DC Lottery Results

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:For 5th grade, we got >270 for Basis. Didn’t know such a bad result was even possible! (Would love to hear horror stories so we can pretend we dodged a bullet there . Our kid likes elementary school math and science but is not advanced… yet.) The total waitlist length in recent years looks like it’s been between 200-260 students, so 270 is a head scratcher.

And then there’s the 2 Latins. >450 for both.

This kind of result is similar to other lottery results we’ve gotten in prior years. Is it a blind random lottery or do they sort of chunk slots by location, demographics, or maybe even things like EAPs or prior attendance issues? Seems weird how consistently we’ve drawn crappy numbers when it’s just a luck-based process. I guess I’m being a bit paranoid. Probability and randomness are what they are.

I'm sure it's just blind luck that *two* members of the city council (Trayon, Nadeau) have children at LAMB, which has probably the longest waitlist of any school in the city.

LAMB may be a special case. There have always been rumors about the lottery there. They were also the last school to join the unified lottery.

There's a long history of DC officials jumping to the front of school waitlists. The education chancellor had to resign a few years ago when it came out that he skipped the line to get his daughter in somewhere.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-public-schools-leader-to-resign-after-skirting-school-assignment-rules/2018/02/20/9b372230-1662-11e8-92c9-376b4fe57ff7_story.html

No, there isn't. In fact the story you point to isn't even an example of this. At the time this occurred the process inexplicably permitted discretion by Niles to make assignments based on individual circumstances. The Chancellor went through the formal process - he had his wife make the approach in some silly BS argument that he wasn't involved. She allowed it. Clearly the system should not have allowed this discretion, but he actually worked within the then in effect rules.

I am aware of no examples of evidence that any official or other person has been able to skirt the lottery rules. If you know of one and not tin foil hat conspiracies I am all ears.

P.S. I am not defending the Chancellor. It was a bonehead move and the fact that he had his wife make the approach is proof he knew it should not have been done. But I can't sit back and watch crazy people impugn the lottery process which is one of the best run city programs.

Fente TWICE
Snow

these are just two I can throw out off the top of my head

Good Lord, wasn't Fenty pre-lottery?

Not the second time. Post lottery, post divorce and his kids still got the "be someone or know someone" preference.

You are not making the point you think you are making. At the time Fenty and others applied for and were granted special consideration from Henderson the rules actually granted the authority for her to place at her sole discretion. It was insane that such authority was granted but no one broke rules or gamed the lottery. In the case of Fenty, he didn't get what he wanted in the lottery so he applied for special consideration through the official process. That authority no longer exists.

As I said, there is ZERO evidence of any official or anyone else "gaming" the lottery or getting preferential treatment in the lottery The accusations that this is happening are without merit. People like you are conflating bad design used by insiders (as allowed) and people cheating. And you are ignoring that the loophole has since been closed.

As I said, show me an example of the lottery being gamed or abused. It has not happened.

I know for a fact that schools have the ability to look at the waitlist and pull off whoever they want. Not going to name the schools but I've been around as a parent and nosy person for a decade and have heard it multiple times (from DCPS staffers)

Nope. But it is clear your opinion is informed by dated information. In the early days of the common lottery under MSDC, only the initial lottery pull was managed by MSCD. From there waitlists were handed off to schools to manage on their own. Under that regime there were certainly allegations of preferential treatment. It has been years (@2015 or 16 I think) since waitlists were handed off to schools. Under the current process there is zero facility or ability for a school to work a waitlist out of order.

You don't "know this for a fact" because that cannot be done. Even if it could be done, MSDC would have perfect visibility and be able to immediately act. Stop making things up.

I'm not PP, but this happened to my kid in a year that was after 2016. The circumstances were as undramatic as you can get, since my kid jumped one other child who I'm sure was offered admission shortly after, but it did happen.

Well that would be a feat since there was an audit of the lottery process and ZERO irregularities were found. That's actually where the details on Fenty and Henderson's favoritism (permitted by rule at the time) was discovered.

So we'll agree to disagree. I'll rely on the audit and its public findings. You can continue to tell your story about what you secretly know that was hidden from the audit. LOL

If I were going to make something up I'd make something up that actually affected something. Also, I said it was in some year after 2016.

I was also told by multiple staff members at two different schools, in 2022, about pulling kids they wanted off the waitlist. Not revealing the schools because don't want to create a scandal. But if it's happening there, it's happening elsewhere.

There is a mechanism for schools to move kids up and down the waitlist at their discretion -- that's how they move siblings around and stuff. So I'm sure there a way to manipulate the waitlist that doesn't show up on an audit.

Schools don't move kids up and down lists. Preference is maintained and applied by MSDC. You people are worse than MTG Republicans who just keep making stuff up!

I think after the lottery is announced, the control of the waitlist goes to the schools because they are the ones who call down the list offering spots. Not saying I know any examples of wrong doing, but could it be possible they skip calling student who is number 10 on the waitlist and call/enroll student number 11 instead?

Schools a lot of power once the lottery is announced. For example, one school offered took a sibling off of the waitlist as soon as the sibling got in; another school just moved the sibling to waitlist spot #1 once the sibling got in. That makes me think that schools can actually do what they want with the waitlist.

Also not how it works. Once a child accepts a seat, their sibling then has preference.

This is spelled out on the My School DC website. There is a section "sibling enrolled preference" and "sibling offered preference."

From the My School DC Website:
Sibling offered preference
Preference for a student whose sibling is matched in the lottery or offered a seat from the waitlist. Please note that at most schools, this preference is meant to allow siblings to attend the same school at the same time. If the sibling who was offered a space at the school does not enroll at that school or later enrolls at another school, the “sibling offered” preference may be removed for all siblings that applied to that same school. This may result in the siblings losing their match, or moving down on the waitlist at that school. The siblings will remain on the school’s waitlist but will be assigned a new waitlist position based on their random lottery number or post-lottery submission date and any other preference they qualified for. If the sibling who was offered a space does enroll at the school, the preference remains as “sibling offered” for all siblings that applied to that same school; it does not change to “sibling attending.” The definition of "sibling" may vary by school. Please contact the school directly for this information. DCPS's sibling information can be found in their Enrollment and Lottery Handbook.

