Lottery/school despair

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"If you try long enough"

Meanwhile your kid is somewhere crappy and/or moving around a lot.

I posted upthread. We tried two schools in 4 years, losing lottery (by miles) each time. Pulled her out in 4th grade. Wish I had done it sooner, but I kept thinking "surely a good option will come up" and it never did.

My kid was never somewhere crappy. We had a lovely time at our IB and it absolutely did meet her short-term needs.

If you're going to think anything less than the best is "crappy", you won't be happy in northeast DC.

That's not us at all, given that we did PG County public schools after DC. You act like I am sad I couldn't get Lafayette. I didnt want or need anything like that. But we never even made it into a tier 3 DCPS. But if you would send your kids to Browne EC, by all means, throw shade. We didn't leave easily.

I had my kid at a one-star school for two years. A school that couldn't even fill up two PK3 classes. It's better now, but how it was back then is definitely similar to how Browne is now. And it was good and her needs were met, for preschool.

PRE SCHOOL. I stayed in schools like that, trying my level best to make it work, til she was mid way through fourth grade. Please go on feeling like you're better than me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"If you try long enough"

Meanwhile your kid is somewhere crappy and/or moving around a lot.

I posted upthread. We tried two schools in 4 years, losing lottery (by miles) each time. Pulled her out in 4th grade. Wish I had done it sooner, but I kept thinking "surely a good option will come up" and it never did.

My kid was never somewhere crappy. We had a lovely time at our IB and it absolutely did meet her short-term needs.

If you're going to think anything less than the best is "crappy", you won't be happy in northeast DC.

That's not us at all, given that we did PG County public schools after DC. You act like I am sad I couldn't get Lafayette. I didnt want or need anything like that. But we never even made it into a tier 3 DCPS. But if you would send your kids to Browne EC, by all means, throw shade. We didn't leave easily.

I had my kid at a one-star school for two years. A school that couldn't even fill up two PK3 classes. It's better now, but how it was back then is definitely similar to how Browne is now. And it was good and her needs were met, for preschool.

PRE SCHOOL. I stayed in schools like that, trying my level best to make it work, til she was mid way through fourth grade. Please go on feeling like you're better than me.

I find it very, very hard to believe that in all those lottery years you never managed to squeak into an adequate DCPS or charter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"If you try long enough"

Meanwhile your kid is somewhere crappy and/or moving around a lot.

I posted upthread. We tried two schools in 4 years, losing lottery (by miles) each time. Pulled her out in 4th grade. Wish I had done it sooner, but I kept thinking "surely a good option will come up" and it never did.

My kid was never somewhere crappy. We had a lovely time at our IB and it absolutely did meet her short-term needs.

If you're going to think anything less than the best is "crappy", you won't be happy in northeast DC.

That's not us at all, given that we did PG County public schools after DC. You act like I am sad I couldn't get Lafayette. I didnt want or need anything like that. But we never even made it into a tier 3 DCPS. But if you would send your kids to Browne EC, by all means, throw shade. We didn't leave easily.

I had my kid at a one-star school for two years. A school that couldn't even fill up two PK3 classes. It's better now, but how it was back then is definitely similar to how Browne is now. And it was good and her needs were met, for preschool.

PRE SCHOOL. I stayed in schools like that, trying my level best to make it work, til she was mid way through fourth grade. Please go on feeling like you're better than me.

I find it very, very hard to believe that in all those lottery years you never managed to squeak into an adequate DCPS or charter.

Well you'd be wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look harder at short wait lists.

I would give you the name of my kid's genuine hidden gem school which is basically in your target area, has slots in almost every grade, and IMHO, a solid middle school feeder. (HS option pretty terrible though, at least currently).

But I don't want to be accused of the ultimate DCUM crime of boostering.

And it's not the only school that fits that description, there are similar options that are definitely worth considering. I know our school is working its wait list and assume others will pick up this summer.

Is it Langley? If so, can you tell me more about your experience there?

Not Langley! Sorry!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"If you try long enough"

Meanwhile your kid is somewhere crappy and/or moving around a lot.

I posted upthread. We tried two schools in 4 years, losing lottery (by miles) each time. Pulled her out in 4th grade. Wish I had done it sooner, but I kept thinking "surely a good option will come up" and it never did.

