here? When we said Basis wasn’t a good fit for you, we didn’t mean you should want to go somewhere else instead!”

Why don’t then go to Stuart Hobson then? Oh bc it has dismal curriculum offerings and terrible parcc scores.

But some of these folks obviously do go to SH. Despite the folks claiming you can't compare a DCPS to a charter -- even though we do it all the time in other contexts -- SH is harder to get into for an OOB family than BASIS is. There are more than 100 families on the SH WL despite the fact that IB families don't need to lottery. Like, clearly, despite your opinion lots of families actually are clamoring to go there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:(Sniff.) “Basis just isn’t a good fit for every child.”

Children flock to other schools.

“Wait, wait, why aren’t you coming here? When we said Basis wasn’t a good fit for you, we didn’t mean you should want to go somewhere else instead!”

Why don’t then go to Stuart Hobson then? Oh bc it has dismal curriculum offerings and terrible parcc scores.

Ahh, you're someone who had a kid during the COVID era? I think it has improved massively since that dip, which I hear from people I know in real life with multiple kids who have attended was a real thing. The giveaway is the reference to PARCC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, charter elementary schools really have plummeted in demand.

For SY 19-20, there were 30 PCS with PK3 waitlists in the double digits (including LAMB even though they weren't in the common lottery, just cause, duh, they had huge waitlists back then).

This year? 13. The seven DCI feeders (DCB, MVP, MVC8, YY, LAMB, Stokes EE, Stokes BL), plus ITDS, Apple Tree Lincoln Park, EL Haynes, LEARN, Lee BL, and TR4.

And triple digit waitlists are basically an endangered species - just five and they're all DCI feeders (DCB, LAMB, Stokes BL, MVC8, YY). Back in SY 19-20 that was 14.

I would say overall, this is a great thing. Kids are getting spots they want. Way fewer kids settling for their 10th, 11th, 12th choice because they're shut out of so many options. Way more IB buy in for a wide variety of schools. This is waaaaay beyond what you'd expect with decreasing birth rates.

I had a PK3 kid in the years of insane waitlists and honestly the whole thing was pretty dumb. So much hype, so much stress, over a bunch of schools that aren't really that different from each other or from DCPS preschool.

There are fewer kids now, so some schools will have to shrink or close. It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out. But I'm so happy the days of waitlist craziness are behind us.

Using the OSSE enrollment audit spreadsheets from the current year and the 23-24 school year, so a two year comparison, it seems like total enrollment is down by 266 kids in PK3, 303 in PK4. Not a big difference in K and 1st but then 2nd grade is down by 270. 4th through 8th are up several hundred, but 6th is flat. 9 the is down the most, 408 kids. But the other high school grades are up-- 12th is up by 685!

It does seem like most of the preschool and lower elementary losses fell on the charter sector. Both sectors gained in upper elementary but in 6th DCPS gained and the charter sector shrank. The opposite for 9th grade, interestingly. So really a mixed bag, hard to make sense of.

PP here - yeah, this is interesting. I think a lot of what's happened is that back in the day, every UMC family just felt like they "needed" a HRCS, so no matter where they lived EOTP or what they actually thought of the specific schools, they put YY, DCB, MV, Stokes, ITDS, TR, Cap City, Haynes, CMI, Breakthrough, and then an Apple Tree and their IB as "backups." And a large number ended up at their IB and were disappointed, and all those folks were sitting on all the charter waitlists, making them so long.

But then, over time, hey, what do you know, it turns out our IB is actually not bad, and people in the neighborhood are now talking to people who are happy at their IB, and meanwhile the one neighbor who got into Cap City has got this long commute and what they have doesn't even sound all that much better? And now parents of younger kids are skipping all the HRCS (except for maybe a couple that are close by and/or have something they really like) and just putting their IB at/near the top of their list. Same number of kids (roughly) at the same schools, but they're not also sitting on the charter school waitlists driving the numbers sky high and feeling like they "lost".

Feels like a lot credit here is due to the unified lottery. When you just had to drive around and drop off a million applications, it feel like regular parenting due diligence, and if you got into an HRCS, you were psyched. Once you had to rank them ahead of time, people started actually evaluating them and realized they weren't worth the hype.

