Brent or Tyler Immersion for P3?

[Anonymous]

I'm starting to think about the preschool lottery for my soon-to-be three year old daughter for the 2012-13 school year. We live inbounds for Brent, and given that all inbounds students eventually got into the P3 class this year, I am fairly hopeful that she would get a spot there next year. From what I hear, the parents really love the school/preschool class. I'm also possibly interested in Tyler Immersion for her - we are OOB but have proximity preference. Looking at the lottery results from this year, it looks like proximity preference was helpful to getting in; several admitted students had it, and the highest waitlist number was 14 for the remaining OOB/proximity preference kids. So - seems like also a fairly good shot of gettting my daughter into Tyler Immersion.

Any thoughts on which is better? I love the idea of Spanish immersion for her - she has had some exposure to Spanish already, and seems to enjoy it (knows how to count to 20 in Spanish, knows a lot of colors, random words). I actually speak Spanish (fluent, though non-native speaker) so I could practice with her. On the other hand, Brent is our neighborhood school and people really seem to love it - so I'm torn!

Thanks for any thoughts/experience!

[Anonymous]

Go to open houses. They are happening now. Both schools have web sites. Most important - talk to parents. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

definately go to open houses and talk with parents, but i would just try to get into both and see how it goes. Isn't it great you have two such great options? We are at Brent and very happy, but we also considered Tyler. ultimately we decided we didn't have a strong enough connection to the Spanish language to choose it over Brent, but given your background Tyler seems like a great fit. Plus, Tyler has that nice big field! And if at some point you find Tyler is not a good fit, since you are in-bounds for Brent you could come back in by right for kindergarten through 5th.

I'd offer you good luck, but really, you seem pretty lucky already!

[Anonymous]

Just always remember that when you go the OOB route, your child's sibling - you may or may not have - will be in line behind all the inboundary applicants without siblings at the school. This is a source of angst every year for OOB families trying to get there siblings placed at the same school, which quite possibly will be even more popular when that time comes.
Other than that, more choices, more power to you I guess!

[Anonymous]

The rules for the bilingual program (pres/PreK) are different from the other schools. Look at DCPS for the rankings.

[Anonymous]

for preschool/PreK bilingual programs:
1. Students who live in?boundary with a sibling at the school are placed first, in random number order.
2. Students who live out?of?boundary with a sibling at the school are placed next, in random number order.
3. Students who live in?boundary without a sibling at the school are placed next, in random number order.
4. Students who attend a closing school at the time of the lottery are placed next, in random number order.
5. Students who live within reasonable walking distance* of the school without a sibling at the school are placed next, in random
number order.
6. Any remaining

The following is the order of preferences for the out-of-boundary K-12 lottery:
1. Students with a sibling at the school will be placed first, in order of random number.
2. Students who live within walking distance of the school*, in order of random number.
3. Any remaining seats will go to students who have neither sibling nor proximity preferences, in order of random number.
Finally, applicants who are placed into more than one school will be given a seat at the school they ranked highest and moved to the waitlist for all other schools on their application.

[Anonymous]

Forgot to add that my child (preS) got into our bilingual program because my other child was already enrolled. Some inbound kids ere placed on the waiting list becaue we have quite a few siblings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The rules for the bilingual program (pres/PreK) are different from the other schools. Look at DCPS for the rankings.

12:04 here: Thank you for correcting that! For bilingual programs the sibling connection indeed tops the in-boundary advantage. So Brent and Tyler would actually play out the same for you if you have a sibling coming along, unlike other OOB options. One thing to consider in favor of Tyler is that bilingual are really the only ones that have been successful and consistent in introducing a second language in elementary school. Given your own fluency and support you can offer at school and at home this may make particular sense.

[Anonymous]

"...that bilingual are really the only ones that have been successful and consistent in introducing a second language in elementary school" Will you please explain this comment? I want to make sure that I am interperting it correctly.

[Anonymous]

Brent is one of the few regular ES schools with a full-time language teacher. It's not immersion, but it is Chinese language exposure.

[Anonymous]

I understand Brent's Chinese program is great!