I'm getting ready to disengage with the skeptics here, but I'm telling you that this actually happened to our family -- at School A, one child was offered a seat and his sibling was immediately taken off the waitlist and offered a seat, as well. at School B, one child was offered a seat and his sibling was moved to the top of the waitlist in spot #1, but not offered a seat.

The schools clearly made different choices. Ergo, schools have some degree of freedom with their waitlists.

I also has a school administrator tell me "kids from this school get into X middle school, and it's not due to luck."

That means they sent out the first offer, caused the sibling to be in the Sibling Offered category which happened to place them at the top, and then sent out the second offer. If you werent logged in right at that moment, you wouldn't see it.

Understand at this time of year schools are sending out many offers at a time.

I will say that after they have filled their initial quota of seats, it is up to the school whether to extend the additional offer to the sibling at the top of the list. *This year* we got an offer from a school for our 4th grader when she jumped to the top of the list when our 2nd grader was admitted. We turned down both offers as we decided not to move our kids from our IB. Later we saw that no lottery spots had been filled by that school in 4th grade. So the school made an offer to us that we didn't take, but then NEVER made another one. Maybe they just did it to be nice to siblings (I support that) since they had flexibility to take one additional 4th grader or not or maybe we demographically appealed to them (we have a UMC sounding name & local-to-the school UMC address)... but they 100% made us an offer and then never filled that seat (even though they have a WL over 100 for that grade).

Or they may have continued extending offers until count day but nobody accepted. Or someone accepted "that seat" but a different kid left.

This is a school with 100+ kids on a WL. Zero chance no one would take that seat. If anyone on the WL took that seat, whether or not another kid left, it would show up on the lottery results. Those results say they made 1 WL offer. To us. We didn’t take it.

Somewhat different situation, but a few years back we matched at our IB school for PK4 and ultimately ended up declining the spot. The school made no PK4 WL offers that year despite a long WL. Based on that I've always assumed schools have some level of discretion.

1) Not sure how you would know they made no offers.

2) Schools consult with the central office enrollment team, but do have some discretion over whether to make offers. But not over who gets the offers.

1) The information on waitlist length and waitlist offers made is clearly available here: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/aaron2446/viz/MSDCSeatsandWaitlistOfferData_draft/MSDCPublicDisplay That's how I know.

2) I'm not claiming they have control over who gets the offers, just that schools have some level of discretion over extending offers.

Yes, DCPS schools have some discretion over how many offers, in consultation with downtown. Charters have more discretion. That's commonly known.

How would you know about offers after October though?

So your theory is that I declined a PK4 match in early May and the school took no action on offering the spot to anyone on the waitlist until after count day?

I guess.

Sometimes schools decide to reduce their number of classrooms, or can do combined PK4-PK3 rooms. It's possible that is why.

Or perhaps they had a higher than expected matriculation rate among their lottery matches so they achieved their target number of students without making more offers even though you declined. There is a whole enrollment modeling process based on past years' data for each school.

Everything you're saying suggests that schools DO have discretion over the number of waitlist offers they make, above or below the initial number of seats matched. Which is really the only point I was trying to make.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:For 5th grade, we got >270 for Basis. Didn’t know such a bad result was even possible! (Would love to hear horror stories so we can pretend we dodged a bullet there . Our kid likes elementary school math and science but is not advanced… yet.) The total waitlist length in recent years looks like it’s been between 200-260 students, so 270 is a head scratcher.

And then there’s the 2 Latins. >450 for both.

This kind of result is similar to other lottery results we’ve gotten in prior years. Is it a blind random lottery or do they sort of chunk slots by location, demographics, or maybe even things like EAPs or prior attendance issues? Seems weird how consistently we’ve drawn crappy numbers when it’s just a luck-based process. I guess I’m being a bit paranoid. Probability and randomness are what they are.

I'm sure it's just blind luck that *two* members of the city council (Trayon, Nadeau) have children at LAMB, which has probably the longest waitlist of any school in the city.

LAMB may be a special case. There have always been rumors about the lottery there. They were also the last school to join the unified lottery.

There's a long history of DC officials jumping to the front of school waitlists. The education chancellor had to resign a few years ago when it came out that he skipped the line to get his daughter in somewhere.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-public-schools-leader-to-resign-after-skirting-school-assignment-rules/2018/02/20/9b372230-1662-11e8-92c9-376b4fe57ff7_story.html

No, there isn't. In fact the story you point to isn't even an example of this. At the time this occurred the process inexplicably permitted discretion by Niles to make assignments based on individual circumstances. The Chancellor went through the formal process - he had his wife make the approach in some silly BS argument that he wasn't involved. She allowed it. Clearly the system should not have allowed this discretion, but he actually worked within the then in effect rules.

I am aware of no examples of evidence that any official or other person has been able to skirt the lottery rules. If you know of one and not tin foil hat conspiracies I am all ears.

P.S. I am not defending the Chancellor. It was a bonehead move and the fact that he had his wife make the approach is proof he knew it should not have been done. But I can't sit back and watch crazy people impugn the lottery process which is one of the best run city programs.

Fente TWICE
Snow

these are just two I can throw out off the top of my head

Good Lord, wasn't Fenty pre-lottery?

Not the second time. Post lottery, post divorce and his kids still got the "be someone or know someone" preference.

You are not making the point you think you are making. At the time Fenty and others applied for and were granted special consideration from Henderson the rules actually granted the authority for her to place at her sole discretion. It was insane that such authority was granted but no one broke rules or gamed the lottery. In the case of Fenty, he didn't get what he wanted in the lottery so he applied for special consideration through the official process. That authority no longer exists.

As I said, there is ZERO evidence of any official or anyone else "gaming" the lottery or getting preferential treatment in the lottery The accusations that this is happening are without merit. People like you are conflating bad design used by insiders (as allowed) and people cheating. And you are ignoring that the loophole has since been closed.

