3/29 Lottery Results
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Anonymous
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Reading this thread is interesting because I can see both sides of every issue. I'm a lottery veteran (this will be our 5th year) and have seen it work well and also seen it screw people over. It's a tough system, but probably more fair than the old system where there were no charters or all city schools at all and going to a school outside our IB was nearly impossible.
But really the whole conversation just makes me very tired, and the more angry and defensive people get in these conversations, the more tired I get. We recently made the decision to move before our kid hits high school, and making that decision definitively has been such a relief. To just be done with this whole mess. That's ultimately my biggest complaint about public school in DC. Not the lottery or sibling preference or "boundary fraud" or whatever. It's that the entire system is just exhausting and it never stops -- from PK to high school, there's some level of angst over your kids education and whether you've made the right choices with regards to the lottery, where you live, DCPS v. Charter, etc. It's draining. Right now we're looking at neighborhood outside DC and looking at high schools and the idea of just moving into a school district and then submitting enrollment paperwork and that's the end of it is so amazing. |
Anonymous
This is the reality for most families, but another side of that reality is that if your assigned school isn’t working for your kid…that’s it. You deal with it. There is some freedom in having the opportunity to try another school if you’re in that situation. |
Anonymous
Yes, this. Sibling preference is not unfair. If moving is a possibility, move into a feeder pattern you love. You will not regret the ease of walking to school and not thinking about the lottery. |
Anonymous
The level of selfishness is fantastic. Those breeders are lowering your precious child’s advantage and that’s not fair! Sounds like you’re an only child raising an only child. Let me guess, you were at an age where you were lucky to be able to have a first kid so a second is out of the question. |
Anonymous
I felt exactly this way the first couple years we entered the lottery. But, I now see schools that seemed so hard to reach and excellent had their pros and cons and schools I discounted out of hand had their pros and cons. And, my friends with kids in fancy privates are still having to figure out and cover their kids' needs. So, it does feel a little less weighty...years down the line. (Though..middle school another story.) |
Anonymous
You do realize that each charter sets its own preferences, right? (I thought each school but maybe its each LEA so DCPS has uniform preferences across all schools.) So, you could easily lobby a specific charter and ask they consider dropping the sibling preference. They likely won't drop that or staff preference either because schools are communities and what's "fair" isn't as binary as you seem to think. |
Anonymous
I hear you. Except, our friends did this. Then discovered their MoCo zoned school was not serving their child -- with newly diagnosed ADHD -- at all well. And so, they have to go private because there are no other choices. Nothing is as easy as it should be or I remember from being a kid!! |
Anonymous
Your assumptions are hilariously off-base, but I did appreciate the good laugh. And yes, I agree that the breeders (good word choice, btw…I approve!) using the sibling preference are taking up more seats than they should, especially since those families with kids above PK got in before the equitable access preference existed… so them being allowed sibling preference just perpetuates those schools’ demographic status quo. |
Anonymous
I’m curious to know how much leeway LEAs actually have. I think it’s noteworthy that all of them have adopted equitable access seat within the past two years—doing so is counter-intuitive for a charter unless, of course, there is some kind of penalty for not adopting. My guess is that the city is exerting some kind of pressure to get them to make that “choice.” Also, it’s interesting that Bridges PCS (I hope I’m remembering the correct school) is the only school approved to have a preference for disabled students… so the city is clearly exerting some control over which charters can offer which preferences. |
Anonymous
Whittier does unquestionably outperform all of the other DCPS schools in our area in terms of equity for Black students, which is awesome (yay, Whittier!)…and something I am well aware of. 🙂 The reason Whittier is as low as it is on our list is because we are hoping for a more play-based PK program and Whittier’s is much more academic than Military Rd’s or DH’s, or even Breakthrough’s… and we could easily switch to Whittier (IB) starting in K, if we wanted to. That said, I do *not* think Whittier would be a bad choice for my kiddo for K-5 (I would rank it above LAMB, DH, and Breakthrough for those grades)…except that we do not feel the same way about Wells and Coolidge, and we are not going to risk getting stuck there for MS/HS, so we would then still be looking to move before the end of elementary school… and if we have to move anyway, we are going to do it sooner rather than later for other life reasons having nothing to do with schooling. 🤷🏻♂️ |
). TBH, we would be happy with any school that looks (based on test scores and other factors) like it generally serves kids who look like my kid well, not just a DCI feeder... but the only three schools I have been able to identify that do that are schools (1)-(3) on my list. Two of them happen to be DCI feeders. We are not interested in some of the other DCI feeders (e.g., either MV campus) because they do not serve kids who look like my kid as well. We aren't even interested in LAMB for more than a few years because their faculty has diversity issues. Basically, I'm FAR from DCI or bust... I'm "my kids needs to attend a school where they will not be presumed to be low-skilled or less competent than their peers because of racism." It really, really sucks that that's such a tall order in DC in 2024, but it remains the truth nonetheless. [To anyone who wants to try to try to "explain" to me that the huge performance gaps that many schools here are explained by socioeconomic factors... yes, SES plays a huge role, but SES doesn't explain all of it... and I taught for long enough to see how racism works in schools, even when the teachers and administration are extremely well-meaning and concerned about it.]
Anonymous
If you like your house, neighborhood, and Whittier, then just do that. Worst that happens is you rent inbounds for Deal for a month or year or however long. Or maybe something will work out in the 8 years in between. |
Anonymous
| This thread has started to get super weird. |
Anonymous
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I hear a lot about Whittier being a great DCPS in ward 4. What about Takoma? It was on the list a few pages ago which is why I ask.
We don’t have kids old enough yet but can’t wait (not) to do the lottery next year (we live in ward 4 but will be able to do drop off anywhere). Not anti charter. But we like the idea of a DCPS. |
Anonymous
Takoma is nice, especially if you want your kids to do orchestra. |
Anonymous
IMO, which may not be worth much  , Takoma is a wildcard. We liked the PK program when we visited (teachers seemed relatively engaged and class sizes were small) and the administration seems, for the most part, to know what's going on, especially compared to some of the other schools we visited (I'm looking at you, Brightwood and Barnard). But it didn't seem as organized or to have as strong a community as Whittier (so much school pride) or Height (PTO is super active). We know several families with kids in various grades there who love it and say they would absolutely choose it again... but we also have several friends who didn't have a good experience and transferred out (mostly to charters, but two to other DCPS schools that don't look any better than Takoma on paper) and know one PK3 family that had a terrible experience there pretty much all year and is trying to lottery into basically any other school in our area (or will go private) for PK4. Even that family, however, acknowledges that the families they know in the other PK3 class are super happy and that they probably wouldn't be planning to transfer out of they had ended up in the other PK3 class. So basically, it seems like kids' experiences there are highly variable depending on which teachers they get. I know that's obviously true at any school (some teachers are better than others... duh) but it seems like there may be more extremes amongst the teaching staff at Takoma, like you might get a longterm sub unqualified to teach PK followed by a PK teacher who doesn't respond to any parent emails or phone calls at all, or you might get an awesome PK teacher with tons of experience who sends you updates at least daily. That's why it seems like a wildcard to me.
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