Charter parents - does not being close to friends etc impact kids?

[Anonymous]

Unlike a DCPS neighborhood school where your kids would have friends in their neighborhood. How much of a factor is this when charters pull from whole city in terms of playdates etc (for elementary years)?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

It's not a factor. Kids are adaptable. You just need to make more an effort if you want to meet up with kids from your school. My kid gets along great with both neighborhood kids and friends at school, so no problems at all.

[Anonymous]

I think it is definitely a factor to consider. I have a child in a charter that draws from all wards of the city and I do find myself saying, "why don't we invite x over since she lives closer." I find that its sort of polite to offer to drive one way and one of my child's friends lives clear across town. It is an hour drive to have a play date.

[Anonymous]

I don't think its a factor. My DD plays with the We the neighborhood kids. It's kind of nice because we get to attend events at other schools i.e. spring bizarre etc.

[Anonymous]

DC sees both and friends from a previous school. You just have to drive-just like anything else you do in this area!

[Anonymous]

It's interesting, I find that my daughter has a larger group of friends because she has her friends from school (we meet up with them usually for after school activities or larger weekend activities that involve more planning) and the neighborhood friends that she's had up until this point, or that she's met via our playground, etc.

[Anonymous]

Okay, why are you driving so much if you want to live in a walkable city?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay, why are you driving so much if you want to live in a walkable city?

Which poster are you refering to? We don't drive that much - we metro.

[Anonymous]

Despite being in a charter, we have three kids in my DC's grade on our block- and we don't even live in the surrounding neighborhood. It would be nice to have all of their friends in walking distance but it's also nice to have friends in all different parts of the city where the kids get to explore new playgrounds, neighborhoods, walks of life, etc.

[Anonymous]

You'll see enough of the other kids at birthday parties on weekends, and our daughter's class sometimes has group playdates at the school's playground. We do find that we don't spend as much time with the neighborhood kids now, though they are all at their own charters as well. Also, if you are doing aftercare, they get plenty of playtime there as well. This is all from the perspective of PK so things may change as she gets older and is more selective of her friends and whom she wants to spend time with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay, why are you driving so much if you want to live in a walkable city?

I know, it kills me. Life is so complicated...

[Anonymous]

It's not an issue for us. We live downtown so it wasn't like I was going to let my small child wander alone anyway. This actually gets us to see a lot of the city, through birthday parties and play dates. I don't drive.

[Anonymous]

Another person for whom it doesn't bother me at all. This is DC. There are neighborhood playgrounds near most people, and you meet families and like-aged kids there for younger kids. Then there are activities and friends from schools for older kids.

More importantly though, I believe in why charters were founded: to give an alternative to substandard neighborhood schools to those who can't live IB for Deal and Wilson. So if I have to make more of an effort to schedule/get to playdates, I am totally ok with that.

Person asking this original question, why don't you put your effort into actually improving the very neighborhood DCPS schools you reference in your original question, instead of trying to make a case for something that will not do a thing to make anything better in this city except maybe for a very small number of families.

Or, another way of saying that is, do your kids go to your neighborhood school? Whatever you're trying to do here with this question, why don't you focus instead on why you aren't going to your neighborhood school and what it would take to improve it so you would go?

[Anonymous]

Our experience with charters has been that there are typically groups of kids coming in from prior schools who already are friends and know each other from their prior school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not an issue for us. We live downtown so it wasn't like I was going to let my small child wander alone anyway. This actually gets us to see a lot of the city, through birthday parties and play dates. I don't drive.

Agree.