My kid was never somewhere crappy. We had a lovely time at our IB and it absolutely did meet her short-term needs.

If you're going to think anything less than the best is "crappy", you won't be happy in northeast DC.

That's not us at all, given that we did PG County public schools after DC. You act like I am sad I couldn't get Lafayette. I didnt want or need anything like that. But we never even made it into a tier 3 DCPS. But if you would send your kids to Browne EC, by all means, throw shade. We didn't leave easily.

I had my kid at a one-star school for two years. A school that couldn't even fill up two PK3 classes. It's better now, but how it was back then is definitely similar to how Browne is now. And it was good and her needs were met, for preschool.

PRE SCHOOL. I stayed in schools like that, trying my level best to make it work, til she was mid way through fourth grade. Please go on feeling like you're better than me.

I find it very, very hard to believe that in all those lottery years you never managed to squeak into an adequate DCPS or charter.

Well you'd be wrong.

Funny because lots of adequate schools in the Browne area do clear their waitlists...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"If you try long enough"

Meanwhile your kid is somewhere crappy and/or moving around a lot.

I posted upthread. We tried two schools in 4 years, losing lottery (by miles) each time. Pulled her out in 4th grade. Wish I had done it sooner, but I kept thinking "surely a good option will come up" and it never did.

My kid was never somewhere crappy. We had a lovely time at our IB and it absolutely did meet her short-term needs.

If you're going to think anything less than the best is "crappy", you won't be happy in northeast DC.

That's not us at all, given that we did PG County public schools after DC. You act like I am sad I couldn't get Lafayette. I didnt want or need anything like that. But we never even made it into a tier 3 DCPS. But if you would send your kids to Browne EC, by all means, throw shade. We didn't leave easily.

I had my kid at a one-star school for two years. A school that couldn't even fill up two PK3 classes. It's better now, but how it was back then is definitely similar to how Browne is now. And it was good and her needs were met, for preschool.

PRE SCHOOL. I stayed in schools like that, trying my level best to make it work, til she was mid way through fourth grade. Please go on feeling like you're better than me.

I find it very, very hard to believe that in all those lottery years you never managed to squeak into an adequate DCPS or charter.

Well you'd be wrong.

Funny because lots of adequate schools in the Browne area do clear their waitlists...

DCUM insistence that they know other's people's lives better than that person is wild to me. This was 5+ years ago, for reference.

[Anonymous]

Extremely short waitlists: JO Wilson, Garrison (if not too far), Watkins, Tyler. The earlier poster above is not incorrect. Some schools (including some of the above) happen to have a large building capacity that exceeds the number of in-boundary students which does mean a lot more OOB spaces.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"If you try long enough"

Meanwhile your kid is somewhere crappy and/or moving around a lot.

I posted upthread. We tried two schools in 4 years, losing lottery (by miles) each time. Pulled her out in 4th grade. Wish I had done it sooner, but I kept thinking "surely a good option will come up" and it never did.

My kid was never somewhere crappy. We had a lovely time at our IB and it absolutely did meet her short-term needs.

If you're going to think anything less than the best is "crappy", you won't be happy in northeast DC.

That's not us at all, given that we did PG County public schools after DC. You act like I am sad I couldn't get Lafayette. I didnt want or need anything like that. But we never even made it into a tier 3 DCPS. But if you would send your kids to Browne EC, by all means, throw shade. We didn't leave easily.

I had my kid at a one-star school for two years. A school that couldn't even fill up two PK3 classes. It's better now, but how it was back then is definitely similar to how Browne is now. And it was good and her needs were met, for preschool.

PRE SCHOOL. I stayed in schools like that, trying my level best to make it work, til she was mid way through fourth grade. Please go on feeling like you're better than me.

I find it very, very hard to believe that in all those lottery years you never managed to squeak into an adequate DCPS or charter.

Well you'd be wrong.

Funny because lots of adequate schools in the Browne area do clear their waitlists...

DCUM insistence that they know other's people's lives better than that person is wild to me. This was 5+ years ago, for reference.

Please, feel free to show the data about how no adequate DCPS schools cleared their waitlists 5+ years ago. It's all right here.

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:"If you try long enough"

Meanwhile your kid is somewhere crappy and/or moving around a lot.

