DC Begins School Boundary Study

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD will be starting PreK 3 this fall and starting Kindergarten in Fall of 2025, which is when the new boundaries are expected to be implemented (assuming no delays in the process). If we are impacted by boundary changes, my understanding is that we will not be grandfathered into our former inbounds school. That aspect to the rule seems unfair because I completed my lottery rankings knowing that I was guaranteed entry into my inbounds school for Kindergarten. I would have thought through and ranked my list completely differently if I was in a different inbounds school district. For reference, I ranked my inbounds school first on my list, but it is near impossible to get into it w/out a sibling.

Anyone else in this boat? Not sure there is much I can do about it, but just feels extremely unfair given Prek3 is the best opportunity to get into schools outside of your "by right" school. I guess I'm hoping they will reconsider the policy on grandfathering to account for Prek3 families who didn't have the opportunity to participate in the lottery with knowledge of a different inbounds school.

Doesn't seem "extremely unfair" to me. PK is a luxury not a privilege. It's not a mandatory grade. There are wards in the city without PK programs at all. Buying a house based on a feeder pattern is not a particularly smart idea. Boundaries change. Schools close or going into an inconvenient swing space. Your kid might enter a lottery in an easier year because of a baby boom. Racial profiling is extremely unfair. Women not being able to control their reproductive healthcare is extremely unfair. Esme Blythe or Jagger Alix having to go to Key instead of Hearst is life in a major city.

Perhaps I shouldn't have said "extremely", but in your rash judgment you missed my point. I am grateful for the numerous ECE programs in my community and I know that my daughter will be just fine wherever she ends up for PK. I'm not complaining about where DD goes for PK, I was pointing out that PreK 3 lottery is when you typically have the best chances of getting into elementary schools outside of your by right school. It seems unfair to not account for that in the "grandfathering" process when they change the by right schools associated with an address for families that have already gone through the lottery process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD will be starting PreK 3 this fall and starting Kindergarten in Fall of 2025, which is when the new boundaries are expected to be implemented (assuming no delays in the process). If we are impacted by boundary changes, my understanding is that we will not be grandfathered into our former inbounds school. That aspect to the rule seems unfair because I completed my lottery rankings knowing that I was guaranteed entry into my inbounds school for Kindergarten. I would have thought through and ranked my list completely differently if I was in a different inbounds school district. For reference, I ranked my inbounds school first on my list, but it is near impossible to get into it w/out a sibling.

Anyone else in this boat? Not sure there is much I can do about it, but just feels extremely unfair given Prek3 is the best opportunity to get into schools outside of your "by right" school. I guess I'm hoping they will reconsider the policy on grandfathering to account for Prek3 families who didn't have the opportunity to participate in the lottery with knowledge of a different inbounds school.

Doesn't seem "extremely unfair" to me. PK is a luxury not a privilege. It's not a mandatory grade. There are wards in the city without PK programs at all. Buying a house based on a feeder pattern is not a particularly smart idea. Boundaries change. Schools close or going into an inconvenient swing space. Your kid might enter a lottery in an easier year because of a baby boom. Racial profiling is extremely unfair. Women not being able to control their reproductive healthcare is extremely unfair. Esme Blythe or Jagger Alix having to go to Key instead of Hearst is life in a major city.

Which wards would those be? I suspect that claim is not true.

[Anonymous]

i think that is incorrect. current students can continue and i believe that the first class fall 2025 enrolling spring 2024 can basically choose the old in-boundary school or the new in-boundary school. after that it is different

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i think that is incorrect. current students can continue and i believe that the first class fall 2025 enrolling spring 2024 can basically choose the old in-boundary school or the new in-boundary school. after that it is different

I’m not totally clear, but based on my interpretation of the hill rag article quoted at the beginning of the post, if you are not enrolled in spring 2024 then you can’t attend your old in bound. I am in a situation where you can only get into your inbounds school for pre-K with a sibling preference. So we likely won’t be able to enroll by spring 2025.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD will be starting PreK 3 this fall and starting Kindergarten in Fall of 2025, which is when the new boundaries are expected to be implemented (assuming no delays in the process). If we are impacted by boundary changes, my understanding is that we will not be grandfathered into our former inbounds school. That aspect to the rule seems unfair because I completed my lottery rankings knowing that I was guaranteed entry into my inbounds school for Kindergarten. I would have thought through and ranked my list completely differently if I was in a different inbounds school district. For reference, I ranked my inbounds school first on my list, but it is near impossible to get into it w/out a sibling.

