Bancroft, LAMB or WIS - Kindergarten

[Anonymous]

For what it’s worth, we started this year at WIS, declined LAMB when we were offered a waitlist spot, and accepted a position at Bancroft for our kindergartener and have been really happy with instruction this year. Yes, my kid has been virtual, but I’m very hopeful she’ll be back full time in the Fall esp with the way vaccine rollout is going. WIS is an incredible school, but not financially viable for us longterm. And while I love the idea of Montessori for early ed, was less convinced it’s what I wanted for my kid in later grades.

I’ve been really impressed with Bancroft’s communication, her teacher is excellent, and I can’t wait for school to reopen so we can be in that beautiful building. I will also say, we’ve typically had terrible luck with the lottery and were on waitlists for every immersion program last year (and the year before that, and the one before that) until people started dropping out of DCPS during the pandemic. Our offers for strong DCPS programs ultimately convinced us to leave WIS even though it is a great school - esp not knowing when we’d have the opportunity again (we are not IB for any of these schools). Oyster was the only school on our lottery list where our position didn’t budge. If you can afford to live in OA, I have no doubt it’s a great program. That said, I’m not sure how much stronger it is than Bancroft, other than it having the reputation it does and the option to continue a language program into middle school.

It will be interesting to see how the lottery shapes up this year relative to last year. I’d say all three options are great ones. Best of luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LAMB. The principal is awesome.

And you get DCI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For what it’s worth, we started this year at WIS, declined LAMB when we were offered a waitlist spot, and accepted a position at Bancroft for our kindergartener and have been really happy with instruction this year. Yes, my kid has been virtual, but I’m very hopeful she’ll be back full time in the Fall esp with the way vaccine rollout is going. WIS is an incredible school, but not financially viable for us longterm. And while I love the idea of Montessori for early ed, was less convinced it’s what I wanted for my kid in later grades.

I’ve been really impressed with Bancroft’s communication, her teacher is excellent, and I can’t wait for school to reopen so we can be in that beautiful building. I will also say, we’ve typically had terrible luck with the lottery and were on waitlists for every immersion program last year (and the year before that, and the one before that) until people started dropping out of DCPS during the pandemic. Our offers for strong DCPS programs ultimately convinced us to leave WIS even though it is a great school - esp not knowing when we’d have the opportunity again (we are not IB for any of these schools). Oyster was the only school on our lottery list where our position didn’t budge. If you can afford to live in OA, I have no doubt it’s a great program. That said, I’m not sure how much stronger it is than Bancroft, other than it having the reputation it does and the option to continue a language program into middle school.

It will be interesting to see how the lottery shapes up this year relative to last year. I’d say all three options are great ones. Best of luck!

I don't buy this. You started at WIS and then moved to Bancroft? So you'd signed the contract, the school year had already started, WIS was in-person, and you bailed for Bancroft? You claim it wouldn't be financially sustainable in the long-term, but you were willing to pay even 40% of the tuition (which is min w/ tuition insurance) and walk away? Something seems off about this.

[Anonymous]

Yes. That would be a pretty silly thing to lie about. We had to give up 20K in tuition which was incredibly painful, but we weighed it against the longterm costs of tuition (~40K+/yr), the fact we have multiple kids, and the reality that the lottery was highly unique last year and it wasn’t clear if we would ever have the opportunity to attend a strong public immersion program in the future (without the high cost of moving in bounds for those schools). It was a terribly difficult decision to make, but the right one for our family. We are a bilingual family and having our kids speak Spanish fluently is a huge priority for us - which is why we had signed up for WIS as a private school back up if public school was not an option. I’ll also add that at the time we left WIS, it was not clear if/when they would reopen. We both work full time and could not cover both tuition and at-home childcare.

Again - all three schools are great options. WIS was very kind to us as we made this decision - especially during a really stressful time for everyone. You can’t go wrong with any of these choices.

[Anonymous]

Agree with PP. Looks like 10:30 is spouting nonsense.

I had the opportunity to visit and research WIS, LAMB and Bancroft. If you can get in and swing it financially, and assuming your kid does not have a learning or socio-emotional disability definitely go with WIS. Getting in (specially the Spanish track) is very difficult and competitive. Great teachers, wonderful proven curriculum, great community and awesome facilities. Your kid will likely thrive from PK through 12 grade. Another plus: no need to worry about overcroweded DCPS public schools and feeder patterns. Your child will get personalized attention and very small classes.

Bancroft is also nice from a facilities perspective, and very diverse socioeconomically and ethnically. If that's important to you then Bancroft would be great. However, I wasn't impressed by their curriculum. They used the same immersion program used in our old daycare, which IMO did not emphasized early literacy.

Also, while parents rave about it, I was not impressed by LAMB. This may be influenced by my skepticism of Montessori programs for some children.

[Anonymous]

I smell troll

[Anonymous]

Yes, trolls love to come on forums and spout positive things like - all three schools are great options. Are you guys like this in real life or only on anonymous online forums? Goodness! Hope my info was helpful to the original poster. Thanks for the reminder why I don’t typically post on this site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree with PP. Looks like 10:30 is spouting nonsense.

