gah - need instruction on how school works in DC!

[Anonymous]

I know this has probably been beaten to death, but I don't even know how to search for it. We have a one year old. We live in MD. We are moving into the city either this year or next. Currently we are looking at houses in Columbia Heights. We would greatly prefer to send our daughter to public school, as long as that public school is good.

Can someone give me a concise explanation of how school works here? I am from a college town in the midwest where your school was based 100% on where you lived. There was no lottery. There was no application. You just notified them that you would be enrolling and then bought school supplies and new hair ribbons.

Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

For K you are guaranteed a spot in your local school. There are no guarantees for PS or PK, so everyone has to a lottery but you have preference if it is your neighborhood school. Charter schools are 100% lottery with no neighborhood preference.

http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/Learn+About+Schools/Preschool+and+Pre-K+Lottery

There is also a way to search on the dcps website for your neighborhood schools based on address. http://dcatlas.dcgis.dc.gov/schools/

For info on charter schools, find the charter school board website or go directly to the website for the charter school.

And, I think that the neighborhood school for columbia heights is tubman and not such a great option. but i could be remembering wrong and it may vary depending exactly where you are.

[Anonymous]

The DCPS website is pretty helpful regarding the way that the lottery works, but the schools vary considerably, so you should look through back posts here. http://dcps.dc.gov/portal/site/DCPS/

The charters also vary, but there are many posts that describe them.

[Anonymous]

THANKS.

So just to clarify - the lottery that folks seem to be stressing out about is for charter schools and pre-K stuff? And if you live in bounds for a public, non-charter school, you're in starting at kindergarten regardless of lottery?

[Anonymous]

That's right - most of the folks stressing about charter and pre-K spots are people who do not live in bounds in a good school district. Honestly, if you are moving with a child - I would buy in a neighborhood where you would feel comfortable sending your children to the in-bounds school. When they are young it feels like you have lots of time - but it goes quickly -and if anything the whole process seems to be getting more stressful as more families stay in the city. There are plenty of options - you don't need to buy a house in the top tier school areas. Search these forums for advice on that.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:THANKS.

So just to clarify - the lottery that folks seem to be stressing out about is for charter schools and pre-K stuff? And if you live in bounds for a public, non-charter school, you're in starting at kindergarten regardless of lottery?

Correct, assuming you do not choose to send your child elsewhere based on a lottery acceptance. I would carefully look at the comments on the in boundary elementary where you plan to live before you move. The schools all have open houses in the fall and the spring so there is an easy opportunity to visit the schools and look around. Do not move somewhere thinking the in boundary school does not matter because you can go out of boundary or charter, that is a nail biting process in which not everybody wins and it gets more competitive every year. There are lots of message chains on here by people who are angry at their lack of choice in in boundary schools. You need to know that there are a lot of public schools in this city that are sub par and do your research before you lock yourself into a particular home as moving is not always easy.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your wisdom. We're trying to figure out what our list of priorities and criteria are before becoming wedded to a particular house, neighborhood, etc.

It is good to know that while this scramble is similar to the daycare scramble, it is not quite as bad as it seems like you will eventually end up SOMEWHERE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know this has probably been beaten to death, but I don't even know how to search for it. We have a one year old. We live in MD. We are moving into the city either this year or next. Currently we are looking at houses in Columbia Heights. We would greatly prefer to send our daughter to public school, as long as that public school is good.

Can someone give me a concise explanation of how school works here? I am from a college town in the midwest where your school was based 100% on where you lived. There was no lottery. There was no application. You just notified them that you would be enrolling and then bought school supplies and new hair ribbons.

Thanks in advance.

DCPS is the regular, traditional district-based kind of system that you're used to. Which DCPS is your home school is based on your address. Only a handful of them are considered desirable and they're west of the park. They are often abbreviated on this board as JKLM (Janney, Lafayette, Key, Mann, and Murch). There's a second tier of DCPS schools which are pretty good, but not so good that they have a lot of loyalty from the families in their neighborhoods. Some of them are in very wealthy neighborhoods where most residents choose private school. These are: Eaton, Hearst, Hyde, and Stoddert. And there's also Oyster, which is sort of in a category of its own because it is a Spanish immersion school. All of these schools are west of the park.

Charters are independently operated schools, and you have to apply to each one separately. They're sort of like private schools in that they set their own programs, hire their own staff, and basically run everything themselves instead of relying on DCPS. There are dozens of charter schools in DC. Once again, a handful of these are considered desirable. The most desirable actually manage to attract students who are inbounds for good DCPS schools, the JKLMs. These are: Capital City, EL Haynes, Elsie Stokes, LAMB, 2 Rivers, Washington Yu Ying, and Washington Latin (although Latin is a middle school/high school, so not really relevant to your question). They are free, but application is by lottery and they get hundreds and hundreds of applications.

About 1/3 of DC public school students are in charters, 1/3 are in their home school, and 1/3 attend an OOB school. OOB stands for "out of boundary." DCPS holds a centralized lottery to fill up spaces that are unused, so you can register for the OOB lottery and hope to get lucky with one of the JKLMs or the Tier 2 schools. Like the hot charter schools, they will each get a few hundred applicants for their OOB slots.

