Best Options for 3rd and 5th grade options using the lottery
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Anonymous
This is BS. There are not plenty of fine middle schools in the city. And my threshold is low as defining fine by at least majority of kids in grade level. If you want to send your kid to a middle school with overwhelming majority not just below grade level but way below grade level, then yes there are plenty of those. And no I’m not in the burbs. I live in the city but at least not in denial about the reality of the situation. The burbs have a ton of better mediocre schools and amazing schools. I realize that and can acknowledge the reality unlike PP |
Anonymous
I mean, yeah. We do need to be realistic. After more than a decade as a parent in DC, and with much thinking and experience in a range of schools, for me, these are the middle schools that feel acceptable: Deal Hardy BASIS Latin DCI These are schools where you can put a high achieving college-bound kid and feel pretty good that they will be OK. Yes, the suburban middle schools are objectively better. But we are at one of these schools and I think we personally would be miserable in the suburbs and our kids are learning a lot. So it's working. but staying realistic is important. |
Anonymous
OP can listen to this race hustler if they want, but the shortcoming of most DCPS schools has nothing to do with racial or socioeconomic diversity. The real issue is dismally poor educational outcomes. If your kids excel they won't be challenged or pushed by the teacher who is likely trying to keep the majority of the kids from falling behind. Nothing about the situation is good, right, or fair, but if you have the means to do so I wouldn't trust my kids' future to the DCPS lottery. |
Anonymous
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Assuming your kids don’t speak a second language for an immersion school?
I just did this for third grade last year. We listed all of the monolingual Deal and Hardy feeders (10 in total), plus Inspired Teaching. We got into a Hardy feeder and are very impressed so far. Talking to parents in-bound for Hardy, I feel decently optimistic that if Hardy is an acceptable option for you now, MacArthur will be as well in another five years. If it’s not, then we’ll figure that out when the time comes. For a fifth grader I’d add Latin and Basis. |
Anonymous
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Key and Mann - why?
Hard to get to therefore they go through the waitlist. Students move for private. |
Anonymous
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The coming turmoil will probably alter past patterns of where you’ll get a lottery spot. People will be moving away if jobs are lost and they have to relocate to somewhere else to get a new one. It’s desperately sad for the world/city but I think the trickle down is that it will free up more seats at desirable schools for OOB over the summer.
For both kids: I would look at Hardy and Deal feeders but also at Stuart Hobson feeders (Ludlow Taylor, JO Wilson are popular, people seem to hate on Watkins but I know people who like it). SH feeds to Eastern which I guess is not an option for you but it at least buys you a year or two to lottery elsewhere or move before high school. I’d look at past years lottery data (cited on this site frequently but I usually just google DCPS waitlist tableau to find it). Get a sense of how many people who applied for a seat vs the number of matches and offers - then I’d Googlemaps the commute and rank based on likelihood vs complexity of commute. The Deal/Hardy feeders will get you decent middle and high school options. There will be people who say you need to tour each, etc but I think that they are all only marginally different. Vibes might vary and some are better resourced by rich PTAs, but academics are all essentially the same (I said what I said). And I disagree with PP about MacArthur - it will be as fine by the time your older is there and the Hardy feeders have much more likelihood of an OOB seat. Hardy/MacArthur are also smaller which may be a benefit depending on your kiddo. Once you get used to the commute it will just be part of your life or maybe you’ll have had time to breathe and figure out a move to a neighborhood with a IB school you feel good about. The third grader has a better shot at a spot in the lottery and might pull your fifth grader in by sibling preference. Much smaller chance your fifth grader pulls an amazing number, and could pull the younger in. So they should have some overlap to maximize the chances of a match+low waitlist number scenario. There’s also a post lottery option to remove schools once you see your waitlist numbers and add different ones if you need to try to match the kids up offer-wise. But at the schools with fewest OOB kids (ie lesser chance you’ll get in) I’d take those off your fifth grader’s list and put Latin, Basis, and DCI as your top choices. Research them first to make sure your older kiddo is Basis-compatible. Don’t do that research by only reading posts here, it’s a cesspool of people yelling back and forth about Basis. It’s a fine school for the kids that can keep up but it is a distinct educational model. I personally don’t think Latin is any better than Hardy or Deal but it’s a better commute if you’re SE/NE or uptown NW. If you can get your older in one of those, then the SH feeders are better options for the younger as they are geographically closer and there’s a good likelihood of your younger getting a spot with the older in two years with sibling preference. Finally - two safeties - Amidon Bowen in SW would probably have seats or you’d make it off the waitlist fairly easily for both kids. It’s not an Eaton or Lafayette (demographics or test scores) but has many boosters and a welcoming community. But unless the community pulls off a miracle and gets DCPS to pay for trailers to stay in SW, it does plan to swing for renovations to Myer Elementary in Columbia Heights when your younger is in 5th grade. That might actually be a more convenient location for you depending on where you live but they will lose a ton of IB kids due to the hassle of having them located up there. Similar with Brent, which is swinging next year. So both kids would really only attend for their last years of school (younger would be back in Capitol Hill for their 5th grade year). But you’d have a way better chance at seats for both of them, which would be convenient. Good luck! |
Anonymous
| *you could reserve Amidon and Brent for a post lottery scenario is well, if you get crap master lottery numbers and no offers/high waitlists. |
Anonymous
If you give us your neighborhood, we could even come up with a draft list for you! Sounds fun. My kids are set and I'm not playing the lottery this year. Last year, I had a rising 2nd and 5th and they each got two options off the lottery. The older pulled the younger one into an option, but the younger did not pull the older one in when he got in (to a Hardy feeder). Schools differ on this policy. ITS is a decent backup, I think. They pull in a lot of kids off of their wait-list in September. |
Anonymous
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Point of correction to a PP: DCI starts in 6th, so isn’t a lottery option for the fifth grader.
For upper elementary, you never know which school will have a fluke year and go far into their waitlist for a grade. So unless it never makes waitlist offers (like Bancroft), you may as well list every Deal and Hardy feeder. MacArthur will be a viable option by the time your older child is in high school. |
Anonymous
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I do not think McArthur will be a viable option. Their numbers are dismal and there is hardly any buy in from IB families.
Plus the commute is horrendous. Why deal with 45 minutes to 1 hour commute in rush hour traffic each way for a subpar school. Are families that desperate to stay in the city? |
Anonymous
No, we've just seen how schools change and we might have more experience than you do. |
Anonymous
I suggest you talk to the Capitol Hill crowd then. SH is still not an acceptable option and overwhelming majority are not sending their kids there. The stakes are much higher for middle school than elementary. You are so naive. |
Anonymous
I don't understand why anyone would look to Amidon or Brent for 5th grade. Amidon has abysmal test scores. Brent has started combining their 4th and 5th grade classes, which people generally seem to hate. Both feed to Jefferson. Based on test scores and at-risk percentages, I'd list feeders to John Francis and Stuart-Hobson and even Eliot-Hine before feeders to Jefferson. |
Anonymous
Sure but then they will go to a crappy MS. |
Anonymous
Actually LT is increasingly sending kids to SH. Watkins always has, but is now less gentrified than it used to be. SH is more gentrified than JOW is. None of the other CH schools feed to SH, so while there are some Brent families with proximity preference, it’s not like other CH families can just decide to go there. |