26-27 Lottery data up

[Anonymous]

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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.

Except not. You are literally calling for the manager because multiple people disagree with you.

Instead of touting your waitlist, which btw doesn’t really speak to school students quality but rather lack of options, why don’t you defend your opinion on Stuart Hobson?

Please defend amplify science. Defend the lack of tracking. Defend the lack of rigor in ELA. Defend the weak math curriculum. What about the lack of extracurriculars? People on Capitol Hill deserve better than Stuart Hobson and screaming for the moderator to silence me (and many others) because we think kids deserve more is not a good look.

NP. I was kind of with you but SH has pretty great extra curriculars. It's actually one of the biggest selling points of the school.

Agree on amplify science and lack of writing, though these are also issues at Deal and Hardy -- it's a DCPS issue. I am still unclear on the state of math at SH. It's clearly gotten better in recent years but it's hard to tell how much. I suspect the next few years will make that more clear, as I do know of several feeder kids with very high math scores who are planning to go. A test for me is if they stay past 6th.

I did a pretty through comparison with other schools (dcps and charter) and found that it had major deficits in the math program (lack of rigor and lack of offerings), science (truly bad but yes this is dcps), ELA (very poor), foreign language, and extracurriculars. I know the theater program was touted for its popularity but that wasn’t important to my kid. Neither were most of the sports offerings. I genuinely found it to be of much worse quality than expected. That’s MY OPINION though and everyone is free to say what they want without attacking other people.

I’m the PP- i see you noted that the curriculum problems you saw were “more of a dcps issue”. That is true although I thought Eliot Hine had better offerings. But at the end of the day, I am not going to force my kids to attend a school that is of objectively poor quality (TO ME) simply because it’s a dcps. And dcps needs to do better.

Now I'm even more confused because I don't understand what schools you are comparing it to.

To be clear, I am fully on board with the idea that SH is a mediocre middle school. I think it's improving but am not sure I'll be enthusiastic about it as an option in a couple years when my kid is in 6th. So this isn't some SH booster trying to claim it's the best school ever.

But to compare it on curriculum to EH and find it lacking... did you send your kid to EH? I'm really asking. Among Hill families who have looked closely at both schools, I've always been told they found SH to have an academic edge. The curriculum itself is the same, including amplify (which is DCPS wide) and an ELA curriculum that I feel does not emphasize writing and assigns too few full books. SH definitely seems to have a better math curriculum than EH because it genuinely tracks. Again, not saying it's stellar or compares to, say, BASIS. But most people I know who have looked closely say it's better than EH.

Now if you are comparing to Deal and Hardy, that's different. Deal is huge and has a lot of high achieving students, so can offer true tracking across multiple subjects and just push students harder. Hardy is smaller (which many people like) but considered stronger academically. But Deal and Hardy are not options for Hill families unless you move or lottery into a feeder in elementary, for the most part. If you stay in the Hill, the commute is hell.

BASIS is considered very strong academically but approach is not for everyone and is considered VERY weak on extra-curriculars, which is one of several reasons I don't understand criticizing SH on that front -- it's among the strongest east side MS for ECs. Jefferson might have better sports options but it has lower test scores and less IB buy in.

Latin is considered strong but not stellar all around. Biggest upside is HS path. Biggest downside is no one gets in anyway so who cares.

DCI generally requires a feeder, so parents shopping for MSs usually aren't looking at DCI -- you have to make that choice earlier.

And then privates are a whole other can of works, as are the suburbs.

I just find the fixation on "SH is bad" weird, especially when comparing to other realistic options for families living on the East side. Is it exceptional, no. But worse than EH or Jefferson? Weaker ECs than BASIS? I don't know anyone who takes this viewpoint, even the most cynical, anti-DCPS family.

Yeah I’m wondering where the person criticizing SH sends their middle schooler. Because if they’re in private or an adjacent district, they should know this is the landscape we’re dealing with in DC public schools.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Except not. You are literally calling for the manager because multiple people disagree with you.

Instead of touting your waitlist, which btw doesn’t really speak to school students quality but rather lack of options, why don’t you defend your opinion on Stuart Hobson?

Please defend amplify science. Defend the lack of tracking. Defend the lack of rigor in ELA. Defend the weak math curriculum. What about the lack of extracurriculars? People on Capitol Hill deserve better than Stuart Hobson and screaming for the moderator to silence me (and many others) because we think kids deserve more is not a good look.

NP. I was kind of with you but SH has pretty great extra curriculars. It's actually one of the biggest selling points of the school.

