Pool size for TPMS and Eastern lotteries

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have always been told that what is at stake is the 1st quarter grade of the 5th grade year. DC's teacher just also said to us recently that it is the main grade in the subject that is considered (not the subgrades). Has anyone else heard the same or different?

Quarter 1 overall grades in Math & Science for Math/Science/CS (Language & Social Studies for Humanities). Not sub-subject or interim.

Quarter 1 Reading Level, too. On or Above for Math/Science/CS (Above for Humanities).

As far as I've ascertained from MCPS, in any case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have always been told that what is at stake is the 1st quarter grade of the 5th grade year. DC's teacher just also said to us recently that it is the main grade in the subject that is considered (not the subgrades). Has anyone else heard the same or different?

That is what has been used for the past 3 years. Prior to that, they used grades from 4th grade. They didn’t notify anyone (students, teachers, parents) that they were changing the criteria until after they conducted the review and sent out lottery results after winter break that year. So those 5th graders did not know that quarter 1 was the quarter that mattered until it was way too late. All to say that they can change the criteria at any time, they have a history of being opaque, etc. and they don’t seem to feel the need to actually communicate to families what the review process will include until they’ve already completed it.

Also, certain years kids seem to get only one offer from one magnet with no one winning the lottery from both, and other years it seems as though the lottery is run so that kids get offers from both at the same time (if in pool) and can choose. It’s never been explained.

Oh and don’t forget there is a set aside for kids in bounds for the school. A big chunk of seats are reserved for students in the zone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have always been told that what is at stake is the 1st quarter grade of the 5th grade year. DC's teacher just also said to us recently that it is the main grade in the subject that is considered (not the subgrades). Has anyone else heard the same or different?

That is what has been used for the past 3 years. Prior to that, they used grades from 4th grade. They didn’t notify anyone (students, teachers, parents) that they were changing the criteria until after they conducted the review and sent out lottery results after winter break that year. So those 5th graders did not know that quarter 1 was the quarter that mattered until it was way too late. All to say that they can change the criteria at any time, they have a history of being opaque, etc. and they don’t seem to feel the need to actually communicate to families what the review process will include until they’ve already completed it.

Also, certain years kids seem to get only one offer from one magnet with no one winning the lottery from both, and other years it seems as though the lottery is run so that kids get offers from both at the same time (if in pool) and can choose. It’s never been explained.

Oh and don’t forget there is a set aside for kids in bounds for the school. A big chunk of seats are reserved for students in the zone.

Do you know if the set aside seats are included in the total seats available in each magnet? Or do they set aside a certain percent of the total seats?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have always been told that what is at stake is the 1st quarter grade of the 5th grade year. DC's teacher just also said to us recently that it is the main grade in the subject that is considered (not the subgrades). Has anyone else heard the same or different?

That is what has been used for the past 3 years. Prior to that, they used grades from 4th grade. They didn’t notify anyone (students, teachers, parents) that they were changing the criteria until after they conducted the review and sent out lottery results after winter break that year. So those 5th graders did not know that quarter 1 was the quarter that mattered until it was way too late. All to say that they can change the criteria at any time, they have a history of being opaque, etc. and they don’t seem to feel the need to actually communicate to families what the review process will include until they’ve already completed it.

Also, certain years kids seem to get only one offer from one magnet with no one winning the lottery from both, and other years it seems as though the lottery is run so that kids get offers from both at the same time (if in pool) and can choose. It’s never been explained.

Oh and don’t forget there is a set aside for kids in bounds for the school. A big chunk of seats are reserved for students in the zone.

Do you know if the set aside seats are included in the total seats available in each magnet? Or do they set aside a certain percent of the total seats?

The local seats are in addition to the published number of seats available. Eg at TPMS they have said for years that there are 100 seats per year. There are also another 25 seats available to kids who would be at the school anyway

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have always been told that what is at stake is the 1st quarter grade of the 5th grade year. DC's teacher just also said to us recently that it is the main grade in the subject that is considered (not the subgrades). Has anyone else heard the same or different?

That is what has been used for the past 3 years. Prior to that, they used grades from 4th grade. They didn’t notify anyone (students, teachers, parents) that they were changing the criteria until after they conducted the review and sent out lottery results after winter break that year. So those 5th graders did not know that quarter 1 was the quarter that mattered until it was way too late. All to say that they can change the criteria at any time, they have a history of being opaque, etc. and they don’t seem to feel the need to actually communicate to families what the review process will include until they’ve already completed it.

