Who attends charter schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Answer #1: 50% of the students in DC, representing a cross section of the city's demographics.

Answer #2: Go away, troll.

Welcome to DC, OP. Sorry about the PP. but these are charter school parents.

[Anonymous]

Some charters are very controversial.
When a student is physically abused or does drugs in a public or private school, all the blogs and newspapers will write about it. If the same thing happens in certain charters (I know of one particular charter) the students (and those who witnessed the incident) will be let go.
Several mind boggling incidents have happened at a specific HRCS, but the charter board was not interested in investigating or talking to the teachers who witnessed the incidents, because that particular charter "does not follow the charter board".
So basically a charter school can get public money for each student but act like a totally private institution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some charters are very controversial.
When a student is physically abused or does drugs in a public or private school, all the blogs and newspapers will write about it. If the same thing happens in certain charters (I know of one particular charter) the students (and those who witnessed the incident) will be let go.
Several mind boggling incidents have happened at a specific HRCS, but the charter board was not interested in investigating or talking to the teachers who witnessed the incidents, because that particular charter "does not follow the charter board".
So basically a charter school can get public money for each student but act like a totally private institution.

This. As well as send kids back to their neighborhood school because its not a "fit" for there image/reputation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Obviously, many of the posters do not keep up with real estate activity. Per square foot prices east of the park is comparable to west of the park in many neighborhoods. The majority of residential construction and renovation in the last 10 years has been east of the park. Almost all of the multitude of trendy bars, restaurants and shops are east of the park.

Many charter school elementary parents are high SES and could easily afford west of park houses.

In fact, a fair amount of these families have been migrating to west of the park (or out of DC) as their kids advance towards middle school. Deal/Wilson, private schools and the suburban schools are a definite lure while charter middle and high schools are shaky.

Yep. Having just purchased real estate I can tell you that the price per square foot is generally going to be higher in places like Shaw than WOTP. Young wealthy families who really want to try to stay in the "cool urban areas" will cling to charters in order to make that work. It'll be interesting to see what happens to these families over time. Not all will get into their desired charter, and middle school options may be weak as the kids age. Do they try the DCPS neighborhood schools (potentially leading to improvements in said schools), do they pony up for privates, or do they buy a minivan and move to the suburbs (including WOTP neighborhoods)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Answer #1: 50% of the students in DC, representing a cross section of the city's demographics.

Answer #2: Go away, troll.

Welcome to DC, OP. Sorry about the PP. but these are charter school parents.

+1000 Thank you for reminding me why I don't spend much time over here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the most part, students who attend charter schools live in the parts of the city where the traditional public schools are struggling. That is probably 70% of the city and includes some middle class and upper middle class neighborhoods, so the charter school population is more diverse than you find in cities like Cleveland or New York.

For example in Ward 3, where everyone has access to decent schools through high school, only has ~350 children in charters -- mostly parents who wanted something their neighborhood public don't offer like Montessori early ed, a small school or language immersion -- and they got lucky in the lottery.

But more than 46% of kids city-wide are in charters, with the highest rates in Qards 4-8.

Exactly right. Here on Cap Hill, you can take an even more granular look at the problem of elementary school charters mostly attracting families who lack access to decent by-right schools. Few in-boundary Brent and Maury parents use charters from K up, while most parents in the JO Wilson, Miner and Payne Districts do. Neighborhood elementary and middle schools catch on slowly, or not at all. If the observation makes us trolls, so be it.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, I think churn is DC's biggest problem: with charters and DCPS. There are the HRCS, and some are more HR than others... And some are less HR in the higher grades--and then there's kind of constant dice rolling that goes on that actually makes it quite hard to make a stable environment for the kids. We have been at both a dcps and a HRCS. At both, attrition with both students and teachers was significant enough that I felt it affected the academic and social experiences of my kids.

I went into this a starry-eyed advocate for school choice. Now, I think school choice is a crock, because it's not a choice at all. It's a randomized chance to try something g out that may not even work.

In any event, we fled to the burbs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously, many of the posters do not keep up with real estate activity. Per square foot prices east of the park is comparable to west of the park in many neighborhoods. The majority of residential construction and renovation in the last 10 years has been east of the park. Almost all of the multitude of trendy bars, restaurants and shops are east of the park.

Many charter school elementary parents are high SES and could easily afford west of park houses.

In fact, a fair amount of these families have been migrating to west of the park (or out of DC) as their kids advance towards middle school. Deal/Wilson, private schools and the suburban schools are a definite lure while charter middle and high schools are shaky.