Agree on amplify science and lack of writing, though these are also issues at Deal and Hardy -- it's a DCPS issue. I am still unclear on the state of math at SH. It's clearly gotten better in recent years but it's hard to tell how much. I suspect the next few years will make that more clear, as I do know of several feeder kids with very high math scores who are planning to go. A test for me is if they stay past 6th.

I did a pretty through comparison with other schools (dcps and charter) and found that it had major deficits in the math program (lack of rigor and lack of offerings), science (truly bad but yes this is dcps), ELA (very poor), foreign language, and extracurriculars. I know the theater program was touted for its popularity but that wasn’t important to my kid. Neither were most of the sports offerings. I genuinely found it to be of much worse quality than expected. That’s MY OPINION though and everyone is free to say what they want without attacking other people.

What extracurriculars are you looking for that SH doesn't have that other public DC schools do? It's theater program is superb and award winning. It just got named the best middle school debate program in DC for the 3rd or 4th year in a row. It has a wide variety of sports -- certainly wider than the charters being discussed in this thread. It has a great marching band + orchestra and strings groups. It has a great History Day program. It has an active HOSA group. It has Geoplunge and Mock Trial. It has a choir. It has the 40 book challenge. They're just starting up a branch of Mathcounts (competitive math). It has a ton of lower key student-run clubs too. I understand many of the critiques -- though I don't agree with all of yours fully -- but bad extracurriculars seems extremely off the mark.

Above is not accurate in regards to charters. DCI has many more sports than SH. They have over 40 teams total and are a sport powerhouse, winning a ton of championships in their leagues.

BTW they also have theater, debate, orchestra, geoplunge, robotics, chess, model UN. These are some just off the top of my head. Many more I’m forgetting.

I’m a DCI fan, but the 40 teams for DCI includes HS teams, so this is a really silly claim. Also the charter sports leagues are a joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Except not. You are literally calling for the manager because multiple people disagree with you.

Instead of touting your waitlist, which btw doesn’t really speak to school students quality but rather lack of options, why don’t you defend your opinion on Stuart Hobson?

Please defend amplify science. Defend the lack of tracking. Defend the lack of rigor in ELA. Defend the weak math curriculum. What about the lack of extracurriculars? People on Capitol Hill deserve better than Stuart Hobson and screaming for the moderator to silence me (and many others) because we think kids deserve more is not a good look.

NP. I was kind of with you but SH has pretty great extra curriculars. It's actually one of the biggest selling points of the school.

Agree on amplify science and lack of writing, though these are also issues at Deal and Hardy -- it's a DCPS issue. I am still unclear on the state of math at SH. It's clearly gotten better in recent years but it's hard to tell how much. I suspect the next few years will make that more clear, as I do know of several feeder kids with very high math scores who are planning to go. A test for me is if they stay past 6th.

I did a pretty through comparison with other schools (dcps and charter) and found that it had major deficits in the math program (lack of rigor and lack of offerings), science (truly bad but yes this is dcps), ELA (very poor), foreign language, and extracurriculars. I know the theater program was touted for its popularity but that wasn’t important to my kid. Neither were most of the sports offerings. I genuinely found it to be of much worse quality than expected. That’s MY OPINION though and everyone is free to say what they want without attacking other people.

What extracurriculars are you looking for that SH doesn't have that other public DC schools do? It's theater program is superb and award winning. It just got named the best middle school debate program in DC for the 3rd or 4th year in a row. It has a wide variety of sports -- certainly wider than the charters being discussed in this thread. It has a great marching band + orchestra and strings groups. It has a great History Day program. It has an active HOSA group. It has Geoplunge and Mock Trial. It has a choir. It has the 40 book challenge. They're just starting up a branch of Mathcounts (competitive math). It has a ton of lower key student-run clubs too. I understand many of the critiques -- though I don't agree with all of yours fully -- but bad extracurriculars seems extremely off the mark.

Above is not accurate in regards to charters. DCI has many more sports than SH. They have over 40 teams total and are a sport powerhouse, winning a ton of championships in their leagues.

BTW they also have theater, debate, orchestra, geoplunge, robotics, chess, model UN. These are some just off the top of my head. Many more I’m forgetting.

I’m a DCI fan, but the 40 teams for DCI includes HS teams, so this is a really silly claim. Also the charter sports leagues are a joke.

According to its website, has 17 middle schools sports teams, which is great, but a far cry from 40. Stuart-Hobson? Also 17.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Except not. You are literally calling for the manager because multiple people disagree with you.

