First year without lists to review..

[Anonymous]

Current PK3 who pored over these forums last year when researching the lottery. Guess I'm mostly just a lurker though! In our case, went to a ton of open houses and explored charters, but no option seemed as good as our IB school, and we were lucky to get in to the Dual Language program there. From looking over waitlist data, seems like our chances were much better post-2020/COVID than beforehand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My guess is that there are fewer young families moving into DC. They are in the suburbs/exurbs.

+1. Young families are priced out of those areas where lottery strategizing was needed.

I have a current prek3 kid on the Hill. From what I recall looking back at the waitlist numbers last year, it seemed like the overall numbers were lower than prior years. I've wondered if maybe the demographics on the Hill are shifting to be slightly older kids.

I think it is this.

[Anonymous]

i have a rising pk3, and i certainly spent a lot of time lurking and reading past threads on lottery lists and schools, and re-arranged my list a few times after open houses, but didn't feel the need to have strangers second and third-guess for me.

the current reality is that my IB is totally fine, there's one achievable school that I would prefer, and one reach that I think would be good for my little one but I don't expect to get in. She's thriving in her current daycare so if we don't get a seat anywhere before k that is also fine if more expensive.

The looming issue is of course middle school, as I will not send my little to Cardozo, and a Shaw middle at 8th and Euclid is also a pass for me. (I used to live off of Euclid.) So we may end up having to do private once middle school hits if we don't get into a school with a good feeder, but I can only stress about so many things at once. Also I can't really predict at this point whether my little is going to be nerdy or sporty or arty or whatever, so I'm not going to get my heart set on a school years in advance that might be completely inappropriate for them. I want them to thrive, not be a mini-me. Maybe I'll post my any internal meltdown once the lottery results come out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think there has been a drop in birth rates.

Kids applying for PK3 this year will turn 3 10/1/23-9/30/24, so were born 10/1/20-9/30/21. I think there was a dip in births around this time.

Nope - this should be a bump year. I think some families may be surprised if they are going off recent year waitlist numbers.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-caused-a-baby-bump-when-experts-expected-a-drop-heres-why/

DC specific birth data https://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/DME_EdSight%20Birth%20Trends%20%28FINAL%29.pdf

Here with 2021. The Ward specific data is interesting. Ward 6 plummets in 2021.
https://edscape.dc.gov/page/pop-and-students-number-births-and-birth-rates#:~:text=Number%20of%20Births%20by%20Ward%2C%202010%2D2021&text=The%20rate%20increased%20to%2015.22,12.95%20births%20per%201%2C000%20population.

But Ward 2 seems to rise by the same amount. Were the Ward boundaries redrawn then?

They were.
-someone who lives in center city and underestimated how being situated here kneecaps the neighborhood's political power

No, the new Ward lines went into effect a year later in 2022. https://planning.dc.gov/maps-wards-2022

[Anonymous]

Love how people are like "I have a 3 year old. This high school is OUT for me."

I get tired of this place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Love how people are like "I have a 3 year old. This high school is OUT for me."

I get tired of this place.

Nine years ago, the median math PARCC score at my zoned high school was a 2 and the median ELA score was a 1.
Last year, the median math PARCC score at my zoned high school was a 2 and the median ELA score was a 1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i have a rising pk3, and i certainly spent a lot of time lurking and reading past threads on lottery lists and schools, and re-arranged my list a few times after open houses, but didn't feel the need to have strangers second and third-guess for me.

the current reality is that my IB is totally fine, there's one achievable school that I would prefer, and one reach that I think would be good for my little one but I don't expect to get in. She's thriving in her current daycare so if we don't get a seat anywhere before k that is also fine if more expensive.

The looming issue is of course middle school, as I will not send my little to Cardozo, and a Shaw middle at 8th and Euclid is also a pass for me. (I used to live off of Euclid.) So we may end up having to do private once middle school hits if we don't get into a school with a good feeder, but I can only stress about so many things at once. Also I can't really predict at this point whether my little is going to be nerdy or sporty or arty or whatever, so I'm not going to get my heart set on a school years in advance that might be completely inappropriate for them. I want them to thrive, not be a mini-me. Maybe I'll post my any internal meltdown once the lottery results come out?

fwiw, we live in this feeder pattern, i have one kid who is too old for Euclid Middle and one who will be in the first entering class, and it is stunning how much less attrition there has been in their two grades in a school where everything else is equal (same teachers, same curriculum). much, much less attrition in the 1st grade class, and the "upper income" parents seem willing to give the new middle school a chance.

my older son, its deeply stressful, we are playing the lottery this year to hope for a better middle school path in time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Love how people are like "I have a 3 year old. This high school is OUT for me."