Anyone else in this boat? Not sure there is much I can do about it, but just feels extremely unfair given Prek3 is the best opportunity to get into schools outside of your "by right" school. I guess I'm hoping they will reconsider the policy on grandfathering to account for Prek3 families who didn't have the opportunity to participate in the lottery with knowledge of a different inbounds school.

Doesn't seem "extremely unfair" to me. PK is a luxury not a privilege. It's not a mandatory grade. There are wards in the city without PK programs at all. Buying a house based on a feeder pattern is not a particularly smart idea. Boundaries change. Schools close or going into an inconvenient swing space. Your kid might enter a lottery in an easier year because of a baby boom. Racial profiling is extremely unfair. Women not being able to control their reproductive healthcare is extremely unfair. Esme Blythe or Jagger Alix having to go to Key instead of Hearst is life in a major city.

Which wards would those be? I suspect that claim is not true.

It’s okay that it wasn’t true. The important thing was that we lectured internet strangers!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i think that is incorrect. current students can continue and i believe that the first class fall 2025 enrolling spring 2024 can basically choose the old in-boundary school or the new in-boundary school. after that it is different

I’m not totally clear, but based on my interpretation of the hill rag article quoted at the beginning of the post, if you are not enrolled in spring 2024 then you can’t attend your old in bound. I am in a situation where you can only get into your inbounds school for pre-K with a sibling preference. So we likely won’t be able to enroll by spring 2025.

If I’m understanding right, you are in a school like Maury where generally only sibs get in for prek3 and you didn’t lottery for longer term options because you assumed you had a great option inbound for K. Yes, that’s unfortunate. I would relottery next year for both your inbound and for some other elementary options. Ultimately these changes are with the goal of making schools work better for all, not you personally. Most of the changes will be marginal given lack of political and community will to make real changes. You should look at the zone map and the inbound data and enrollment capacity to get a better sense of you’re actually at risk of being rezoned and talk to a realtor to see what the impact of a rezoning could be and maybe explore moving now if you think you’re house value will go down more than you can take. Ultimately it’s all about what risk you want to bear, both financially and for your child to go to one of the other schools in your area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD will be starting PreK 3 this fall and starting Kindergarten in Fall of 2025, which is when the new boundaries are expected to be implemented (assuming no delays in the process). If we are impacted by boundary changes, my understanding is that we will not be grandfathered into our former inbounds school. That aspect to the rule seems unfair because I completed my lottery rankings knowing that I was guaranteed entry into my inbounds school for Kindergarten. I would have thought through and ranked my list completely differently if I was in a different inbounds school district. For reference, I ranked my inbounds school first on my list, but it is near impossible to get into it w/out a sibling.

Anyone else in this boat? Not sure there is much I can do about it, but just feels extremely unfair given Prek3 is the best opportunity to get into schools outside of your "by right" school. I guess I'm hoping they will reconsider the policy on grandfathering to account for Prek3 families who didn't have the opportunity to participate in the lottery with knowledge of a different inbounds school.

Doesn't seem "extremely unfair" to me. PK is a luxury not a privilege. It's not a mandatory grade. There are wards in the city without PK programs at all. Buying a house based on a feeder pattern is not a particularly smart idea. Boundaries change. Schools close or going into an inconvenient swing space. Your kid might enter a lottery in an easier year because of a baby boom. Racial profiling is extremely unfair. Women not being able to control their reproductive healthcare is extremely unfair. Esme Blythe or Jagger Alix having to go to Key instead of Hearst is life in a major city.

Which wards would those be? I suspect that claim is not true.

It’s okay that it wasn’t true. The important thing was that we lectured internet strangers!