Instead of touting your waitlist, which btw doesn’t really speak to school students quality but rather lack of options, why don’t you defend your opinion on Stuart Hobson?

Please defend amplify science. Defend the lack of tracking. Defend the lack of rigor in ELA. Defend the weak math curriculum. What about the lack of extracurriculars? People on Capitol Hill deserve better than Stuart Hobson and screaming for the moderator to silence me (and many others) because we think kids deserve more is not a good look.

NP. I was kind of with you but SH has pretty great extra curriculars. It's actually one of the biggest selling points of the school.

Agree on amplify science and lack of writing, though these are also issues at Deal and Hardy -- it's a DCPS issue. I am still unclear on the state of math at SH. It's clearly gotten better in recent years but it's hard to tell how much. I suspect the next few years will make that more clear, as I do know of several feeder kids with very high math scores who are planning to go. A test for me is if they stay past 6th.

I did a pretty through comparison with other schools (dcps and charter) and found that it had major deficits in the math program (lack of rigor and lack of offerings), science (truly bad but yes this is dcps), ELA (very poor), foreign language, and extracurriculars. I know the theater program was touted for its popularity but that wasn’t important to my kid. Neither were most of the sports offerings. I genuinely found it to be of much worse quality than expected. That’s MY OPINION though and everyone is free to say what they want without attacking other people.

What extracurriculars are you looking for that SH doesn't have that other public DC schools do? It's theater program is superb and award winning. It just got named the best middle school debate program in DC for the 3rd or 4th year in a row. It has a wide variety of sports -- certainly wider than the charters being discussed in this thread. It has a great marching band + orchestra and strings groups. It has a great History Day program. It has an active HOSA group. It has Geoplunge and Mock Trial. It has a choir. It has the 40 book challenge. They're just starting up a branch of Mathcounts (competitive math). It has a ton of lower key student-run clubs too. I understand many of the critiques -- though I don't agree with all of yours fully -- but bad extracurriculars seems extremely off the mark.

Above is not accurate in regards to charters. DCI has many more sports than SH. They have over 40 teams total and are a sport powerhouse, winning a ton of championships in their leagues.

BTW they also have theater, debate, orchestra, geoplunge, robotics, chess, model UN. These are some just off the top of my head. Many more I’m forgetting.

Ok but isn’t this whole discussion about what happens to kids from DCI feeders when there isn’t space for them at DCI? DCI can’t be the solution because the whole problem is that however desirable it might be, DCI isn’t guaranteed.

In fact SH being a decent option that is accessible in the lottery probably helps DCI, because it will make it easier for families who truly prefer DCI to stay at DCI-feeders for the 6th grade lottery rather than peeling off for Latin or Basis for 5th.

PP here. No DCI is not guaranteed but it wasn’t last year either and all kids got in. Will see how this year goes for feeder families.

As to SH, no it was not considered a decent option by us as another family above pointed out why (math, science, ELA, languages, etc..).

We have a high performing STEM kid. We actually got into a talked about private on this board but with no FA. After much deliberation, felt it wasn’t worth the cost. The other option was moving to the burbs.

[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.

FWIW the SH and EH PARCC/CAPE scores are identical if not a bit better for high SES kids compared to the “better” MS. The last year I checked EH was even better than SH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Except not. You are literally calling for the manager because multiple people disagree with you.

Instead of touting your waitlist, which btw doesn’t really speak to school students quality but rather lack of options, why don’t you defend your opinion on Stuart Hobson?

Please defend amplify science. Defend the lack of tracking. Defend the lack of rigor in ELA. Defend the weak math curriculum. What about the lack of extracurriculars? People on Capitol Hill deserve better than Stuart Hobson and screaming for the moderator to silence me (and many others) because we think kids deserve more is not a good look.

NP. I was kind of with you but SH has pretty great extra curriculars. It's actually one of the biggest selling points of the school.

Agree on amplify science and lack of writing, though these are also issues at Deal and Hardy -- it's a DCPS issue. I am still unclear on the state of math at SH. It's clearly gotten better in recent years but it's hard to tell how much. I suspect the next few years will make that more clear, as I do know of several feeder kids with very high math scores who are planning to go. A test for me is if they stay past 6th.

I did a pretty through comparison with other schools (dcps and charter) and found that it had major deficits in the math program (lack of rigor and lack of offerings), science (truly bad but yes this is dcps), ELA (very poor), foreign language, and extracurriculars. I know the theater program was touted for its popularity but that wasn’t important to my kid. Neither were most of the sports offerings. I genuinely found it to be of much worse quality than expected. That’s MY OPINION though and everyone is free to say what they want without attacking other people.