Also, certain years kids seem to get only one offer from one magnet with no one winning the lottery from both, and other years it seems as though the lottery is run so that kids get offers from both at the same time (if in pool) and can choose. It’s never been explained.

Oh and don’t forget there is a set aside for kids in bounds for the school. A big chunk of seats are reserved for students in the zone.

Do you know if the set aside seats are included in the total seats available in each magnet? Or do they set aside a certain percent of the total seats?

The local seats are in addition to the published number of seats available. Eg at TPMS they have said for years that there are 100 seats per year. There are also another 25 seats available to kids who would be at the school anyway

Right. So let’s say there are 250 rising 6th graders at TPMS and approximately 35-40 of them would be in the lottery pool based on their criteria. Those 35-40 kids are in their own lottery for 25 seats, so pretty good odds. The other 1200 rising 6th graders in the pool are in a lottery for 100 spots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
So, from a report to the BOE related to the 2023 identification for the incoming 2023-24 class (latest found/may not be latest available -- https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/CV6T2P754843/$file/230816%20FY2023%20Update%20CES%20Sec%20Prog%20Admission%20Results%20BD.pdf ), the pools were:

Clemente (Math/Science/CS) 571/4122 ~ 13.9%
King (Humanities) 440/4122 ~ 10.7%

TPMS (Math/Science/CS) 1249/7693 ~ 16.2%
Eastern (Humanities) 1096/7692 ~ 14.2%

Slight changes to the selection paradigms and underlying population profiles may have altered these percentages for the incoming class this year. They won't have numbers for the current evaluation until it is complete.

Oh perfect, thanks! So the answer to OPs question (assuming relative stability year to year) is about 1250 kids for TPMS and about 1100 kids for Eastern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So, from a report to the BOE related to the 2023 identification for the incoming 2023-24 class (latest found/may not be latest available -- https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/CV6T2P754843/$file/230816%20FY2023%20Update%20CES%20Sec%20Prog%20Admission%20Results%20BD.pdf ), the pools were:

Clemente (Math/Science/CS) 571/4122 ~ 13.9%
King (Humanities) 440/4122 ~ 10.7%

TPMS (Math/Science/CS) 1249/7693 ~ 16.2%
Eastern (Humanities) 1096/7692 ~ 14.2%

Slight changes to the selection paradigms and underlying population profiles may have altered these percentages for the incoming class this year. They won't have numbers for the current evaluation until it is complete.

Oh perfect, thanks! So the answer to OPs question (assuming relative stability year to year) is about 1250 kids for TPMS and about 1100 kids for Eastern.

With the nuance, above, that for programs with an in-bounds set-aside, there are two lottery pools (in-bounds & out-of-bounds); the OP may be more interested in one or the other.

The numbers noted would be the combination of both lottery pools. They are not parsed out in the report or otherwise publicly available, to my awareness. However, the hypothetical provided would stand to reason as an approximation, and, given the current understanding of the seats available, there certainly is a much greater chance of a student's being selected for a program if identified for the associated in-bounds lottery than if out-of-bounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have always been told that what is at stake is the 1st quarter grade of the 5th grade year. DC's teacher just also said to us recently that it is the main grade in the subject that is considered (not the subgrades). Has anyone else heard the same or different?

That is what has been used for the past 3 years. Prior to that, they used grades from 4th grade. They didn’t notify anyone (students, teachers, parents) that they were changing the criteria until after they conducted the review and sent out lottery results after winter break that year. So those 5th graders did not know that quarter 1 was the quarter that mattered until it was way too late. All to say that they can change the criteria at any time, they have a history of being opaque, etc. and they don’t seem to feel the need to actually communicate to families what the review process will include until they’ve already completed it.

Also, certain years kids seem to get only one offer from one magnet with no one winning the lottery from both, and other years it seems as though the lottery is run so that kids get offers from both at the same time (if in pool) and can choose. It’s never been explained.

Oh and don’t forget there is a set aside for kids in bounds for the school. A big chunk of seats are reserved for students in the zone.

That's the nature of lotteries. They're random.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So, from a report to the BOE related to the 2023 identification for the incoming 2023-24 class (latest found/may not be latest available -- https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/CV6T2P754843/$file/230816%20FY2023%20Update%20CES%20Sec%20Prog%20Admission%20Results%20BD.pdf ), the pools were:

Clemente (Math/Science/CS) 571/4122 ~ 13.9%
King (Humanities) 440/4122 ~ 10.7%

TPMS (Math/Science/CS) 1249/7693 ~ 16.2%
Eastern (Humanities) 1096/7692 ~ 14.2%

Slight changes to the selection paradigms and underlying population profiles may have altered these percentages for the incoming class this year. They won't have numbers for the current evaluation until it is complete.