Yep. Having just purchased real estate I can tell you that the price per square foot is generally going to be higher in places like Shaw than WOTP. Young wealthy families who really want to try to stay in the "cool urban areas" will cling to charters in order to make that work. It'll be interesting to see what happens to these families over time. Not all will get into their desired charter, and middle school options may be weak as the kids age. Do they try the DCPS neighborhood schools (potentially leading to improvements in said schools), do they pony up for privates, or do they buy a minivan and move to the suburbs (including WOTP neighborhoods)?

I live in Bloomingdale (bought 6 years ago) and we are trying the neighborhood school for PK3. Not our first choice but I am fine with it. Gentrification of the school is just beginning and there is a lot of attrition, but I think we will be fine there through K if needed. But a lot of DD's classmates will be leaving the neighborhood entirely, either for work reasons or to have more square footage as second babies arrive. People who rent in the area would have a hard time buying there and frankly I think the neighborhood real estate is overheated. The nearby charters are hard to get into, so most people I know matched with their IB, but enough spins of the wheel and we will get in somewhere eventually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously, many of the posters do not keep up with real estate activity. Per square foot prices east of the park is comparable to west of the park in many neighborhoods. The majority of residential construction and renovation in the last 10 years has been east of the park. Almost all of the multitude of trendy bars, restaurants and shops are east of the park.

Many charter school elementary parents are high SES and could easily afford west of park houses.

In fact, a fair amount of these families have been migrating to west of the park (or out of DC) as their kids advance towards middle school. Deal/Wilson, private schools and the suburban schools are a definite lure while charter middle and high schools are shaky.

Yep. Having just purchased real estate I can tell you that the price per square foot is generally going to be higher in places like Shaw than WOTP. Young wealthy families who really want to try to stay in the "cool urban areas" will cling to charters in order to make that work. It'll be interesting to see what happens to these families over time. Not all will get into their desired charter, and middle school options may be weak as the kids age. Do they try the DCPS neighborhood schools (potentially leading to improvements in said schools), do they pony up for privates, or do they buy a minivan and move to the suburbs (including WOTP neighborhoods)?

I live in Bloomingdale (bought 6 years ago) and we are trying the neighborhood school for PK3. Not our first choice but I am fine with it. Gentrification of the school is just beginning and there is a lot of attrition, but I think we will be fine there through K if needed. But a lot of DD's classmates will be leaving the neighborhood entirely, either for work reasons or to have more square footage as second babies arrive. People who rent in the area would have a hard time buying there and frankly I think the neighborhood real estate is overheated. The nearby charters are hard to get into, so most people I know matched with their IB, but enough spins of the wheel and we will get in somewhere eventually.

We live in LeDroit (bought 12 years ago) and can generally confirm this. At the time we bought, you could still get a large house, but the area wasn't yet "up & coming." The schools were awful, but new families made it work because they could get into Yu Ying or LAMB. This was right before the NOMA metro stop and Big Bear and the Farmer's Market opened. (Existing - AKA multi-generational AA families used the local DCPS schools, many of which have closed.) Now, houses like ours get bought by developers and split into condos. I know one family that bought both condos and rented one to pay for the child's private school, but when she got pregnant with the second and they didn't get into the HRC they wanted, they moved WOTP. It's a hip & getting hipper neighborhood, and you can make it work with one small child, but it's hard to see how you do it as a family in 1,200 sq. ft.

[Anonymous]

We live in Eckington and can concur with Ledroit and Bloomingdale PPs. We are in a financial position that we can afford private school if by K or whenever we feel it is necessary, for example if our DCPS or charter option doesn't work. We could not afford charter if we had comparable housing and convenience WOTP. Burbs would cut into our family time substantially (adding 45 minutes to our commute each way per day equals about 750 lost parenting hours per year for two working parents or 48 waking days) and/or would put us in a precarious position financially. We live in a 2500 sq ft rowhouse with a basement unit paying half our mortgage.

The hipness we see as a perk that helps attract more investment in the neighborhood but we didn't move here for that.