The first public pk3 program in ward 3 doesn’t open until August 2023. Ward 3 has never had one before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD will be starting PreK 3 this fall and starting Kindergarten in Fall of 2025, which is when the new boundaries are expected to be implemented (assuming no delays in the process). If we are impacted by boundary changes, my understanding is that we will not be grandfathered into our former inbounds school. That aspect to the rule seems unfair because I completed my lottery rankings knowing that I was guaranteed entry into my inbounds school for Kindergarten. I would have thought through and ranked my list completely differently if I was in a different inbounds school district. For reference, I ranked my inbounds school first on my list, but it is near impossible to get into it w/out a sibling.

Anyone else in this boat? Not sure there is much I can do about it, but just feels extremely unfair given Prek3 is the best opportunity to get into schools outside of your "by right" school. I guess I'm hoping they will reconsider the policy on grandfathering to account for Prek3 families who didn't have the opportunity to participate in the lottery with knowledge of a different inbounds school.

Doesn't seem "extremely unfair" to me. PK is a luxury not a privilege. It's not a mandatory grade. There are wards in the city without PK programs at all. Buying a house based on a feeder pattern is not a particularly smart idea. Boundaries change. Schools close or going into an inconvenient swing space. Your kid might enter a lottery in an easier year because of a baby boom. Racial profiling is extremely unfair. Women not being able to control their reproductive healthcare is extremely unfair. Esme Blythe or Jagger Alix having to go to Key instead of Hearst is life in a major city.

Which wards would those be? I suspect that claim is not true.

It’s okay that it wasn’t true. The important thing was that we lectured internet strangers!

The first public pk3 program in ward 3 doesn’t open until August 2023. Ward 3 has never had one before.

That is news. Which school?

OP, you are learning earlier than many PreK3 parents that life and DCPS can be unfair. That is not news.

Consider yourself warned.

[Anonymous]

ward 3 doesn't have PK because the families there were unwilling to accept boundary changes that would have created space for PK. They would rather have K-12 WOTP than have PK classrooms in WOTP schools. They made that very clear during the last boundary revision process. If that has changed, people are going to have to make that clear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i think that is incorrect. current students can continue and i believe that the first class fall 2025 enrolling spring 2024 can basically choose the old in-boundary school or the new in-boundary school. after that it is different

I’m not totally clear, but based on my interpretation of the hill rag article quoted at the beginning of the post, if you are not enrolled in spring 2024 then you can’t attend your old in bound. I am in a situation where you can only get into your inbounds school for pre-K with a sibling preference. So we likely won’t be able to enroll by spring 2025.

We are the exact same situation and so boundary changes do make me very nervous. It seems pretty unfair to be shut out if the lines change, despite having a kid already within Dcps, just because pre-k was so popular that we couldn’t get in before 2025.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ward 3 doesn't have PK because the families there were unwilling to accept boundary changes that would have created space for PK. They would rather have K-12 WOTP than have PK classrooms in WOTP schools. They made that very clear during the last boundary revision process. If that has changed, people are going to have to make that clear.

This is incomplete at best, though I would simply say wrong. There were no close-to-reasonable changes to boundaries that would (now) allow any pre-K in Ward 3 elementary schools. The boundary changes would mean different students in the buildings, not free space. Look at JR.

Ward 3 doesn't have pre-K because, for a multitude of reasons, ward 3 schools are crowded with post-pre-K students. The city was able to implement 'universal' pre-K relatively cheaply because schools in most of the city (due again to a multitude of reasons, but charter competition very clearly) are fairly empty. Hence there was open space for a pre-K, without the need for new buildings or expansions. The city has chosen not to expand Ward 3 schools sufficiently to allow (public) pre-K.

I would be for a subsidized pre-K program for low income families, or at least would be less annoyed if city politicians stopped calling it 'universal'.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ward 3 doesn't have PK because the families there were unwilling to accept boundary changes that would have created space for PK. They would rather have K-12 WOTP than have PK classrooms in WOTP schools. They made that very clear during the last boundary revision process. If that has changed, people are going to have to make that clear.

This is incomplete at best, though I would simply say wrong. There were no close-to-reasonable changes to boundaries that would (now) allow any pre-K in Ward 3 elementary schools. The boundary changes would mean different students in the buildings, not free space. Look at JR.