I posted upthread. We tried two schools in 4 years, losing lottery (by miles) each time. Pulled her out in 4th grade. Wish I had done it sooner, but I kept thinking "surely a good option will come up" and it never did.

My kid was never somewhere crappy. We had a lovely time at our IB and it absolutely did meet her short-term needs.

If you're going to think anything less than the best is "crappy", you won't be happy in northeast DC.

That's not us at all, given that we did PG County public schools after DC. You act like I am sad I couldn't get Lafayette. I didnt want or need anything like that. But we never even made it into a tier 3 DCPS. But if you would send your kids to Browne EC, by all means, throw shade. We didn't leave easily.

I had my kid at a one-star school for two years. A school that couldn't even fill up two PK3 classes. It's better now, but how it was back then is definitely similar to how Browne is now. And it was good and her needs were met, for preschool.

PRE SCHOOL. I stayed in schools like that, trying my level best to make it work, til she was mid way through fourth grade. Please go on feeling like you're better than me.

I find it very, very hard to believe that in all those lottery years you never managed to squeak into an adequate DCPS or charter.

Well you'd be wrong.

Funny because lots of adequate schools in the Browne area do clear their waitlists...

DCUM insistence that they know other's people's lives better than that person is wild to me. This was 5+ years ago, for reference.

Please, feel free to show the data about how no adequate DCPS schools cleared their waitlists 5+ years ago. It's all right here.

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

We found two of them wholly inadequate for our child. Have you had a child attend all of these "adequate" schools? You know about them all? Special ed in DC is a whole mess. We found them inadequate, and hell, even OSSE agreed and made DCPS repay our lawyers fees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"If you try long enough"

Meanwhile your kid is somewhere crappy and/or moving around a lot.

I posted upthread. We tried two schools in 4 years, losing lottery (by miles) each time. Pulled her out in 4th grade. Wish I had done it sooner, but I kept thinking "surely a good option will come up" and it never did.

My kid was never somewhere crappy. We had a lovely time at our IB and it absolutely did meet her short-term needs.

If you're going to think anything less than the best is "crappy", you won't be happy in northeast DC.

That's not us at all, given that we did PG County public schools after DC. You act like I am sad I couldn't get Lafayette. I didnt want or need anything like that. But we never even made it into a tier 3 DCPS. But if you would send your kids to Browne EC, by all means, throw shade. We didn't leave easily.

I had my kid at a one-star school for two years. A school that couldn't even fill up two PK3 classes. It's better now, but how it was back then is definitely similar to how Browne is now. And it was good and her needs were met, for preschool.

PRE SCHOOL. I stayed in schools like that, trying my level best to make it work, til she was mid way through fourth grade. Please go on feeling like you're better than me.

I find it very, very hard to believe that in all those lottery years you never managed to squeak into an adequate DCPS or charter.

Well you'd be wrong.

Funny because lots of adequate schools in the Browne area do clear their waitlists...

DCUM insistence that they know other's people's lives better than that person is wild to me. This was 5+ years ago, for reference.

Please, feel free to show the data about how no adequate DCPS schools cleared their waitlists 5+ years ago. It's all right here.

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

We found two of them wholly inadequate for our child. Have you had a child attend all of these "adequate" schools? You know about them all? Special ed in DC is a whole mess. We found them inadequate, and hell, even OSSE agreed and made DCPS repay our lawyers fees.

Way to bury the lede. I agree that special Ed in DC is a disaster and we’d be out of the District in a minute if we needed it. But it’s also a totally different ballgame than a child (like OP’s) that just needs a school that can teach grade level work well. Many more options for those kids.

[Anonymous]

Disclaimer, my kids are still little (PK) but I'm a data nerd and have done a lot of digging on this. A few things:

1) The best way to get into a school you want is to be willing to move in September/October. If you dig through the Tableau dashboard (https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/aaron2446/viz/MSDCSeatsandWaitlistOfferData_draft/MSDCPublicDisplay) you'll find that for a ton of schools, it's your absolute best chance to get in. Just for example - ITS 1st grade. They let in a single digit number of kids each year. The last three years they've let in 26-60 kids from the waitlist, the majority of which have been between August and October.

2) Things do get a lot easier in K/1/2. Things really start to loosen up. Try not to bring the PK3/4 emotional baggage, that's a different beast.