The only way to guarantee you get a good school is to rent or buy into a neighborhood that is inbounds for one of the good schools. Then, if you want to apply to LAMB (Spanish immersion Montessori), Stokes (French and Spanish immersion) or Yu Ying (Chinese immersion) - immersion programs are becoming very popular in DC - you can do so, and if you don't get lucky you can still attend a decent inbounds school.

HTH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

DCPS is the regular, traditional district-based kind of system that you're used to. Which DCPS is your home school is based on your address. Only a handful of them are considered desirable and they're west of the park. They are often abbreviated on this board as JKLM (Janney, Lafayette, Key, Mann, and Murch). There's a second tier of DCPS schools which are pretty good, but not so good that they have a lot of loyalty from the families in their neighborhoods. Some of them are in very wealthy neighborhoods where most residents choose private school. These are: Eaton, Hearst, Hyde, and Stoddert. And there's also Oyster, which is sort of in a category of its own because it is a Spanish immersion school. All of these schools are west of the park.

This poster is expressing commonly, but not universally, held views about which DCPS schools are high-quality. Others will add a number of east-of-the-park schools to this list, including several Capitol Hill schools (my neighborhood) and some schools in NW that are east of the park, which I can't recall since I haven't looked at them specifically. My child is in a charter school, so I don't have a particular ax to grind, but the OP is looking at Columbia Heights and may not be interested in the upper NW, west-of-the-park schools, or may not have the resources to consider those neighborhoods, and may want to know there are various views.

[Anonymous]

I personally think that Tubman is a great school. It is 100% minority right now, but that will change next year. It has the best test scores in the immediate vicinity. People tend to discount it because of its racial & ethnic makeup/ I would not do so.

[Anonymous]

Just as an option for you to know about - when I moved to DC from MD, I was a single mom and I found a beautiful small but 2 br apt in Woodley Park. We then were in boundary for Oyster and he started there in 1st grade. He has been there ever since and is now in their middle school, Adams...He is completely bilingual now and we couldnt be happier. A few years ago, we actually moved and bought our first home as I became engaged and wanted to start over and have more room to expand our blended family. We live out of boundary now in Bloomingdale but my son is still going to Adams until he hits high school because he is grandfathered in since he was a student there before we moved. So we feel we have the best of both worlds for now. Having said that, we will be looking at charters for our daughter who just turned one. We can try using the fact that she has a sibling who DID go to Oyster but I am not sure that will work....will have to look into it. I am also not sure what the current rule is for how long you need to be a student before you can be grandfathered in but for us, since it goes Pre K to high school and was an excellent school free of cost, it was worth renting for the few years we did. If Oyster interested you as a schooling option, and you didnt mind renting for a year, I might consider checking into it to see what their rules are.
Also, if you are looking at Columbia Heights, you might want to compare it to Bloomingdale if you havent already? I love it here and the two are fairly similar in cost last time I checked - we bought 3 years ago. People dont talk about Bloomingdale quite as much for some reason but they are starting to. We originally looked at LeDroit Park and our house was listed as being in LeDroit but truly it is in Bloomingdale or maybe on the border of the two. There are lots of young families and babies here in renovated rowhouses and many great changes happening in small businesses as well as a fabulous set of new parks and farmers market within walking distance. Sorry to sound like a realtor but we looked where you are looking too and it was confusing for us so I wish you luck!!

[Anonymous]

OP, have you done your own homework and prioritization? There is a one-stop-shop for how everything works at the greatschools.or website page on DC in the school chooser pdf. Indexes all schools by type incl public, charter, private and parochial; location by ward, speciality, academic rating (standardized scores for public and charters).

http://www.greatschools.org/geo/landing/washington-dc.page

The website is NOT a good source for reviews IMHO, tend to be old. (DCUM tends to be 2nd hand posts and sour grapes, but more recent.) Schools themselves don't seem to update info, but same thing goes for many school websites. It does have a handy mapping function to show all types of schools near an address, metro, etc.

Take it from someone who's BTDT in public, private and charter in DC. One yr old is too soon to pick a school by boundary. Take your time. Preschool/daycare is even crazier than elementary schools in DC! (Check the preschool forum for NCRC. Yowza.)

DCUM is probably a better resource once you have a sense of what is feasible and preferable for you.

welome!

Glad to hear you're moving in town! Col Hts/U St/MtP/AM is great for walkable parenting. (

[Anonymous]

Not the OP but wanted to thank all the posters who took their time to give long thorough responses...down to educating her in advance of the jklm acronyms. I remember being in op's position and it all felt so daunting at the time. I do agree to worry more about daycare than elementary, looking back that was more stressful than the stress of the lottery system. It seems to work out dcps or charter (coming from a mom in ward 7 where there are no desirable options). Welcome to DC!

[Anonymous]

There is a description of the DCPS lottery process at DowntownDCKids.org. The website says that they plan to add more detail and information regarding charters and privates soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I personally think that Tubman is a great school. It is 100% minority right now, but that will change next year. It has the best test scores in the immediate vicinity. People tend to discount it because of its racial & ethnic makeup/ I would not do so.

That's like being the best curling team in Guatemala - not exactly a high bar to clear. In 2010, Tubman CAS statistics were 64% proficient in Math and 45% proficient in reading.