As I said, show me an example of the lottery being gamed or abused. It has not happened.

I know for a fact that schools have the ability to look at the waitlist and pull off whoever they want. Not going to name the schools but I've been around as a parent and nosy person for a decade and have heard it multiple times (from DCPS staffers)

Nope. But it is clear your opinion is informed by dated information. In the early days of the common lottery under MSDC, only the initial lottery pull was managed by MSCD. From there waitlists were handed off to schools to manage on their own. Under that regime there were certainly allegations of preferential treatment. It has been years (@2015 or 16 I think) since waitlists were handed off to schools. Under the current process there is zero facility or ability for a school to work a waitlist out of order.

You don't "know this for a fact" because that cannot be done. Even if it could be done, MSDC would have perfect visibility and be able to immediately act. Stop making things up.

I'm not PP, but this happened to my kid in a year that was after 2016. The circumstances were as undramatic as you can get, since my kid jumped one other child who I'm sure was offered admission shortly after, but it did happen.

Well that would be a feat since there was an audit of the lottery process and ZERO irregularities were found. That's actually where the details on Fenty and Henderson's favoritism (permitted by rule at the time) was discovered.

So we'll agree to disagree. I'll rely on the audit and its public findings. You can continue to tell your story about what you secretly know that was hidden from the audit. LOL

If I were going to make something up I'd make something up that actually affected something. Also, I said it was in some year after 2016.

I was also told by multiple staff members at two different schools, in 2022, about pulling kids they wanted off the waitlist. Not revealing the schools because don't want to create a scandal. But if it's happening there, it's happening elsewhere.

There is a mechanism for schools to move kids up and down the waitlist at their discretion -- that's how they move siblings around and stuff. So I'm sure there a way to manipulate the waitlist that doesn't show up on an audit.

Schools don't move kids up and down lists. Preference is maintained and applied by MSDC. You people are worse than MTG Republicans who just keep making stuff up!

I think after the lottery is announced, the control of the waitlist goes to the schools because they are the ones who call down the list offering spots. Not saying I know any examples of wrong doing, but could it be possible they skip calling student who is number 10 on the waitlist and call/enroll student number 11 instead?

Schools a lot of power once the lottery is announced. For example, one school offered took a sibling off of the waitlist as soon as the sibling got in; another school just moved the sibling to waitlist spot #1 once the sibling got in. That makes me think that schools can actually do what they want with the waitlist.

Also not how it works. Once a child accepts a seat, their sibling then has preference.

This is spelled out on the My School DC website. There is a section "sibling enrolled preference" and "sibling offered preference."

From the My School DC Website:
Sibling offered preference
Preference for a student whose sibling is matched in the lottery or offered a seat from the waitlist. Please note that at most schools, this preference is meant to allow siblings to attend the same school at the same time. If the sibling who was offered a space at the school does not enroll at that school or later enrolls at another school, the “sibling offered” preference may be removed for all siblings that applied to that same school. This may result in the siblings losing their match, or moving down on the waitlist at that school. The siblings will remain on the school’s waitlist but will be assigned a new waitlist position based on their random lottery number or post-lottery submission date and any other preference they qualified for. If the sibling who was offered a space does enroll at the school, the preference remains as “sibling offered” for all siblings that applied to that same school; it does not change to “sibling attending.” The definition of "sibling" may vary by school. Please contact the school directly for this information. DCPS's sibling information can be found in their Enrollment and Lottery Handbook.

I'm getting ready to disengage with the skeptics here, but I'm telling you that this actually happened to our family -- at School A, one child was offered a seat and his sibling was immediately taken off the waitlist and offered a seat, as well. at School B, one child was offered a seat and his sibling was moved to the top of the waitlist in spot #1, but not offered a seat.

The schools clearly made different choices. Ergo, schools have some degree of freedom with their waitlists.

I also has a school administrator tell me "kids from this school get into X middle school, and it's not due to luck."

That means they sent out the first offer, caused the sibling to be in the Sibling Offered category which happened to place them at the top, and then sent out the second offer. If you werent logged in right at that moment, you wouldn't see it.

Understand at this time of year schools are sending out many offers at a time.

I will say that after they have filled their initial quota of seats, it is up to the school whether to extend the additional offer to the sibling at the top of the list. *This year* we got an offer from a school for our 4th grader when she jumped to the top of the list when our 2nd grader was admitted. We turned down both offers as we decided not to move our kids from our IB. Later we saw that no lottery spots had been filled by that school in 4th grade. So the school made an offer to us that we didn't take, but then NEVER made another one. Maybe they just did it to be nice to siblings (I support that) since they had flexibility to take one additional 4th grader or not or maybe we demographically appealed to them (we have a UMC sounding name & local-to-the school UMC address)... but they 100% made us an offer and then never filled that seat (even though they have a WL over 100 for that grade).

Or they may have continued extending offers until count day but nobody accepted. Or someone accepted "that seat" but a different kid left.

This is a school with 100+ kids on a WL. Zero chance no one would take that seat. If anyone on the WL took that seat, whether or not another kid left, it would show up on the lottery results. Those results say they made 1 WL offer. To us. We didn’t take it.

They probably stopped making offers after count day. Or, the table only goes through October and the other offers were after that.

To clarify, my offer came in June. I know people want to tell a story about have schools have no discretion. But the *one* piece of discretion they do have is whether to offer a spot to the top kid on each WL if they have already matched enough lottery positions to fill their quota. There are ways schools can manipulate this by timing their offers. However, to admit a kid, that kid DOES have to be #1 on the WL (or they have to offer everyone between #1 and the kid they want).

My school offered 1-3 on a WL to get a teacher's kid at 3. This 100% happens. If not for the teacher, they would have offered none.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:For 5th grade, we got >270 for Basis. Didn’t know such a bad result was even possible! (Would love to hear horror stories so we can pretend we dodged a bullet there . Our kid likes elementary school math and science but is not advanced… yet.) The total waitlist length in recent years looks like it’s been between 200-260 students, so 270 is a head scratcher.