Lol what did your “detailed analysis” consist of?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Except not. You are literally calling for the manager because multiple people disagree with you.

Instead of touting your waitlist, which btw doesn’t really speak to school students quality but rather lack of options, why don’t you defend your opinion on Stuart Hobson?

Please defend amplify science. Defend the lack of tracking. Defend the lack of rigor in ELA. Defend the weak math curriculum. What about the lack of extracurriculars? People on Capitol Hill deserve better than Stuart Hobson and screaming for the moderator to silence me (and many others) because we think kids deserve more is not a good look.

NP. I was kind of with you but SH has pretty great extra curriculars. It's actually one of the biggest selling points of the school.

Agree on amplify science and lack of writing, though these are also issues at Deal and Hardy -- it's a DCPS issue. I am still unclear on the state of math at SH. It's clearly gotten better in recent years but it's hard to tell how much. I suspect the next few years will make that more clear, as I do know of several feeder kids with very high math scores who are planning to go. A test for me is if they stay past 6th.

I did a pretty through comparison with other schools (dcps and charter) and found that it had major deficits in the math program (lack of rigor and lack of offerings), science (truly bad but yes this is dcps), ELA (very poor), foreign language, and extracurriculars. I know the theater program was touted for its popularity but that wasn’t important to my kid. Neither were most of the sports offerings. I genuinely found it to be of much worse quality than expected. That’s MY OPINION though and everyone is free to say what they want without attacking other people.

What extracurriculars are you looking for that SH doesn't have that other public DC schools do? It's theater program is superb and award winning. It just got named the best middle school debate program in DC for the 3rd or 4th year in a row. It has a wide variety of sports -- certainly wider than the charters being discussed in this thread. It has a great marching band + orchestra and strings groups. It has a great History Day program. It has an active HOSA group. It has Geoplunge and Mock Trial. It has a choir. It has the 40 book challenge. They're just starting up a branch of Mathcounts (competitive math). It has a ton of lower key student-run clubs too. I understand many of the critiques -- though I don't agree with all of yours fully -- but bad extracurriculars seems extremely off the mark.

Above is not accurate in regards to charters. DCI has many more sports than SH. They have over 40 teams total and are a sport powerhouse, winning a ton of championships in their leagues.

BTW they also have theater, debate, orchestra, geoplunge, robotics, chess, model UN. These are some just off the top of my head. Many more I’m forgetting.

I’m a DCI fan, but the 40 teams for DCI includes HS teams, so this is a really silly claim. Also the charter sports leagues are a joke.

DCI doesn’t just play charters but also private schools in many sports BTW.

To be fair, the DCPS leagues are pretty much a joke

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Except not. You are literally calling for the manager because multiple people disagree with you.

Instead of touting your waitlist, which btw doesn’t really speak to school students quality but rather lack of options, why don’t you defend your opinion on Stuart Hobson?

Please defend amplify science. Defend the lack of tracking. Defend the lack of rigor in ELA. Defend the weak math curriculum. What about the lack of extracurriculars? People on Capitol Hill deserve better than Stuart Hobson and screaming for the moderator to silence me (and many others) because we think kids deserve more is not a good look.

NP. I was kind of with you but SH has pretty great extra curriculars. It's actually one of the biggest selling points of the school.

Agree on amplify science and lack of writing, though these are also issues at Deal and Hardy -- it's a DCPS issue. I am still unclear on the state of math at SH. It's clearly gotten better in recent years but it's hard to tell how much. I suspect the next few years will make that more clear, as I do know of several feeder kids with very high math scores who are planning to go. A test for me is if they stay past 6th.

I did a pretty through comparison with other schools (dcps and charter) and found that it had major deficits in the math program (lack of rigor and lack of offerings), science (truly bad but yes this is dcps), ELA (very poor), foreign language, and extracurriculars. I know the theater program was touted for its popularity but that wasn’t important to my kid. Neither were most of the sports offerings. I genuinely found it to be of much worse quality than expected. That’s MY OPINION though and everyone is free to say what they want without attacking other people.

What extracurriculars are you looking for that SH doesn't have that other public DC schools do? It's theater program is superb and award winning. It just got named the best middle school debate program in DC for the 3rd or 4th year in a row. It has a wide variety of sports -- certainly wider than the charters being discussed in this thread. It has a great marching band + orchestra and strings groups. It has a great History Day program. It has an active HOSA group. It has Geoplunge and Mock Trial. It has a choir. It has the 40 book challenge. They're just starting up a branch of Mathcounts (competitive math). It has a ton of lower key student-run clubs too. I understand many of the critiques -- though I don't agree with all of yours fully -- but bad extracurriculars seems extremely off the mark.

