They take out an OOB spot in the upper grades or further overcrowd the school. As a family applying to the OOB lottery and not cheating, I am upset to hear about this. |
PP you seem like your heart is in the right place, but you are very naive &/or you have no idea what you're talking about. PS3 grew out of Headstart programs for low-income kids. The new boundaries proposal does include a suggestion that all "at-risk" kids should be guaranteed a PS3 lottery spot at their IB school. IME, DCPS at the macro level (above the level of an individual school/principal) does not care one lick whether high-SES in-boundary families join the school or not. Failing, underenrolled school? Close it. You would think that DCPS would be worried about losing "market share" to charters, but that has not been the case. *Maybe* that tide may be turning a tiny bit, but if it is that is a very recent development. |
It grew out of Head Start and could have stayed as Head start - but DC decided to combine means-tested head start money with general education money to offer PK3 and PK4 to all (not means tested). That was an explicit decision in order to get families to try out their neighborhood schools, and for those of us who love EOTP in struggling schools, it works well. And he new proposal does not guarantee at risk families the right to go to PK3--it grants the rights of anyone who is in boundary for a title 1 school that right. Again, not means tested--as a non-FARM family in boundary for such a school, I would get that right. DC could have kept preschool and pre-K for just low-income families but explicitly decided not to do that. |
LOL!!!! Money does trump ethics. Why do you think these people are trying so hard to keep the riffraff out of their hard earned public schools? |
| What a sad commentary on the level of cynicism and sense of entitlement one can find in DC. |
As a previous poster on this thread, can you see how the entitlement goes both ways? |
| NP - How does entitlement go both ways? People who think that because they can afford 2 homes to cheat the process are justified in doing it are outrageously entitled. Who else in this conversation is entitled? |
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DC public isn't furnishing nearly enough high-quality neighborhood schools to meet local demand.
Here on Cap Hill we've got thriving DCPS schools like SWS, Maury and Brent near disastrous schools like Tyler Traditional, Payne and Miner, with CAS pass rates in the 30s and huge OOB populations. And many wonder if Watkins is still a viable option. Most neighborhood parents feel that they can't use the struggling schools past their early childhood programs. With more and more parents getting shut out of the charter lotteries, is it any wonder that some gentrifiers who can't afford privates become inventive in enrolling their kids in public schools stay in their homes? DCPS doesn't appear to care which public ES lawful DC taxpayers send their children to. If they did, it wouldn't be so easy to fudge enrollment. They obviously need ask parents for more registration documents, on top of pay stubs, utilities bills and leases, e.g. vehicle registration, voter registration, HUD home purchase documents and deeds (commonly used to prove residency in the burbs). I'm not sure how honest PPs on this thread have been about their motives for wanting DCPS to crack down on DC resident address cheaters (vs. PG County cheaters). I'm guessing that most are furious about having been shut out of preschool and/or prek at their in-boundary schools WotP by bad lottery odds cheaters help create. EotP, quality early childhood slots just aren't that hard to find - AppleTree Oklahoma Ave., a fine program, has open spots right now. Nobody who isn't super picky ends up out in the cold before K. |
Just to weigh in on who cares. I am a parent of children currently in our IB WOTP elementary schools. This is not about my children getting cut off from pre-K. The issue is not pre-K. It is that there is a set of rules that families rely on when making their decisions, many families in our school make lots of sacrifices to go to our school. Certainly we could have afforded a nicer house EOTP than what we purchased for our money in AU Park and this was some years ago, we chose commute and school quality over the size or aesthetic quality of a home. We gave up the urban living of our pre-children days. I get that many schools within DCPS are unacceptable and DCPS needs to fix that, but everyone that is commenting on this knew (or should have known) the quality of the schools when they were looking for a place to live and made choices accordingly. Some people took chances that charters would be the answer, others had other strategies I don't know about or just delayed addressing the issue. I object to lying and cheating as a practice to get around rules to obtain what you think you are entitled to ahead of other people that are following the rules. |
| You make it sound like everyone's choice was huge house EOTP or smaller house WOTP. I refuse to be shut out of public education because I rent. |
| If you want your kids to go to DCPS renting is probably the best option because you can move when boundaries change which always puts you you IB for your most desirable schools. |
How are you shut out? If you want to guarantee a spot for your child at a WotP school for K, you need to rent IB. You made a choice to rent IB for a school you find unacceptable? Then move! |
I don't care whether someone rents or owns, the point is that everyone made choices and some people assert the rules do not apply to them. Everyone on here had choices, choice of career path, choice of job, choice of where to live, choice to be a parent, etc. |
Wow. I feel for you. If you really think everyone in DC has the same 'choices' you are further gone than I thought. Wow. Just wow. |
Just to weigh in on who cares. I am a parent of children currently in our IB WOTP elementary schools. This is not about my children getting cut off from pre-K. The issue is not pre-K. It is that there is a set of rules that families rely on when making their decisions, many families in our school make lots of sacrifices to go to our school. Certainly we could have afforded a nicer house EOTP than what we purchased for our money in AU Park and this was some years ago, we chose commute and school quality over the size or aesthetic quality of a home. We gave up the urban living of our pre-children days. I get that many schools within DCPS are unacceptable and DCPS needs to fix that, but everyone that is commenting on this knew (or should have known) the quality of the schools when they were looking for a place to live and made choices accordingly. Some people took chances that charters would be the answer, others had other strategies I don't know about or just delayed addressing the issue. I object to lying and cheating as a practice to get around rules to obtain what you think you are entitled to ahead of other people that are following the rules. The quality of schools has changed too fast in our Cap Hill neighborhood for this argument to hold here. Your perspective is very WotP. Parents and parents-to-be who bought in-boundary for the Capitol Hill Cluster just three or four years ago are dismayed to see how far Watkins and Stuart Hobson have slipped since then, losing three to five percentage points worth of both IB and white students every year, each. Meanwhile, Maury and Brent have raced ahead. I doubt that apartment-renting-cheating Cluster parents see themselves as lying and cheating, because they're paying plenty in taxes to the District without getting the relatively high quality program they bought in-boundary for. Moving on the Hill isn't a good option, now that real estate has become red hot. I'd like to see those in objection lobby like you DCPS and politicians to raise the bar on proving residency for school enrollment purposes. Doing so would call attention to more pressing issues, like the way charters and, yes, address cheating are siphoning off in-boundary families, for good reason. |