And then there’s the 2 Latins. >450 for both.

This kind of result is similar to other lottery results we’ve gotten in prior years. Is it a blind random lottery or do they sort of chunk slots by location, demographics, or maybe even things like EAPs or prior attendance issues? Seems weird how consistently we’ve drawn crappy numbers when it’s just a luck-based process. I guess I’m being a bit paranoid. Probability and randomness are what they are.

I'm sure it's just blind luck that *two* members of the city council (Trayon, Nadeau) have children at LAMB, which has probably the longest waitlist of any school in the city.

LAMB may be a special case. There have always been rumors about the lottery there. They were also the last school to join the unified lottery.

There's a long history of DC officials jumping to the front of school waitlists. The education chancellor had to resign a few years ago when it came out that he skipped the line to get his daughter in somewhere.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-public-schools-leader-to-resign-after-skirting-school-assignment-rules/2018/02/20/9b372230-1662-11e8-92c9-376b4fe57ff7_story.html

No, there isn't. In fact the story you point to isn't even an example of this. At the time this occurred the process inexplicably permitted discretion by Niles to make assignments based on individual circumstances. The Chancellor went through the formal process - he had his wife make the approach in some silly BS argument that he wasn't involved. She allowed it. Clearly the system should not have allowed this discretion, but he actually worked within the then in effect rules.

I am aware of no examples of evidence that any official or other person has been able to skirt the lottery rules. If you know of one and not tin foil hat conspiracies I am all ears.

P.S. I am not defending the Chancellor. It was a bonehead move and the fact that he had his wife make the approach is proof he knew it should not have been done. But I can't sit back and watch crazy people impugn the lottery process which is one of the best run city programs.

Fente TWICE
Snow

these are just two I can throw out off the top of my head

Good Lord, wasn't Fenty pre-lottery?

Not the second time. Post lottery, post divorce and his kids still got the "be someone or know someone" preference.

You are not making the point you think you are making. At the time Fenty and others applied for and were granted special consideration from Henderson the rules actually granted the authority for her to place at her sole discretion. It was insane that such authority was granted but no one broke rules or gamed the lottery. In the case of Fenty, he didn't get what he wanted in the lottery so he applied for special consideration through the official process. That authority no longer exists.

As I said, there is ZERO evidence of any official or anyone else "gaming" the lottery or getting preferential treatment in the lottery The accusations that this is happening are without merit. People like you are conflating bad design used by insiders (as allowed) and people cheating. And you are ignoring that the loophole has since been closed.

As I said, show me an example of the lottery being gamed or abused. It has not happened.

I know for a fact that schools have the ability to look at the waitlist and pull off whoever they want. Not going to name the schools but I've been around as a parent and nosy person for a decade and have heard it multiple times (from DCPS staffers)

Nope. But it is clear your opinion is informed by dated information. In the early days of the common lottery under MSDC, only the initial lottery pull was managed by MSCD. From there waitlists were handed off to schools to manage on their own. Under that regime there were certainly allegations of preferential treatment. It has been years (@2015 or 16 I think) since waitlists were handed off to schools. Under the current process there is zero facility or ability for a school to work a waitlist out of order.

You don't "know this for a fact" because that cannot be done. Even if it could be done, MSDC would have perfect visibility and be able to immediately act. Stop making things up.

I'm not PP, but this happened to my kid in a year that was after 2016. The circumstances were as undramatic as you can get, since my kid jumped one other child who I'm sure was offered admission shortly after, but it did happen.

Well that would be a feat since there was an audit of the lottery process and ZERO irregularities were found. That's actually where the details on Fenty and Henderson's favoritism (permitted by rule at the time) was discovered.

So we'll agree to disagree. I'll rely on the audit and its public findings. You can continue to tell your story about what you secretly know that was hidden from the audit. LOL

If I were going to make something up I'd make something up that actually affected something. Also, I said it was in some year after 2016.

I was also told by multiple staff members at two different schools, in 2022, about pulling kids they wanted off the waitlist. Not revealing the schools because don't want to create a scandal. But if it's happening there, it's happening elsewhere.

There is a mechanism for schools to move kids up and down the waitlist at their discretion -- that's how they move siblings around and stuff. So I'm sure there a way to manipulate the waitlist that doesn't show up on an audit.

Schools don't move kids up and down lists. Preference is maintained and applied by MSDC. You people are worse than MTG Republicans who just keep making stuff up!

I think after the lottery is announced, the control of the waitlist goes to the schools because they are the ones who call down the list offering spots. Not saying I know any examples of wrong doing, but could it be possible they skip calling student who is number 10 on the waitlist and call/enroll student number 11 instead?

Schools a lot of power once the lottery is announced. For example, one school offered took a sibling off of the waitlist as soon as the sibling got in; another school just moved the sibling to waitlist spot #1 once the sibling got in. That makes me think that schools can actually do what they want with the waitlist.

Also not how it works. Once a child accepts a seat, their sibling then has preference.

This is spelled out on the My School DC website. There is a section "sibling enrolled preference" and "sibling offered preference."

From the My School DC Website:
Sibling offered preference
Preference for a student whose sibling is matched in the lottery or offered a seat from the waitlist. Please note that at most schools, this preference is meant to allow siblings to attend the same school at the same time. If the sibling who was offered a space at the school does not enroll at that school or later enrolls at another school, the “sibling offered” preference may be removed for all siblings that applied to that same school. This may result in the siblings losing their match, or moving down on the waitlist at that school. The siblings will remain on the school’s waitlist but will be assigned a new waitlist position based on their random lottery number or post-lottery submission date and any other preference they qualified for. If the sibling who was offered a space does enroll at the school, the preference remains as “sibling offered” for all siblings that applied to that same school; it does not change to “sibling attending.” The definition of "sibling" may vary by school. Please contact the school directly for this information. DCPS's sibling information can be found in their Enrollment and Lottery Handbook.