+1. We are an EH family but the extracurriculars at SH are solid - less so at EH but the plus at EH is easier access. And I think the huge motivation for many is that these are neighborhood schools - we want that for our kids, to be walkable and independent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Except not. You are literally calling for the manager because multiple people disagree with you.

Instead of touting your waitlist, which btw doesn’t really speak to school students quality but rather lack of options, why don’t you defend your opinion on Stuart Hobson?

Please defend amplify science. Defend the lack of tracking. Defend the lack of rigor in ELA. Defend the weak math curriculum. What about the lack of extracurriculars? People on Capitol Hill deserve better than Stuart Hobson and screaming for the moderator to silence me (and many others) because we think kids deserve more is not a good look.

NP. I was kind of with you but SH has pretty great extra curriculars. It's actually one of the biggest selling points of the school.

Agree on amplify science and lack of writing, though these are also issues at Deal and Hardy -- it's a DCPS issue. I am still unclear on the state of math at SH. It's clearly gotten better in recent years but it's hard to tell how much. I suspect the next few years will make that more clear, as I do know of several feeder kids with very high math scores who are planning to go. A test for me is if they stay past 6th.

I did a pretty through comparison with other schools (dcps and charter) and found that it had major deficits in the math program (lack of rigor and lack of offerings), science (truly bad but yes this is dcps), ELA (very poor), foreign language, and extracurriculars. I know the theater program was touted for its popularity but that wasn’t important to my kid. Neither were most of the sports offerings. I genuinely found it to be of much worse quality than expected. That’s MY OPINION though and everyone is free to say what they want without attacking other people.

What extracurriculars are you looking for that SH doesn't have that other public DC schools do? It's theater program is superb and award winning. It just got named the best middle school debate program in DC for the 3rd or 4th year in a row. It has a wide variety of sports -- certainly wider than the charters being discussed in this thread. It has a great marching band + orchestra and strings groups. It has a great History Day program. It has an active HOSA group. It has Geoplunge and Mock Trial. It has a choir. It has the 40 book challenge. They're just starting up a branch of Mathcounts (competitive math). It has a ton of lower key student-run clubs too. I understand many of the critiques -- though I don't agree with all of yours fully -- but bad extracurriculars seems extremely off the mark.

Above is not accurate in regards to charters. DCI has many more sports than SH. They have over 40 teams total and are a sport powerhouse, winning a ton of championships in their leagues.

BTW they also have theater, debate, orchestra, geoplunge, robotics, chess, model UN. These are some just off the top of my head. Many more I’m forgetting.

I’m a DCI fan, but the 40 teams for DCI includes HS teams, so this is a really silly claim. Also the charter sports leagues are a joke.

DCI doesn’t just play charters but also private schools in many sports BTW.

To be fair, the DCPS leagues are pretty much a joke

This debate is silly. If you are very invested in school-based sports, neither DCPS nor charters is likely going to meet your expectations. Most people who are heavily invested in sports are doing one of the following: (1) just focusing on private club teams, and not worrying about school sports at all, (2) moving to the suburbs with strong athletics programs, or (3) looking at privates, many of which offer very strong athletes financial aid and a strong admissions preference.

If athletics is a priority, you aren't meeting it in DC publics no matter what, so who cares which school is marginally better. If you just want your kid to have a selection of MS sports to try out for, then your needs will be met at a wide range of DCPS schools or a handful of charters (DCI and Latin are fine, most other charters don't offer much). If you are okay just doing private leagues, which a lot of parents are at this point, none of this matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

Except not. You are literally calling for the manager because multiple people disagree with you.

Instead of touting your waitlist, which btw doesn’t really speak to school students quality but rather lack of options, why don’t you defend your opinion on Stuart Hobson?

Please defend amplify science. Defend the lack of tracking. Defend the lack of rigor in ELA. Defend the weak math curriculum. What about the lack of extracurriculars? People on Capitol Hill deserve better than Stuart Hobson and screaming for the moderator to silence me (and many others) because we think kids deserve more is not a good look.

NP. I was kind of with you but SH has pretty great extra curriculars. It's actually one of the biggest selling points of the school.

Agree on amplify science and lack of writing, though these are also issues at Deal and Hardy -- it's a DCPS issue. I am still unclear on the state of math at SH. It's clearly gotten better in recent years but it's hard to tell how much. I suspect the next few years will make that more clear, as I do know of several feeder kids with very high math scores who are planning to go. A test for me is if they stay past 6th.