Totally this. But I do think some DCPS have genuinely improved. Stuart-Hobson in particular, and that's having a predictable effect on its feeders.

I think L-T gentrifying drove a lot of the new UMC kids at SH rather than the reverse.

I think it's both, but it only happens if the middle school is perceived to be acceptable or on an improving trajectory.

Stuart Hobson is objectively bad.

Based on increasing enrollment of in-boundary students and the length of their waitlist, it seems that your opinion of Stuart-Hobson is not shared by all.

There is one poster who is constantly posting that SH is not good. There was also a poster (maybe it’s the same person?) who claimed they were a tutor for a bunch of SH kids and that it’s not a good school. I think it’s the same person who is also constantly posting that DCPS has low standards. I kind of wish that Jeff forced handles on this particular forum so we could know. Or at least allow you to see post history for this form.

+1. It's not about silencing them; it's about acknowledging that it's one repeated poster with a huge chip on their shoulder who apparently hasn't had a kid at SH since the PARCC era.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:(Sniff.) “Basis just isn’t a good fit for every child.”

Children flock to other schools.

“Wait, wait, why aren’t you coming here? When we said Basis wasn’t a good fit for you, we didn’t mean you should want to go somewhere else instead!”

Why don’t then go to Stuart Hobson then? Oh bc it has dismal curriculum offerings and terrible parcc scores.

But some of these folks obviously do go to SH. Despite the folks claiming you can't compare a DCPS to a charter -- even though we do it all the time in other contexts -- SH is harder to get into for an OOB family than BASIS is. There are more than 100 families on the SH WL despite the fact that IB families don't need to lottery. Like, clearly, despite your opinion lots of families actually are clamoring to go there.

DP, no skin in this game but the real reality is that no SH is not a good school. It’s just that families with no options are just desperate. They are were shut out of the charters in the lottery.

Of course this doesn’t apply to everyone, but for sure the overwhelming majority on this board for sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, charter elementary schools really have plummeted in demand.

For SY 19-20, there were 30 PCS with PK3 waitlists in the double digits (including LAMB even though they weren't in the common lottery, just cause, duh, they had huge waitlists back then).

This year? 13. The seven DCI feeders (DCB, MVP, MVC8, YY, LAMB, Stokes EE, Stokes BL), plus ITDS, Apple Tree Lincoln Park, EL Haynes, LEARN, Lee BL, and TR4.

And triple digit waitlists are basically an endangered species - just five and they're all DCI feeders (DCB, LAMB, Stokes BL, MVC8, YY). Back in SY 19-20 that was 14.

I would say overall, this is a great thing. Kids are getting spots they want. Way fewer kids settling for their 10th, 11th, 12th choice because they're shut out of so many options. Way more IB buy in for a wide variety of schools. This is waaaaay beyond what you'd expect with decreasing birth rates.

I had a PK3 kid in the years of insane waitlists and honestly the whole thing was pretty dumb. So much hype, so much stress, over a bunch of schools that aren't really that different from each other or from DCPS preschool.

There are fewer kids now, so some schools will have to shrink or close. It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out. But I'm so happy the days of waitlist craziness are behind us.

Using the OSSE enrollment audit spreadsheets from the current year and the 23-24 school year, so a two year comparison, it seems like total enrollment is down by 266 kids in PK3, 303 in PK4. Not a big difference in K and 1st but then 2nd grade is down by 270. 4th through 8th are up several hundred, but 6th is flat. 9 the is down the most, 408 kids. But the other high school grades are up-- 12th is up by 685!

It does seem like most of the preschool and lower elementary losses fell on the charter sector. Both sectors gained in upper elementary but in 6th DCPS gained and the charter sector shrank. The opposite for 9th grade, interestingly. So really a mixed bag, hard to make sense of.

PP here - yeah, this is interesting. I think a lot of what's happened is that back in the day, every UMC family just felt like they "needed" a HRCS, so no matter where they lived EOTP or what they actually thought of the specific schools, they put YY, DCB, MV, Stokes, ITDS, TR, Cap City, Haynes, CMI, Breakthrough, and then an Apple Tree and their IB as "backups." And a large number ended up at their IB and were disappointed, and all those folks were sitting on all the charter waitlists, making them so long.