[Anonymous]

Immediate PP here. Meant to say we couldn't afford private WOTP in comparable house and location to our jobs (Woodley or Cleveland Park).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in Eckington and can concur with Ledroit and Bloomingdale PPs. We are in a financial position that we can afford private school if by K or whenever we feel it is necessary, for example if our DCPS or charter option doesn't work. We could not afford charter if we had comparable housing and convenience WOTP. Burbs would cut into our family time substantially (adding 45 minutes to our commute each way per day equals about 750 lost parenting hours per year for two working parents or 48 waking days) and/or would put us in a precarious position financially. We live in a 2500 sq ft rowhouse with a basement unit paying half our mortgage.

The hipness we see as a perk that helps attract more investment in the neighborhood but we didn't move here for that.

We live in Eckington and I am loving it. Could not be more delighted with the community of families and short commute. Our child will be continuing at Langley for PK4 and we know several families who are staying for K so would have no qualms about doing that. The real issue IMHO is middle school-- Langley has been great, in particular the teachers have been excellent. We can definitely build to a strong early elementary, but that is as far as it goes as long as we feed to Dunbar.

[Anonymous]

DCPS Teacher here. My two oldest (middle school aged) attend charters and my youngest attends a Title I DCPS school. Years ago, the prek program at my IB was overcrowded, so I took a chance on a charter school lottery. The lotteries were local to each school back then so you literally had to wait in lines at each school and cross your fingers, ala "Waiting for Superman" style. One got in late off the waiting list in October and the other on sibling preference, so they stayed in the charter pipeline. DCPS has very good prek-k programs so you'll be happy pretty much anywhere you go. It can get sketchy after Kindergarten depending on which school you choose. Good Luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in Eckington and can concur with Ledroit and Bloomingdale PPs. We are in a financial position that we can afford private school if by K or whenever we feel it is necessary, for example if our DCPS or charter option doesn't work. We could not afford charter if we had comparable housing and convenience WOTP. Burbs would cut into our family time substantially (adding 45 minutes to our commute each way per day equals about 750 lost parenting hours per year for two working parents or 48 waking days) and/or would put us in a precarious position financially. We live in a 2500 sq ft rowhouse with a basement unit paying half our mortgage.

The hipness we see as a perk that helps attract more investment in the neighborhood but we didn't move here for that.

We live in Eckington and I am loving it. Could not be more delighted with the community of families and short commute. Our child will be continuing at Langley for PK4 and we know several families who are staying for K so would have no qualms about doing that. The real issue IMHO is middle school-- Langley has been great, in particular the teachers have been excellent. We can definitely build to a strong early elementary, but that is as far as it goes as long as we feed to Dunbar.

I'm in U Street area, which means I have a seven figure home and feed into Garrison. It seems our neighborhood is being more gentrified by wealthy DINKs than Bloomingdale and Eckington, which are getting more middle/upper middle class families, so I think the development pattern may look a little different for our IB. We're still early days so are cool w Pre K at our IB but haven't decided what we'll do in the big lottery vs. private vs. moving debate in a few years if things go south. I suspect we may leave the east coast altogether by that point. I don't really see us WOTP or in the burbs (that's not meant to be a dig on those areas, they're lovely, just not for us).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in Eckington and can concur with Ledroit and Bloomingdale PPs. We are in a financial position that we can afford private school if by K or whenever we feel it is necessary, for example if our DCPS or charter option doesn't work. We could not afford charter if we had comparable housing and convenience WOTP. Burbs would cut into our family time substantially (adding 45 minutes to our commute each way per day equals about 750 lost parenting hours per year for two working parents or 48 waking days) and/or would put us in a precarious position financially. We live in a 2500 sq ft rowhouse with a basement unit paying half our mortgage.

The hipness we see as a perk that helps attract more investment in the neighborhood but we didn't move here for that.

We live in Eckington and I am loving it. Could not be more delighted with the community of families and short commute. Our child will be continuing at Langley for PK4 and we know several families who are staying for K so would have no qualms about doing that. The real issue IMHO is middle school-- Langley has been great, in particular the teachers have been excellent. We can definitely build to a strong early elementary, but that is as far as it goes as long as we feed to Dunbar.

I'm in U Street area, which means I have a seven figure home and feed into Garrison. It seems our neighborhood is being more gentrified by wealthy DINKs than Bloomingdale and Eckington, which are getting more middle/upper middle class families, so I think the development pattern may look a little different for our IB. We're still early days so are cool w Pre K at our IB but haven't decided what we'll do in the big lottery vs. private vs. moving debate in a few years if things go south. I suspect we may leave the east coast altogether by that point. I don't really see us WOTP or in the burbs (that's not meant to be a dig on those areas, they're lovely, just not for us).