Shut out and really angry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Channel your frustration in the right places. It is not about neighbor against neighbor, it is about a school system where parents have to 'win the lottery' for a good public school education.

With the money this district has it is a shame that they do not spend it on supporting the kids. SES should not be the holy grail of school composition because they should have interventionist teachers supporting the kids who are behind ect.

We are all being bamboozled.

PS. I am not an angry/bitter poster. We love our IB and don't even play the lottery. Just able to see what madness this is. Demand more from the school system.

Amen to this. The whole system is flawed and too many of these charters are totally corrupt. I kind of admire the people who are sticking it out but I didn't have the stomach or the energy to keep playing the game, or the money to move inbounds for one of the few coveted schools.

[Anonymous]

Appletree almost always has slots. Try them in the second round, or if you are waitlisted there, you will almost certainly get in. Most places in US don't have PK3 or PK4 even. Getting one of these slots is a bonus not a right that you should be pissed about not getting.

[Anonymous]

I am also annoyed. DCPS teacher and even I can't be guaranteed a spot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who say 'oh just keep doing what you're doing for another year', well that's fine and all but essentially by losing the lottery you're out about $15k. So maybe that's why OP is angry.

As has been pointed out, there will be spots someplace in town. Maybe not in the dream school or the super-fine location.

Thems the breaks when you feel like you just cannot pay for childcare another year like every other middle class parent in every single other city must do.

The vast majority of 3 year olds that I know in DC attend public schools. Anyone have those stats?

100% of the 3 yr olds I know attend non-public preschool, and have a nanny/sahm, or go to a commercial licensed daycare.

So now we have two anecdotes.

[Anonymous]

Baby boom and boundaries have changed. Remember a neighborhood block of 20 families with one child each cant' compete with the boundary change that has now included a public housing unit. The public housing unit can have about 50 children going to the same school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have lived in this city for 30 of my 36 years and my parents for a long time before that and we were shut out of every pk3 program we applied for. The shock has now turned to anger. I'm so disgusted with this process.it just burns me up that someone can just move into my neighborhood on a whim, work in VA or MD while I work for the city, and shut my DC out while I keep paying taxes for their DC to go to FREE pk. I'm so burned up over this.

I just had to get that off my chest.

A few questions:
1. Last year my understanding was that only a few in-boundary families got turned away from the in-boundary school. However, this year our waitlist number is enormous! How are there so many (30+) new children at my in-boundary school?
2. Does DCPS release a list of addresses in order of lottery number for a given school?
3. How do we track waitlist movement at a given school?

No! WTF are you going to do with this information? You sound crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am also annoyed. DCPS teacher and even I can't be guaranteed a spot.

Yes you can. There are dozens of available spots. Take your pick. Can you go to ITS, CMI, or MV no but you can certainly go to a PK3. And sorry you being a DC teacher should not give you any preference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Channel your frustration in the right places. It is not about neighbor against neighbor, it is about a school system where parents have to 'win the lottery' for a good public school education.

With the money this district has it is a shame that they do not spend it on supporting the kids. SES should not be the holy grail of school composition because they should have interventionist teachers supporting the kids who are behind ect.

We are all being bamboozled.

PS. I am not an angry/bitter poster. We love our IB and don't even play the lottery. Just able to see what madness this is. Demand more from the school system.

PREACH

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am also annoyed. DCPS teacher and even I can't be guaranteed a spot.

Yes you can. There are dozens of available spots. Take your pick. Can you go to ITS, CMI, or MV no but you can certainly go to a PK3. And sorry you being a DC teacher should not give you any preference.

My .92. I accept that I may in the minority here, but I do think that giving teachers a preference is a matter worthy of discussion. Our DD attends a DCPS at which a number of teachers have children in attendance. From my perspective,,it contributes greatly to the sense of community. Teachers get to know students and siblings outside the context of the classroom, while at the same time parents get to know teachers on a more personal basis. Teachers also become more invested in the school. It leadsto better communication and more effective teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The worst part for me about the lottery is that it pits neighbors against each other. That can only serve to break down community, not build it up. It does it at the citywide level too. It's a poisonous system.

Don't be ridiculous, if that's the type of animosity you have for someone else's good fortune, I would hate to be your neighbor. The government is not responsible for how you feel to about the people in your community that is your responsibility, granted you can be angry about the process.

+1. OP sounds really selfish. Nobody deserves a spot except her because she's lived here for 30 out of her 36 years. OK.

OP admitted to just venting. no where did he/she say no one deserved a spot.

i've been here since graduating college 15+ years ago, born and raised in md and its gotta be frustrating as hell to be basically a hometown resident forever and have to go thru this lottery only to lose. not saying its not as frustrating for us all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am also annoyed. DCPS teacher and even I can't be guaranteed a spot.

Yes you can. There are dozens of available spots. Take your pick. Can you go to ITS, CMI, or MV no but you can certainly go to a PK3. And sorry you being a DC teacher should not give you any preference.

My .92. I accept that I may in the minority here, but I do think that giving teachers a preference is a matter worthy of discussion. Our DD attends a DCPS at which a number of teachers have children in attendance. From my perspective,,it contributes greatly to the sense of community. Teachers get to know students and siblings outside the context of the classroom, while at the same time parents get to know teachers on a more personal basis. Teachers also become more invested in the school. It leadsto better communication and more effective teaching.

PP you quoted. At the school they teach, yes I agree. I do not think they should have prefernce outside of that. Sorry I wasn't clear. I assumed she didn't mean she was applying at her school the way she prefaced it with DCPS.

[Anonymous]

What angers me is the hypocracy on here. You have all of these people complaining that they were "shut out", but there's always slots left over. Those slots are at places that include a lot of FARMS and at-risk kids. Any time someone speaks about not wanting that for their child, their shut down on here as racist, etc... But, now that your kid didn't get into a sought after school (WofP or HRCS) you're whining about being shut out. No, you're not shut out. Go to the school with a bunch of FARM kids. Put your money where your mouth is. But, what you can't do is have your cake (tout how great it is to have "diversity", support disadvantaged kids, etc...) and eat it to (go to a school where they don't have any of the above. So tired of this two-faced fake hypocritical city!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The worst part for me about the lottery is that it pits neighbors against each other. That can only serve to break down community, not build it up. It does it at the citywide level too. It's a poisonous system.

Don't be ridiculous, if that's the type of animosity you have for someone else's good fortune, I would hate to be your neighbor. The government is not responsible for how you feel to about the people in your community that is your responsibility, granted you can be angry about the process.

+1. OP sounds really selfish. Nobody deserves a spot except her because she's lived here for 30 out of her 36 years. OK.

OP admitted to just venting. no where did he/she say no one deserved a spot.

i've been here since graduating college 15+ years ago, born and raised in md and its gotta be frustrating as hell to be basically a hometown resident forever and have to go thru this lottery only to lose. not saying its not as frustrating for us all.

If rich people didn't want to move into DC, there wouldn't be enough tax revenue for anyone to have free PK. There are a whole lot of things DC offers now that it didn't and couldn't when OP moved here 30 years ago, because there wasn't any money for it.

[Anonymous]

Rich people are not paying for PreK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rich people are not paying for PreK.

Rich people's taxes are.