I get tired of this place.

Have lived here 30 years and my zoned HS hasn’t budged an inch. Glad I made alternate plans early.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Love how people are like "I have a 3 year old. This high school is OUT for me."

I get tired of this place."

Nine years ago, the median math PARCC score at my zoned high school was a 2 and the median ELA score was a 1.
Last year, the median math PARCC score at my zoned high school was a 2 and the median ELA score was a 1.

I have a good friend whose parents sent him to DC public schools in the 80s in some sort of sanctimonious statement of support for public schooling regardless of how not suited he was to his local school and the resulting scars (emotional, physical) are deep and lasting. I don't think it's a stretch to look at Cardozo and nope out, even at this temporal distance. Not going to move to montgomery county, but have no desire to make THAT work.

[Anonymous]

But yeah, nobody here seems to remember how long ago it was that Deal was a shithole nobody would touch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i have a rising pk3, and i certainly spent a lot of time lurking and reading past threads on lottery lists and schools, and re-arranged my list a few times after open houses, but didn't feel the need to have strangers second and third-guess for me.

the current reality is that my IB is totally fine, there's one achievable school that I would prefer, and one reach that I think would be good for my little one but I don't expect to get in. She's thriving in her current daycare so if we don't get a seat anywhere before k that is also fine if more expensive.

The looming issue is of course middle school, as I will not send my little to Cardozo, and a Shaw middle at 8th and Euclid is also a pass for me. (I used to live off of Euclid.) So we may end up having to do private once middle school hits if we don't get into a school with a good feeder, but I can only stress about so many things at once. Also I can't really predict at this point whether my little is going to be nerdy or sporty or arty or whatever, so I'm not going to get my heart set on a school years in advance that might be completely inappropriate for them. I want them to thrive, not be a mini-me. Maybe I'll post my any internal meltdown once the lottery results come out?

I think this is wise, and I also think that with the public discourse over MV, TR, etc., more parents are seeing that schools are less objectively better or worse schools, and more different in terms of fit and preference. And as a long time lottery loser who was agonizing over charters a few years ago, I can now see that many of the DCPS elementary schools are educationally pretty comparable to the "HRCS" and the big difference is the bells and whistles. Which are nice, sure, but not worth driving across town for or losing sleep over lottery lists. And there's a lot less pressure to "get it right" when you see friends and neighbors who felt like they won the lottery a few years ago moving their kids in elementary anyways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But yeah, nobody here seems to remember how long ago it was that Deal was a shithole nobody would touch.

We do remember how long people have tried to prop up the best deal and it hasn’t happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in Bloomingdale and it's stunning how over 5 years or so, the "I must list 12 schools because I'm desperate to avoid my IB" vibe has disappeared. Now it's.more like you list a few others but the IB option is fine, or even pretty appealing. The fall of Mundo and TR has been eye-opening for sure.

I'm in the neighborhood and agree. I have a 10 year old and remember the absolute frenzy 8 years ago to figure out how to get all the kids our of the IB school, including meetings with the "educational consultant" who really did kind of tell everyone to go for charters. Everyone who went to Mundo or TR has since left those school, but actually many of the people who chose Langely or Seaton at the time are still at their neighborhood schools. Of course both those schools are packed with IB gentrifiers now.

My kid is older (12), but have similar unpleasant memories. We were at TR (and now thankfully not); I think that COVID really just exposed the cracks in these so-called "HRCSs", which is completely irrelevant and tone deaf at this point, considering how these schools have cratered in recent years.

We ended up happy where we are out of sheer luck (Latin), but I wish we moved out of the city years ago.

[Anonymous]

I hope DC updates the data where kids go to school. Because for what I have seen on my EOTP neighborhood, people are moving out of the city, WOTP or going private, they are not attending their title 1 IB school.

[Anonymous]

Parents I’ve talked to in my Ward 4 EOTP neighborhood are attending our IB (something all the long-time neighbors told us absolutely not to do with our kids when we moved in a decade ago). They’re doing this for convenience now because they plan to move before it matters.