3) I think you need to play out your worst case scenario here. The cause of your despair is feeling trapped. So, go through your list of all the elementary schools you'd be happy with for your kid. Then, look at the Tableau dashboard and see if any of them are generally clearing their waitlists by October for 1st or 2nd grade.

If there is no school on your list that basically clears it's waitlist pretty much every year for 1st or 2nd (or 3rd if you're willing to wait that long), then you need to keep looking at more schools until you find a school that's acceptable to you that does. That's your safety school. Then, you decide when you're willing to settle for it. Maybe it's this year, maybe it's next year, maybe it's for 3rd. But if you have in the back of your mind "well, if none of this works out, then next year we'll put Burroughs at the bottom of our list, and if worst comes to worst, that's where we'll end up." Once you've gamed out the worst case scenario and accepted it as manageable, then you won't feel so trapped. But if you keep putting all your eggs in the "one of these schools that takes half the waitlist will surely work out" then you're going to feel panicky. If you post your full list of acceptable schools, I'm happy to do the research for you.

And related:

4) If there isn't a true safety school that will work for you, start planning for a move now. If that's the case, I agree with other posters that you'll wish you did so earlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about Bruce Monroe if you’re okay with staying Spanish in first grade? We do activities with a few kids from there and the kids and families seem great and happy there. Close to NE for your commute.

My friends at Bruce Monroe all left between k and 1st grade, I doubt that this will solve OP’s problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about Bruce Monroe if you’re okay with staying Spanish in first grade? We do activities with a few kids from there and the kids and families seem great and happy there. Close to NE for your commute.

My friends at Bruce Monroe all left between k and 1st grade, I doubt that this will solve OP’s problem.

The kids we know are in 1st - 4th, so I think there’s a contingent that stay. I assume it’s the same attrition that happens at all of the schools that don’t have a great middle school feeder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Disclaimer, my kids are still little (PK) but I'm a data nerd and have done a lot of digging on this. A few things:

1) The best way to get into a school you want is to be willing to move in September/October. If you dig through the Tableau dashboard (https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/aaron2446/viz/MSDCSeatsandWaitlistOfferData_draft/MSDCPublicDisplay) you'll find that for a ton of schools, it's your absolute best chance to get in. Just for example - ITS 1st grade. They let in a single digit number of kids each year. The last three years they've let in 26-60 kids from the waitlist, the majority of which have been between August and October.

2) Things do get a lot easier in K/1/2. Things really start to loosen up. Try not to bring the PK3/4 emotional baggage, that's a different beast.

3) I think you need to play out your worst case scenario here. The cause of your despair is feeling trapped. So, go through your list of all the elementary schools you'd be happy with for your kid. Then, look at the Tableau dashboard and see if any of them are generally clearing their waitlists by October for 1st or 2nd grade.

If there is no school on your list that basically clears it's waitlist pretty much every year for 1st or 2nd (or 3rd if you're willing to wait that long), then you need to keep looking at more schools until you find a school that's acceptable to you that does. That's your safety school. Then, you decide when you're willing to settle for it. Maybe it's this year, maybe it's next year, maybe it's for 3rd. But if you have in the back of your mind "well, if none of this works out, then next year we'll put Burroughs at the bottom of our list, and if worst comes to worst, that's where we'll end up." Once you've gamed out the worst case scenario and accepted it as manageable, then you won't feel so trapped. But if you keep putting all your eggs in the "one of these schools that takes half the waitlist will surely work out" then you're going to feel panicky. If you post your full list of acceptable schools, I'm happy to do the research for you.

And related:

4) If there isn't a true safety school that will work for you, start planning for a move now. If that's the case, I agree with other posters that you'll wish you did so earlier.

A+ advice, 10/10, no notes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about Bruce Monroe if you’re okay with staying Spanish in first grade? We do activities with a few kids from there and the kids and families seem great and happy there. Close to NE for your commute.

My friends at Bruce Monroe all left between k and 1st grade, I doubt that this will solve OP’s problem.

The kids we know are in 1st - 4th, so I think there’s a contingent that stay. I assume it’s the same attrition that happens at all of the schools that don’t have a great middle school feeder.

+1. If your criteria is "Didn't retain 100% of the people I personally know", then you're not going to like any school at all.