Ward 3 doesn't have pre-K because, for a multitude of reasons, ward 3 schools are crowded with post-pre-K students. The city was able to implement 'universal' pre-K relatively cheaply because schools in most of the city (due again to a multitude of reasons, but charter competition very clearly) are fairly empty. Hence there was open space for a pre-K, without the need for new buildings or expansions. The city has chosen not to expand Ward 3 schools sufficiently to allow (public) pre-K.

I would be for a subsidized pre-K program for low income families, or at least would be less annoyed if city politicians stopped calling it 'universal'.

They can say “universal” because theoretically, there are enough preK3 seats in the city for every child whose parents want one. W3 parents are expected to travel for a preK3 seat, or a preK4 seat if they don’t get one at their IB. Same as parents in other wards are expected to travel for a “good” school when they don’t have one in their own neighborhood. “Good” schools like the ones in W3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i think that is incorrect. current students can continue and i believe that the first class fall 2025 enrolling spring 2024 can basically choose the old in-boundary school or the new in-boundary school. after that it is different

I’m not totally clear, but based on my interpretation of the hill rag article quoted at the beginning of the post, if you are not enrolled in spring 2024 then you can’t attend your old in bound. I am in a situation where you can only get into your inbounds school for pre-K with a sibling preference. So we likely won’t be able to enroll by spring 2025.

We are the exact same situation and so boundary changes do make me very nervous. It seems pretty unfair to be shut out if the lines change, despite having a kid already within Dcps, just because pre-k was so popular that we couldn’t get in before 2025.

Pre-K isn’t guaranteed though. Are you saying that every 3 year old should be allowed to their inbound? Then people who had 2 year olds would complain. You have a shot at the lottery line everyone else. The boundary review isn’t new news, you decided to risk it when you bought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD will be starting PreK 3 this fall and starting Kindergarten in Fall of 2025, which is when the new boundaries are expected to be implemented (assuming no delays in the process). If we are impacted by boundary changes, my understanding is that we will not be grandfathered into our former inbounds school. That aspect to the rule seems unfair because I completed my lottery rankings knowing that I was guaranteed entry into my inbounds school for Kindergarten. I would have thought through and ranked my list completely differently if I was in a different inbounds school district. For reference, I ranked my inbounds school first on my list, but it is near impossible to get into it w/out a sibling.

Anyone else in this boat? Not sure there is much I can do about it, but just feels extremely unfair given Prek3 is the best opportunity to get into schools outside of your "by right" school. I guess I'm hoping they will reconsider the policy on grandfathering to account for Prek3 families who didn't have the opportunity to participate in the lottery with knowledge of a different inbounds school.

Doesn't seem "extremely unfair" to me. PK is a luxury not a privilege. It's not a mandatory grade. There are wards in the city without PK programs at all. Buying a house based on a feeder pattern is not a particularly smart idea. Boundaries change. Schools close or going into an inconvenient swing space. Your kid might enter a lottery in an easier year because of a baby boom. Racial profiling is extremely unfair. Women not being able to control their reproductive healthcare is extremely unfair. Esme Blythe or Jagger Alix having to go to Key instead of Hearst is life in a major city.

Perhaps I shouldn't have said "extremely", but in your rash judgment you missed my point. I am grateful for the numerous ECE programs in my community and I know that my daughter will be just fine wherever she ends up for PK. I'm not complaining about where DD goes for PK, I was pointing out that PreK 3 lottery is when you typically have the best chances of getting into elementary schools outside of your by right school. It seems unfair to not account for that in the "grandfathering" process when they change the by right schools associated with an address for families that have already gone through the lottery process.

What a sheltered life you do lead if this feels unfair to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ward 3 doesn't have PK because the families there were unwilling to accept boundary changes that would have created space for PK. They would rather have K-12 WOTP than have PK classrooms in WOTP schools. They made that very clear during the last boundary revision process. If that has changed, people are going to have to make that clear.

Ward 3 doesn't have PS3 because PS3 essentially replaced Head Start and Ward 3 didn't have any Head Start schools.