I did a pretty through comparison with other schools (dcps and charter) and found that it had major deficits in the math program (lack of rigor and lack of offerings), science (truly bad but yes this is dcps), ELA (very poor), foreign language, and extracurriculars. I know the theater program was touted for its popularity but that wasn’t important to my kid. Neither were most of the sports offerings. I genuinely found it to be of much worse quality than expected. That’s MY OPINION though and everyone is free to say what they want without attacking other people.

What extracurriculars are you looking for that SH doesn't have that other public DC schools do? It's theater program is superb and award winning. It just got named the best middle school debate program in DC for the 3rd or 4th year in a row. It has a wide variety of sports -- certainly wider than the charters being discussed in this thread. It has a great marching band + orchestra and strings groups. It has a great History Day program. It has an active HOSA group. It has Geoplunge and Mock Trial. It has a choir. It has the 40 book challenge. They're just starting up a branch of Mathcounts (competitive math). It has a ton of lower key student-run clubs too. I understand many of the critiques -- though I don't agree with all of yours fully -- but bad extracurriculars seems extremely off the mark.

+1. We are an EH family but the extracurriculars at SH are solid - less so at EH but the plus at EH is easier access. And I think the huge motivation for many is that these are neighborhood schools - we want that for our kids, to be walkable and independent.

This is accurate. There's also some self-selection. SH is well known for its drama and music programs, so kids targeting Duke Ellington often fit better there. However EH has some other niche EC programming, like a strong cross country team, that would be a draw for a specific kid. I think the schools are pretty comparable in terms of academics despite SH's stronger reputation (if you compare scores and offerings 1:1, they are indistinguishable), so if a family is trying to decide between them, it's mostly a question of vibe and whether your kid cares about the specific programming. Neither school is considered stellar, but might be okay places for well-supported, self motivated students to spend MS assuming better options for HS (the biggest drawback of both schools is the Eastern feed).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

Except not. You are literally calling for the manager because multiple people disagree with you.

Instead of touting your waitlist, which btw doesn’t really speak to school students quality but rather lack of options, why don’t you defend your opinion on Stuart Hobson?

Please defend amplify science. Defend the lack of tracking. Defend the lack of rigor in ELA. Defend the weak math curriculum. What about the lack of extracurriculars? People on Capitol Hill deserve better than Stuart Hobson and screaming for the moderator to silence me (and many others) because we think kids deserve more is not a good look.

NP. I was kind of with you but SH has pretty great extra curriculars. It's actually one of the biggest selling points of the school.

Agree on amplify science and lack of writing, though these are also issues at Deal and Hardy -- it's a DCPS issue. I am still unclear on the state of math at SH. It's clearly gotten better in recent years but it's hard to tell how much. I suspect the next few years will make that more clear, as I do know of several feeder kids with very high math scores who are planning to go. A test for me is if they stay past 6th.

I did a pretty through comparison with other schools (dcps and charter) and found that it had major deficits in the math program (lack of rigor and lack of offerings), science (truly bad but yes this is dcps), ELA (very poor), foreign language, and extracurriculars. I know the theater program was touted for its popularity but that wasn’t important to my kid. Neither were most of the sports offerings. I genuinely found it to be of much worse quality than expected. That’s MY OPINION though and everyone is free to say what they want without attacking other people.

What extracurriculars are you looking for that SH doesn't have that other public DC schools do? It's theater program is superb and award winning. It just got named the best middle school debate program in DC for the 3rd or 4th year in a row. It has a wide variety of sports -- certainly wider than the charters being discussed in this thread. It has a great marching band + orchestra and strings groups. It has a great History Day program. It has an active HOSA group. It has Geoplunge and Mock Trial. It has a choir. It has the 40 book challenge. They're just starting up a branch of Mathcounts (competitive math). It has a ton of lower key student-run clubs too. I understand many of the critiques -- though I don't agree with all of yours fully -- but bad extracurriculars seems extremely off the mark.

+1. We are an EH family but the extracurriculars at SH are solid - less so at EH but the plus at EH is easier access. And I think the huge motivation for many is that these are neighborhood schools - we want that for our kids, to be walkable and independent.