I'm getting ready to disengage with the skeptics here, but I'm telling you that this actually happened to our family -- at School A, one child was offered a seat and his sibling was immediately taken off the waitlist and offered a seat, as well. at School B, one child was offered a seat and his sibling was moved to the top of the waitlist in spot #1, but not offered a seat.

The schools clearly made different choices. Ergo, schools have some degree of freedom with their waitlists.

I also has a school administrator tell me "kids from this school get into X middle school, and it's not due to luck."

That means they sent out the first offer, caused the sibling to be in the Sibling Offered category which happened to place them at the top, and then sent out the second offer. If you werent logged in right at that moment, you wouldn't see it.

Understand at this time of year schools are sending out many offers at a time.

I will say that after they have filled their initial quota of seats, it is up to the school whether to extend the additional offer to the sibling at the top of the list. *This year* we got an offer from a school for our 4th grader when she jumped to the top of the list when our 2nd grader was admitted. We turned down both offers as we decided not to move our kids from our IB. Later we saw that no lottery spots had been filled by that school in 4th grade. So the school made an offer to us that we didn't take, but then NEVER made another one. Maybe they just did it to be nice to siblings (I support that) since they had flexibility to take one additional 4th grader or not or maybe we demographically appealed to them (we have a UMC sounding name & local-to-the school UMC address)... but they 100% made us an offer and then never filled that seat (even though they have a WL over 100 for that grade).

Or they may have continued extending offers until count day but nobody accepted. Or someone accepted "that seat" but a different kid left.

This is a school with 100+ kids on a WL. Zero chance no one would take that seat. If anyone on the WL took that seat, whether or not another kid left, it would show up on the lottery results. Those results say they made 1 WL offer. To us. We didn’t take it.

They probably stopped making offers after count day. Or, the table only goes through October and the other offers were after that.

To clarify, my offer came in June. I know people want to tell a story about have schools have no discretion. But the *one* piece of discretion they do have is whether to offer a spot to the top kid on each WL if they have already matched enough lottery positions to fill their quota. There are ways schools can manipulate this by timing their offers. However, to admit a kid, that kid DOES have to be #1 on the WL (or they have to offer everyone between #1 and the kid they want).

My school offered 1-3 on a WL to get a teacher's kid at 3. This 100% happens. If not for the teacher, they would have offered none.

You are right about where schools have discretion. I've answered a few of the posts on this as I work in a school with direct oversight over enrollment. The answers that have been given aren't saying that schools have no discretion. Schools absolutely decide how many seats they will offer, at what grades, and whether they will do so throughout the year or stop at a specific time. Schools also set their preferences (siblings, staff etc).

Some posters are suggesting that schools can pull a kid off the waitlist at say #24 but they haven't offered to the first 23 students before that kid. I'm not sure how that can be done without completely violating the My School DC rules and getting caught at doing so. I also do not trust that the random teacher or school office worker who tells a parent or friend that some kid was pulled out of order knows the rules either about sibling enrolled preferences or sibling offered preferences that legally push kids to the top of the waitlist. It's just too much fun to gossip and believe that people are cheating than it is to read and understand the rules.

[Anonymous]

There's also safety placements and Early Stages to consider. DCPS deals with many enrollment factors that are not part of the lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:It is starting to be more than a handful at EH recently. EH also offers math and ELA acceleration. Similar story at SH. People with bright kids do sometimes turn down Basis to instead just try these schools. It is somewhat hard to believe unless you have a child there or you have otherwise recently taken a hard look at these schools.

As has been discussed on here on many threads, the nuance that is missed in many of these broad sweeping conversations about good/bad schools is the huge achievement gaps that are important to understand when looking at the city to understand the big picture. But when the schools scores are lumped together and an average score is presented, IMO it at the very least makes it harder to understand what is really happening at a school. Many people on these threads talk about the importance of having a cohort of peers achieving at higher levels, which many of these middle schools do. Ideally everybody at a school would be achieving at higher levels, but we have a long ways to go to reaching that and is worth of a whole separate discussion about how we can get there as a city.

If you look at sub groups at some of these schools being discussed (SH or EH for example) you will see they match or outperform their peers in the same subgroups across the city. As a parent who has a now 7th grader at one of those schools, I can say that there are assignments and teachers that push them, and options for more advanced courses. I also know there are kids who cannot or choose not to complete the assignments at the same level, but I know that in each of my child's classes there are a large number of kids who are doing the work, getting pushed to think one step further, doing well on class and standardized tests, etc. And for those who are thinking about the high school long game, kids from these schools get into SWW, Banneker, McKinley, privates, and increasingly the EPIC program at Eastern (TBD how much traction that picks up)

All that to say, there are options for academically advanced kids at more than just a handful of schools in this city, and there are many families at these schools by choice (in addition to the ones there b/c they didn't win a lottery a few years ago).

I totally believe you about the middle schools. But the selective admissions high schools are so random in terms of who they let in, it's not something to count on. So the middle school decision is at least partly about, if you don't get in, are you comfortable with Eastern or are you able to pay for private school?

The selective high schools are NOT that random. Only Walls is. If your kid (on grade level) could be happy at Banneker or McKinley or Walls, you will get a spot at one of the 3.

They have very similar admissions process. None of them look at whether you are on grade level. You could strike out at all three.

Look, I’ve been though the high school process with two kids in the past couple years and watched where their friends applied and matched. If your kid has a 3.0 and does the admission process, they will get a slot at Banneker, McKinley, or Walls. I agree with you that the process descriptions are similar, but the actual outcomes and the way the schools run them is different.

I want to think this is the case because it would help my kid a lot right now if we knew that, but there were parents who posted last year whose kids struck out. Also, how could they run them differently? There are a lot more kids with a 3.0 and who want admissions than there are slots.