I had the opportunity to visit and research WIS, LAMB and Bancroft. If you can get in and swing it financially, and assuming your kid does not have a learning or socio-emotional disability definitely go with WIS. Getting in (specially the Spanish track) is very difficult and competitive. Great teachers, wonderful proven curriculum, great community and awesome facilities. Your kid will likely thrive from PK through 12 grade. Another plus: no need to worry about overcroweded DCPS public schools and feeder patterns. Your child will get personalized attention and very small classes.

Bancroft is also nice from a facilities perspective, and very diverse socioeconomically and ethnically. If that's important to you then Bancroft would be great. However, I wasn't impressed by their curriculum. They used the same immersion program used in our old daycare, which IMO did not emphasized early literacy.

Also, while parents rave about it, I was not impressed by LAMB. This may be influenced by my skepticism of Montessori programs for some children.

We are at LAMB and have been very happy there. This PP raises a good point, some people are so set on immersion (understandably important to some families) that they forget or overlook that LAMB is very much a Montessori school (especially under the new administration). For us this is a positive, and I think that for my (very different learning children) the Montessori curriculum has been a good one, especially in the upper grades. But it does seem (based on my time there) that there is always a subset of parents that seems almost surprised and caught off guard by the Montessori aspect. Perhaps this is an unintended consequence of LAMB having had its own lottery for so long (i.e., a separate lottery doesn't always allow for ranking of true preference - parents who were set on immersion who may have preferred DCB/MV/Stokes but didn't get a spot, and instead lucked out in the LAMB lottery).

I don't have any insight into the question. WIS is way out of our budge, as is living in-bounds for Bancroft. We have had an incredibly positive experience at LAMB but have no illusions that it's perfect, or that it's a good fit for everyone. My only point for people who may be looking at this thread (which is clearly focused on immersion) is not to forget that LAMB is also focused on the Montessori curriculum. It's a really good idea to consider whether you think that would be a good fit for your child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with PP. Looks like 10:30 is spouting nonsense.

I had the opportunity to visit and research WIS, LAMB and Bancroft. If you can get in and swing it financially, and assuming your kid does not have a learning or socio-emotional disability definitely go with WIS. Getting in (specially the Spanish track) is very difficult and competitive. Great teachers, wonderful proven curriculum, great community and awesome facilities. Your kid will likely thrive from PK through 12 grade. Another plus: no need to worry about overcroweded DCPS public schools and feeder patterns. Your child will get personalized attention and very small classes.

Bancroft is also nice from a facilities perspective, and very diverse socioeconomically and ethnically. If that's important to you then Bancroft would be great. However, I wasn't impressed by their curriculum. They used the same immersion program used in our old daycare, which IMO did not emphasized early literacy.

Also, while parents rave about it, I was not impressed by LAMB. This may be influenced by my skepticism of Montessori programs for some children.

We are at LAMB and have been very happy there. This PP raises a good point, some people are so set on immersion (understandably important to some families) that they forget or overlook that LAMB is very much a Montessori school (especially under the new administration). For us this is a positive, and I think that for my (very different learning children) the Montessori curriculum has been a good one, especially in the upper grades. But it does seem (based on my time there) that there is always a subset of parents that seems almost surprised and caught off guard by the Montessori aspect. Perhaps this is an unintended consequence of LAMB having had its own lottery for so long (i.e., a separate lottery doesn't always allow for ranking of true preference - parents who were set on immersion who may have preferred DCB/MV/Stokes but didn't get a spot, and instead lucked out in the LAMB lottery).

I don't have any insight into the question. WIS is way out of our budge, as is living in-bounds for Bancroft. We have had an incredibly positive experience at LAMB but have no illusions that it's perfect, or that it's a good fit for everyone. My only point for people who may be looking at this thread (which is clearly focused on immersion) is not to forget that LAMB is also focused on the Montessori curriculum. It's a really good idea to consider whether you think that would be a good fit for your child.

Also at LAMB and I agree. If we could afford WIS maybe we'd choose that, but I have no idea - I'm not sure I love the idea of my kids being amongst overly privileged embassy types all the time.

This year has been incredibly hard on us and we haven't been particularly happy with how they have done DL, but in general it's the Montessori that sold it to us. We really wanted immersion and feel lucky we get both.

I would only add, make sure Montessori is a good fit for YOU. It's almost always enjoyed by the children, I've found. It's the families who I agree sometimes seem to misunderstand the entire concept and might be at LAMB for other reasons (just the fact that it has a good rating and reputation). At the same time I think the language aspect is quite prominent and there are many students who are native speakers.

[Anonymous]

I don't have an opinion about WIS, but if you live close to Bancroft, I'd strongly suggest going there. We live nearby and go to LAMB, and are envious of the awesome school community of the kids in the neighborhood. Everyone I know who goes there, raves about it. If you don't live nearby, I think it's a tossup, because your child will be fine at either one (though be mindful about the Montessori model - it's not for every child).