This is accurate. There's also some self-selection. SH is well known for its drama and music programs, so kids targeting Duke Ellington often fit better there. However EH has some other niche EC programming, like a strong cross country team, that would be a draw for a specific kid. I think the schools are pretty comparable in terms of academics despite SH's stronger reputation (if you compare scores and offerings 1:1, they are indistinguishable), so if a family is trying to decide between them, it's mostly a question of vibe and whether your kid cares about the specific programming. Neither school is considered stellar, but might be okay places for well-supported, self motivated students to spend MS assuming better options for HS (the biggest drawback of both schools is the Eastern feed).

Most recent CAPE scores are really the first time the schools have been comparable. I think this trend for EH will continue, but its (relative) academic success is newer than SH's and drives the difference in reputation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Except not. You are literally calling for the manager because multiple people disagree with you.

Instead of touting your waitlist, which btw doesn’t really speak to school students quality but rather lack of options, why don’t you defend your opinion on Stuart Hobson?

Please defend amplify science. Defend the lack of tracking. Defend the lack of rigor in ELA. Defend the weak math curriculum. What about the lack of extracurriculars? People on Capitol Hill deserve better than Stuart Hobson and screaming for the moderator to silence me (and many others) because we think kids deserve more is not a good look.

NP. I was kind of with you but SH has pretty great extra curriculars. It's actually one of the biggest selling points of the school.

Agree on amplify science and lack of writing, though these are also issues at Deal and Hardy -- it's a DCPS issue. I am still unclear on the state of math at SH. It's clearly gotten better in recent years but it's hard to tell how much. I suspect the next few years will make that more clear, as I do know of several feeder kids with very high math scores who are planning to go. A test for me is if they stay past 6th.

I did a pretty through comparison with other schools (dcps and charter) and found that it had major deficits in the math program (lack of rigor and lack of offerings), science (truly bad but yes this is dcps), ELA (very poor), foreign language, and extracurriculars. I know the theater program was touted for its popularity but that wasn’t important to my kid. Neither were most of the sports offerings. I genuinely found it to be of much worse quality than expected. That’s MY OPINION though and everyone is free to say what they want without attacking other people.

What extracurriculars are you looking for that SH doesn't have that other public DC schools do? It's theater program is superb and award winning. It just got named the best middle school debate program in DC for the 3rd or 4th year in a row. It has a wide variety of sports -- certainly wider than the charters being discussed in this thread. It has a great marching band + orchestra and strings groups. It has a great History Day program. It has an active HOSA group. It has Geoplunge and Mock Trial. It has a choir. It has the 40 book challenge. They're just starting up a branch of Mathcounts (competitive math). It has a ton of lower key student-run clubs too. I understand many of the critiques -- though I don't agree with all of yours fully -- but bad extracurriculars seems extremely off the mark.

+1. We are an EH family but the extracurriculars at SH are solid - less so at EH but the plus at EH is easier access. And I think the huge motivation for many is that these are neighborhood schools - we want that for our kids, to be walkable and independent.

This is accurate. There's also some self-selection. SH is well known for its drama and music programs, so kids targeting Duke Ellington often fit better there. However EH has some other niche EC programming, like a strong cross country team, that would be a draw for a specific kid. I think the schools are pretty comparable in terms of academics despite SH's stronger reputation (if you compare scores and offerings 1:1, they are indistinguishable), so if a family is trying to decide between them, it's mostly a question of vibe and whether your kid cares about the specific programming. Neither school is considered stellar, but might be okay places for well-supported, self motivated students to spend MS assuming better options for HS (the biggest drawback of both schools is the Eastern feed).

Most recent CAPE scores are really the first time the schools have been comparable. I think this trend for EH will continue, but its (relative) academic success is newer than SH's and drives the difference in reputation.

SH has a bigger cohort of high performers. I’m encouraged by the EH trend and the principal seems great, but I would not call the schools equivalent at this stage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huh. This doesn’t line up with my results in a weird way.

My K matched at John Lewis (our #5 choice). Her brother was waitlisted there with waitlist #1 for 1st grade (and he matched with our #6 choice). Both kids’ lists were exactly the same.

I assumed this was because Lewis either didn’t offer any seats for 1st grade or offered one or two and they got taken by siblings. Fine.

But looking at this dashboard, Lewis took FIVE kids for 1st grade, four of whom were no preference. How on earth did four kids with no preference match when my kid, whose results clearly show a preference of “Sibling Offered” wasn’t offered a seat?

I was under them impression that this could only happen if my kid had matched to a school he ranked higher (then he’d be #1 on the waitlist where his sister matched). But that’s not the case - he matched with our #6 school.

Anyone have any idea how this could have happened? This is messing with my whole understanding of how the lottery works.

This doesn’t align with my understanding of the lottery either.