I'll say this. My kid attends one of the 3 schools and I agree with PP that your kid will likely end up at one of the schools. That said, there are a few really entitled parents at our school who leave me wondering how that works out down the road when their kids are in need of recommendation letters. Their kids tend to be entitled as well. Who knows how that plays out in LORs or interviews.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thoughts on getting into Stokes French with #16 lottery? Looks like a no based on last year. We put stokes Spanish for our #3 which i'm now regretting because our daughter is in a Spanish prek now and loving it. Is there anyway to do a post lottery app or how does that work?

For prek3? Not a chance. Apparently even siblings were waitlisted this year.

[Anonymous]

Lottery data has updated for 25-26 AY

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/aaron2446/viz/MSDCSeatsandWaitlistOfferData_draft/MSDCPublicDisplay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is starting to be more than a handful at EH recently. EH also offers math and ELA acceleration. Similar story at SH. People with bright kids do sometimes turn down Basis to instead just try these schools. It is somewhat hard to believe unless you have a child there or you have otherwise recently taken a hard look at these schools.

As has been discussed on here on many threads, the nuance that is missed in many of these broad sweeping conversations about good/bad schools is the huge achievement gaps that are important to understand when looking at the city to understand the big picture. But when the schools scores are lumped together and an average score is presented, IMO it at the very least makes it harder to understand what is really happening at a school. Many people on these threads talk about the importance of having a cohort of peers achieving at higher levels, which many of these middle schools do. Ideally everybody at a school would be achieving at higher levels, but we have a long ways to go to reaching that and is worth of a whole separate discussion about how we can get there as a city.

If you look at sub groups at some of these schools being discussed (SH or EH for example) you will see they match or outperform their peers in the same subgroups across the city. As a parent who has a now 7th grader at one of those schools, I can say that there are assignments and teachers that push them, and options for more advanced courses. I also know there are kids who cannot or choose not to complete the assignments at the same level, but I know that in each of my child's classes there are a large number of kids who are doing the work, getting pushed to think one step further, doing well on class and standardized tests, etc. And for those who are thinking about the high school long game, kids from these schools get into SWW, Banneker, McKinley, privates, and increasingly the EPIC program at Eastern (TBD how much traction that picks up)

All that to say, there are options for academically advanced kids at more than just a handful of schools in this city, and there are many families at these schools by choice (in addition to the ones there b/c they didn't win a lottery a few years ago).

I totally believe you about the middle schools. But the selective admissions high schools are so random in terms of who they let in, it's not something to count on. So the middle school decision is at least partly about, if you don't get in, are you comfortable with Eastern or are you able to pay for private school?

The selective high schools are NOT that random. Only Walls is. If your kid (on grade level) could be happy at Banneker or McKinley or Walls, you will get a spot at one of the 3.

Less than 1/5th of SH students go to Eastern every year, so going there as a high performing student does not actually require you to be comfortable with Eastern. Banneker? Duke? McKinley? Yes. Eastern? No. Most years more kids opt for private or moving out of DC than Eastern.

So the kids who go to SH are either ok with Eastern or prepared to go to private school or move.

My kid is a straight 4s on DCPS ES report cards, 95-99% iReady, 1 4 & 3 5s on CAPE. I am not worried she isn’t getting into one of the selective schools and going to SH seems to be an advantage there since there are more kids getting into selective HSes (including Duke) than kids getting straight 4s on PARCC. Walls or bust is unrealistic, but I am not actually worried about she is headed to Eastern.

They don't look at the PARCC/CAPE score anymore or any other test scores. They haven't in years. The number of kids getting into selective high schools vs. the number of kids at grade level on the exam isn't relevant because the second one isn't a subset of the first. They do not even have access to that information when they are making the decision. That's the issue here.

If it were really the case that every kid with a 3.0 was getting into a selective-admissions high school, that would be one thing. I do not think that's the case. But if you're thinking "my kid is a really good student" because of their test scores or anything else, I just don't see where you think that information is being used in the admissions process. If it doesn't matter because you'll move or do private school, I totally get that, though.

I am completely aware they don’t look at ES anything when selecting for W/B/D/McK. I was just giving a sense of the kind of student my daughter is. I am not worried that she will end up with way over a 3.0 from SH nor that she will get into *one* of those schools.

What worries me these days is that for parents without a good default high school, the increasingly popular strategy seems to be to find a school that is most likely to yield As in middle school so they have a good shot at one of the application schools. But what you should be doing with a kid like this is putting them in a middle school that challenging and stretches them.

THIS. Sacrificing a middle school experience and cruising by without being challenged will not get you the results you want in middle or high school for your kid.

And no, I’m not interested in supplementing every single subject in middle school. Who has time for that??

It’s a huge mistake to do this. Your kid will pay for it when it comes time to apply to college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is starting to be more than a handful at EH recently. EH also offers math and ELA acceleration. Similar story at SH. People with bright kids do sometimes turn down Basis to instead just try these schools. It is somewhat hard to believe unless you have a child there or you have otherwise recently taken a hard look at these schools.

As has been discussed on here on many threads, the nuance that is missed in many of these broad sweeping conversations about good/bad schools is the huge achievement gaps that are important to understand when looking at the city to understand the big picture. But when the schools scores are lumped together and an average score is presented, IMO it at the very least makes it harder to understand what is really happening at a school. Many people on these threads talk about the importance of having a cohort of peers achieving at higher levels, which many of these middle schools do. Ideally everybody at a school would be achieving at higher levels, but we have a long ways to go to reaching that and is worth of a whole separate discussion about how we can get there as a city.

If you look at sub groups at some of these schools being discussed (SH or EH for example) you will see they match or outperform their peers in the same subgroups across the city. As a parent who has a now 7th grader at one of those schools, I can say that there are assignments and teachers that push them, and options for more advanced courses. I also know there are kids who cannot or choose not to complete the assignments at the same level, but I know that in each of my child's classes there are a large number of kids who are doing the work, getting pushed to think one step further, doing well on class and standardized tests, etc. And for those who are thinking about the high school long game, kids from these schools get into SWW, Banneker, McKinley, privates, and increasingly the EPIC program at Eastern (TBD how much traction that picks up)

All that to say, there are options for academically advanced kids at more than just a handful of schools in this city, and there are many families at these schools by choice (in addition to the ones there b/c they didn't win a lottery a few years ago).