But then, over time, hey, what do you know, it turns out our IB is actually not bad, and people in the neighborhood are now talking to people who are happy at their IB, and meanwhile the one neighbor who got into Cap City has got this long commute and what they have doesn't even sound all that much better? And now parents of younger kids are skipping all the HRCS (except for maybe a couple that are close by and/or have something they really like) and just putting their IB at/near the top of their list. Same number of kids (roughly) at the same schools, but they're not also sitting on the charter school waitlists driving the numbers sky high and feeling like they "lost".

Feels like a lot credit here is due to the unified lottery. When you just had to drive around and drop off a million applications, it feel like regular parenting due diligence, and if you got into an HRCS, you were psyched. Once you had to rank them ahead of time, people started actually evaluating them and realized they weren't worth the hype.

Totally this. But I do think some DCPS have genuinely improved. Stuart-Hobson in particular, and that's having a predictable effect on its feeders.

I think L-T gentrifying drove a lot of the new UMC kids at SH rather than the reverse.

I think it's both, but it only happens if the middle school is perceived to be acceptable or on an improving trajectory.

Stuart Hobson is objectively bad.

Based on increasing enrollment of in-boundary students and the length of their waitlist, it seems that your opinion of Stuart-Hobson is not shared by all.

There is one poster who is constantly posting that SH is not good. There was also a poster (maybe it’s the same person?) who claimed they were a tutor for a bunch of SH kids and that it’s not a good school. I think it’s the same person who is also constantly posting that DCPS has low standards. I kind of wish that Jeff forced handles on this particular forum so we could know. Or at least allow you to see post history for this form.

+1. It's not about silencing them; it's about acknowledging that it's one repeated poster with a huge chip on their shoulder who apparently hasn't had a kid at SH since the PARCC era.

I highly doubt it is the same person at all. It is probably multiple people. Stop with the conspiracy theory to suit your agenda.

Lots of families find SH unacceptable for their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:(Sniff.) “Basis just isn’t a good fit for every child.”

Children flock to other schools.

“Wait, wait, why aren’t you coming here? When we said Basis wasn’t a good fit for you, we didn’t mean you should want to go somewhere else instead!”

Why don’t then go to Stuart Hobson then? Oh bc it has dismal curriculum offerings and terrible parcc scores.

But some of these folks obviously do go to SH. Despite the folks claiming you can't compare a DCPS to a charter -- even though we do it all the time in other contexts -- SH is harder to get into for an OOB family than BASIS is. There are more than 100 families on the SH WL despite the fact that IB families don't need to lottery. Like, clearly, despite your opinion lots of families actually are clamoring to go there.

DP, no skin in this game but the real reality is that no SH is not a good school. It’s just that families with no options are just desperate. They are were shut out of the charters in the lottery.

Of course this doesn’t apply to everyone, but for sure the overwhelming majority on this board for sure.

Actually at our SH feeder, basically 50% of families who get into BASIS turn it down (and others don't apply) and I don't know a single family that applied to DCI. Yes, these folks mostly applied for and got shut out of Latin (although there are some who don't lottery at all), but SH is next up on average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:(Sniff.) “Basis just isn’t a good fit for every child.”

Children flock to other schools.

“Wait, wait, why aren’t you coming here? When we said Basis wasn’t a good fit for you, we didn’t mean you should want to go somewhere else instead!”

Why don’t then go to Stuart Hobson then? Oh bc it has dismal curriculum offerings and terrible parcc scores.

But some of these folks obviously do go to SH. Despite the folks claiming you can't compare a DCPS to a charter -- even though we do it all the time in other contexts -- SH is harder to get into for an OOB family than BASIS is. There are more than 100 families on the SH WL despite the fact that IB families don't need to lottery. Like, clearly, despite your opinion lots of families actually are clamoring to go there.

DP, no skin in this game but the real reality is that no SH is not a good school. It’s just that families with no options are just desperate. They are were shut out of the charters in the lottery.

Of course this doesn’t apply to everyone, but for sure the overwhelming majority on this board for sure.

Oh come on. Lots of people go to SH on purpose and not because they were shut out. People enroll in the feeders in 5th for the purpose of going to SH! There are lots of bad schools in this city but SH is not among them. It's fine.