Poster above said it most simply...think of sibling offered as a priority that is only applied after match day. Sibling attending, IB at time of application, etc. all apply before the match.

If this were true, most Latin twins sets would have one kid getting matched and the other kid having a single digit waitlist number. But it was my understanding that in most case with Latin, if one twin is matched, they both were. Any Latin twin families (or people who know twins) want to speak to that? Is that what your experience was (this year or previous years)? The chances of BOTH twins matching of their own accord and not getting in via sibling offered preference is very, very low.

Your understanding is not correct. As said, sibling offered is applied after match day. So, at Latin, twin 1 matches and twin 2 becomes first on the waitlist. Usually they get in. Not always.

No twin 2 only becomes first on the waitlist if they have the highest base lottery number of all the “sibling offereds” which is rarely true. Twins don’t have a leg up on other siblings in that case.

Right. Sorry, I was trying to simplify but this is true. I just meant that the twin isn't pulled in soon as the other twin matches, bumping others down the list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

Except not. You are literally calling for the manager because multiple people disagree with you.

Instead of touting your waitlist, which btw doesn’t really speak to school students quality but rather lack of options, why don’t you defend your opinion on Stuart Hobson?

Please defend amplify science. Defend the lack of tracking. Defend the lack of rigor in ELA. Defend the weak math curriculum. What about the lack of extracurriculars? People on Capitol Hill deserve better than Stuart Hobson and screaming for the moderator to silence me (and many others) because we think kids deserve more is not a good look.

NP. I was kind of with you but SH has pretty great extra curriculars. It's actually one of the biggest selling points of the school.

Agree on amplify science and lack of writing, though these are also issues at Deal and Hardy -- it's a DCPS issue. I am still unclear on the state of math at SH. It's clearly gotten better in recent years but it's hard to tell how much. I suspect the next few years will make that more clear, as I do know of several feeder kids with very high math scores who are planning to go. A test for me is if they stay past 6th.

I did a pretty through comparison with other schools (dcps and charter) and found that it had major deficits in the math program (lack of rigor and lack of offerings), science (truly bad but yes this is dcps), ELA (very poor), foreign language, and extracurriculars. I know the theater program was touted for its popularity but that wasn’t important to my kid. Neither were most of the sports offerings. I genuinely found it to be of much worse quality than expected. That’s MY OPINION though and everyone is free to say what they want without attacking other people.

What extracurriculars are you looking for that SH doesn't have that other public DC schools do? It's theater program is superb and award winning. It just got named the best middle school debate program in DC for the 3rd or 4th year in a row. It has a wide variety of sports -- certainly wider than the charters being discussed in this thread. It has a great marching band + orchestra and strings groups. It has a great History Day program. It has an active HOSA group. It has Geoplunge and Mock Trial. It has a choir. It has the 40 book challenge. They're just starting up a branch of Mathcounts (competitive math). It has a ton of lower key student-run clubs too. I understand many of the critiques -- though I don't agree with all of yours fully -- but bad extracurriculars seems extremely off the mark.

+1. We are an EH family but the extracurriculars at SH are solid - less so at EH but the plus at EH is easier access. And I think the huge motivation for many is that these are neighborhood schools - we want that for our kids, to be walkable and independent.

This is accurate. There's also some self-selection. SH is well known for its drama and music programs, so kids targeting Duke Ellington often fit better there. However EH has some other niche EC programming, like a strong cross country team, that would be a draw for a specific kid. I think the schools are pretty comparable in terms of academics despite SH's stronger reputation (if you compare scores and offerings 1:1, they are indistinguishable), so if a family is trying to decide between them, it's mostly a question of vibe and whether your kid cares about the specific programming. Neither school is considered stellar, but might be okay places for well-supported, self motivated students to spend MS assuming better options for HS (the biggest drawback of both schools is the Eastern feed).

Most recent CAPE scores are really the first time the schools have been comparable. I think this trend for EH will continue, but its (relative) academic success is newer than SH's and drives the difference in reputation.

I looked at the PARCC data several years ago and EH was as good or better than the “good” MS for high SES kids.

[Anonymous]

6th grade OOB at SH is unquestionably a pretty difficult lottery draw. Part of why is that the school is otherwise enrolling ballpark 100 IB/feeder students each year. The Basis 5th grade lottery is so much more in the majority who list it (and do not match at Latin) will at least get offered a waitlist spot at Basis category. But lots of the students at Basis are IB for SH. The two schools are geographically pretty close together. Basis is niche enough its mostly apples and oranges to compare the lottery difficulty - most people have clear preferences for one school over the other.