I totally believe you about the middle schools. But the selective admissions high schools are so random in terms of who they let in, it's not something to count on. So the middle school decision is at least partly about, if you don't get in, are you comfortable with Eastern or are you able to pay for private school?

The selective high schools are NOT that random. Only Walls is. If your kid (on grade level) could be happy at Banneker or McKinley or Walls, you will get a spot at one of the 3.

Less than 1/5th of SH students go to Eastern every year, so going there as a high performing student does not actually require you to be comfortable with Eastern. Banneker? Duke? McKinley? Yes. Eastern? No. Most years more kids opt for private or moving out of DC than Eastern.

So the kids who go to SH are either ok with Eastern or prepared to go to private school or move.

My kid is a straight 4s on DCPS ES report cards, 95-99% iReady, 1 4 & 3 5s on CAPE. I am not worried she isn’t getting into one of the selective schools and going to SH seems to be an advantage there since there are more kids getting into selective HSes (including Duke) than kids getting straight 4s on PARCC. Walls or bust is unrealistic, but I am not actually worried about she is headed to Eastern.

They don't look at the PARCC/CAPE score anymore or any other test scores. They haven't in years. The number of kids getting into selective high schools vs. the number of kids at grade level on the exam isn't relevant because the second one isn't a subset of the first. They do not even have access to that information when they are making the decision. That's the issue here.

If it were really the case that every kid with a 3.0 was getting into a selective-admissions high school, that would be one thing. I do not think that's the case. But if you're thinking "my kid is a really good student" because of their test scores or anything else, I just don't see where you think that information is being used in the admissions process. If it doesn't matter because you'll move or do private school, I totally get that, though.

I am completely aware they don’t look at ES anything when selecting for W/B/D/McK. I was just giving a sense of the kind of student my daughter is. I am not worried that she will end up with way over a 3.0 from SH nor that she will get into *one* of those schools.

What worries me these days is that for parents without a good default high school, the increasingly popular strategy seems to be to find a school that is most likely to yield As in middle school so they have a good shot at one of the application schools. But what you should be doing with a kid like this is putting them in a middle school that challenging and stretches them.

THIS. Sacrificing a middle school experience and cruising by without being challenged will not get you the results you want in middle or high school for your kid.

And no, I’m not interested in supplementing every single subject in middle school. Who has time for that??

It’s a huge mistake to do this. Your kid will pay for it when it comes time to apply to college.

Nobody is doing this anyways. Parents have their kids in less-than-great middle schools because seats at the better middle schools are limited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is starting to be more than a handful at EH recently. EH also offers math and ELA acceleration. Similar story at SH. People with bright kids do sometimes turn down Basis to instead just try these schools. It is somewhat hard to believe unless you have a child there or you have otherwise recently taken a hard look at these schools.

As has been discussed on here on many threads, the nuance that is missed in many of these broad sweeping conversations about good/bad schools is the huge achievement gaps that are important to understand when looking at the city to understand the big picture. But when the schools scores are lumped together and an average score is presented, IMO it at the very least makes it harder to understand what is really happening at a school. Many people on these threads talk about the importance of having a cohort of peers achieving at higher levels, which many of these middle schools do. Ideally everybody at a school would be achieving at higher levels, but we have a long ways to go to reaching that and is worth of a whole separate discussion about how we can get there as a city.

If you look at sub groups at some of these schools being discussed (SH or EH for example) you will see they match or outperform their peers in the same subgroups across the city. As a parent who has a now 7th grader at one of those schools, I can say that there are assignments and teachers that push them, and options for more advanced courses. I also know there are kids who cannot or choose not to complete the assignments at the same level, but I know that in each of my child's classes there are a large number of kids who are doing the work, getting pushed to think one step further, doing well on class and standardized tests, etc. And for those who are thinking about the high school long game, kids from these schools get into SWW, Banneker, McKinley, privates, and increasingly the EPIC program at Eastern (TBD how much traction that picks up)

All that to say, there are options for academically advanced kids at more than just a handful of schools in this city, and there are many families at these schools by choice (in addition to the ones there b/c they didn't win a lottery a few years ago).

I totally believe you about the middle schools. But the selective admissions high schools are so random in terms of who they let in, it's not something to count on. So the middle school decision is at least partly about, if you don't get in, are you comfortable with Eastern or are you able to pay for private school?

The selective high schools are NOT that random. Only Walls is. If your kid (on grade level) could be happy at Banneker or McKinley or Walls, you will get a spot at one of the 3.

Less than 1/5th of SH students go to Eastern every year, so going there as a high performing student does not actually require you to be comfortable with Eastern. Banneker? Duke? McKinley? Yes. Eastern? No. Most years more kids opt for private or moving out of DC than Eastern.

So the kids who go to SH are either ok with Eastern or prepared to go to private school or move.

My kid is a straight 4s on DCPS ES report cards, 95-99% iReady, 1 4 & 3 5s on CAPE. I am not worried she isn’t getting into one of the selective schools and going to SH seems to be an advantage there since there are more kids getting into selective HSes (including Duke) than kids getting straight 4s on PARCC. Walls or bust is unrealistic, but I am not actually worried about she is headed to Eastern.

They don't look at the PARCC/CAPE score anymore or any other test scores. They haven't in years. The number of kids getting into selective high schools vs. the number of kids at grade level on the exam isn't relevant because the second one isn't a subset of the first. They do not even have access to that information when they are making the decision. That's the issue here.

If it were really the case that every kid with a 3.0 was getting into a selective-admissions high school, that would be one thing. I do not think that's the case. But if you're thinking "my kid is a really good student" because of their test scores or anything else, I just don't see where you think that information is being used in the admissions process. If it doesn't matter because you'll move or do private school, I totally get that, though.

I am completely aware they don’t look at ES anything when selecting for W/B/D/McK. I was just giving a sense of the kind of student my daughter is. I am not worried that she will end up with way over a 3.0 from SH nor that she will get into *one* of those schools.

What worries me these days is that for parents without a good default high school, the increasingly popular strategy seems to be to find a school that is most likely to yield As in middle school so they have a good shot at one of the application schools. But what you should be doing with a kid like this is putting them in a middle school that challenging and stretches them.

THIS. Sacrificing a middle school experience and cruising by without being challenged will not get you the results you want in middle or high school for your kid.

And no, I’m not interested in supplementing every single subject in middle school. Who has time for that??

It’s a huge mistake to do this. Your kid will pay for it when it comes time to apply to college.

Nobody is doing this anyways. Parents have their kids in less-than-great middle schools because seats at the better middle schools are limited.

This is us also. Struck out in the lottery for all MS so went to our IB Title 1. Had a great experience (kid is very happy) but definitly not challenging. But he got into 2 private HS and an applciation DCPS HS so it worked out well in the end.

[Anonymous]

For all years from K up there are years when some kids move in boundary during the summer and have the right to attend automatically.

If kids going into prek3 or prek4 do this, especially if they are ready on the WL , they may jump up places on the list based on new preference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PK3, no sibling preference :

1. DCB #33
2. Stokes Brookland #25
3. Global Citizens: Match

We put it for a lottery slot when we weren’t sure if we’d have to move to DC because of the Trump administration. Well, turns out we don’t, and my husband is more likely to get laid off.

I can’t believe we got fairly lucky! Hopefully that luck applies to my local PK3 program too…best of luck to your waitlist movement! 🍀

Are you doing Mandarin or Spanish for Global Citizens? Have you visited the school yet? What are your thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Is this true for PK at CHML too?

No, PK is great! It’s the only part of the school that’s actually Montessori accredited.

Yes, because it is MONTESSORI!!!! It is designed for ECE. The idea that children and preteens should get to pick what and how they learn is stupidity.

It is so poorly implemented at CHML too. The students have no idea how a "normal" classroom should look and function. They don't have the attention spans to sit through any kind of direct instruction, they think they can do whatever they want, and therefore, struggle when they get to high school and are expected to function in a regular classroom setting. The 4th-5th grade classrooms are full of behavior problems and this is known as many parents opt to pull their kids out after 3rd grade. Montessori can work but only highly motivated and independent students can succeed and CHML is full of kids who were kicked out of their DCPS school/charters/etc. It just does not work.

I don’t believe either of you truly are Momtessorians and would be able to speak to the validity of your responses. Montessori was NOT designed for ECE. It is a philosophy that can be applied at any plane of development. Montessori began working on her design of the Secondary space, but she unfortunately passed away before it was completed.

CHML does not actually do Montessori beyond the primary grade band. Any issues that exist in 1st grade and beyond can not be blamed on Montessori because they aren’t even following what they would need to do to be accredited.

These defenses of Montessori and CHML are laughable. People like you spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about pedagogy and implementation because it is easier to wax philosophic than to look at hard data and acknowledge reality. Montessori was designed for ECE. The revisionist history employed in defense of Saint Maria is nonsense. The system was designed in the early 1900s in a time and place with decidedly different demographics and realities. People like PP always fall back on some weird defense the failure isn't Montessori, it is the school's application. As if that makes one bit of difference to parents whose kids are there.

At some point the way you learn math and science is to learn math and science. Phrases like "drill and kill" are used pejoratively to describe schools that [GASP] make kids memorize concepts and formulas and then test them on it.

CHML caters to (majority white) wealthy parents who can afford to take chances on schools in defense of silly pedagogies that matter to a small group of Lululemon wearing yoga moms with free time.

This is true for lamb as well even though CHML is a significantly worse school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this true for PK at CHML too?

No, PK is great! It’s the only part of the school that’s actually Montessori accredited.

Yes, because it is MONTESSORI!!!! It is designed for ECE. The idea that children and preteens should get to pick what and how they learn is stupidity.

It is so poorly implemented at CHML too. The students have no idea how a "normal" classroom should look and function. They don't have the attention spans to sit through any kind of direct instruction, they think they can do whatever they want, and therefore, struggle when they get to high school and are expected to function in a regular classroom setting. The 4th-5th grade classrooms are full of behavior problems and this is known as many parents opt to pull their kids out after 3rd grade. Montessori can work but only highly motivated and independent students can succeed and CHML is full of kids who were kicked out of their DCPS school/charters/etc. It just does not work.

I don’t believe either of you truly are Momtessorians and would be able to speak to the validity of your responses. Montessori was NOT designed for ECE. It is a philosophy that can be applied at any plane of development. Montessori began working on her design of the Secondary space, but she unfortunately passed away before it was completed.

CHML does not actually do Montessori beyond the primary grade band. Any issues that exist in 1st grade and beyond can not be blamed on Montessori because they aren’t even following what they would need to do to be accredited.

These defenses of Montessori and CHML are laughable. People like you spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about pedagogy and implementation because it is easier to wax philosophic than to look at hard data and acknowledge reality. Montessori was designed for ECE. The revisionist history employed in defense of Saint Maria is nonsense. The system was designed in the early 1900s in a time and place with decidedly different demographics and realities. People like PP always fall back on some weird defense the failure isn't Montessori, it is the school's application. As if that makes one bit of difference to parents whose kids are there.

At some point the way you learn math and science is to learn math and science. Phrases like "drill and kill" are used pejoratively to describe schools that [GASP] make kids memorize concepts and formulas and then test them on it.

CHML caters to (majority white) wealthy parents who can afford to take chances on schools in defense of silly pedagogies that matter to a small group of Lululemon wearing yoga moms with free time.

This is true for lamb as well even though CHML is a significantly worse school.

I went to a public Montessori high school in the Midwest that was excellent and extremely high performing. I graduated 16 years ago, not sure the world has changed that much.

I imagine an excellent Montessori school is far better than a mediocre traditional school. Likewise, an excellent traditional school is likely far better than a mediocre Montessori school