Oh perfect, thanks! So the answer to OPs question (assuming relative stability year to year) is about 1250 kids for TPMS and about 1100 kids for Eastern.

That would be true, but there are exemptions for factors like poverty, which also significantly increase the pool size. Just not sure these numbers reflect reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have always been told that what is at stake is the 1st quarter grade of the 5th grade year. DC's teacher just also said to us recently that it is the main grade in the subject that is considered (not the subgrades). Has anyone else heard the same or different?

That is what has been used for the past 3 years. Prior to that, they used grades from 4th grade. They didn’t notify anyone (students, teachers, parents) that they were changing the criteria until after they conducted the review and sent out lottery results after winter break that year. So those 5th graders did not know that quarter 1 was the quarter that mattered until it was way too late. All to say that they can change the criteria at any time, they have a history of being opaque, etc. and they don’t seem to feel the need to actually communicate to families what the review process will include until they’ve already completed it.

Also, certain years kids seem to get only one offer from one magnet with no one winning the lottery from both, and other years it seems as though the lottery is run so that kids get offers from both at the same time (if in pool) and can choose. It’s never been explained.

Oh and don’t forget there is a set aside for kids in bounds for the school. A big chunk of seats are reserved for students in the zone.

That's the nature of lotteries. They're random.

You'd think, yes. And the PP should take heed that those differences year to year are natural results of probabilistic randomness across independent lotteries.

Then again, the "lottery luck" of certain families across elementary Centers for Enriched Studies and criteria-based magnet middle schools, along with the then-higher likelihood of selection to HS magnet programs strains credulity. Not impossible, but...

DCCAPS uses a third party to conduct the lotteries. One can hope that there are oversight mechanisms in place, but neither that nor transparency have been MCPS's strong suit to this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So, from a report to the BOE related to the 2023 identification for the incoming 2023-24 class (latest found/may not be latest available -- https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/CV6T2P754843/$file/230816%20FY2023%20Update%20CES%20Sec%20Prog%20Admission%20Results%20BD.pdf ), the pools were:

Clemente (Math/Science/CS) 571/4122 ~ 13.9%
King (Humanities) 440/4122 ~ 10.7%

TPMS (Math/Science/CS) 1249/7693 ~ 16.2%
Eastern (Humanities) 1096/7692 ~ 14.2%

Slight changes to the selection paradigms and underlying population profiles may have altered these percentages for the incoming class this year. They won't have numbers for the current evaluation until it is complete.

Oh perfect, thanks! So the answer to OPs question (assuming relative stability year to year) is about 1250 kids for TPMS and about 1100 kids for Eastern.

That would be true, but there are exemptions for factors like poverty, which also significantly increase the pool size. Just not sure these numbers reflect reality.

Those numbers already include those identified via the adjustments for FARMS, 504, IEP and EML. Otherwise, none of the pools would be greater than 15% of the overall student population in the program catchment (and 15%, itself, would be very unlikely, given that additional 1st-quarter grade/reading level criteria would winnow down the list of those hitting the locally normed 85th MAP percentile).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have always been told that what is at stake is the 1st quarter grade of the 5th grade year. DC's teacher just also said to us recently that it is the main grade in the subject that is considered (not the subgrades). Has anyone else heard the same or different?

That is what has been used for the past 3 years. Prior to that, they used grades from 4th grade. They didn’t notify anyone (students, teachers, parents) that they were changing the criteria until after they conducted the review and sent out lottery results after winter break that year. So those 5th graders did not know that quarter 1 was the quarter that mattered until it was way too late. All to say that they can change the criteria at any time, they have a history of being opaque, etc. and they don’t seem to feel the need to actually communicate to families what the review process will include until they’ve already completed it.

Also, certain years kids seem to get only one offer from one magnet with no one winning the lottery from both, and other years it seems as though the lottery is run so that kids get offers from both at the same time (if in pool) and can choose. It’s never been explained.

Oh and don’t forget there is a set aside for kids in bounds for the school. A big chunk of seats are reserved for students in the zone.

Do you know if the set aside seats are included in the total seats available in each magnet? Or do they set aside a certain percent of the total seats?

The local seats are in addition to the published number of seats available. Eg at TPMS they have said for years that there are 100 seats per year. There are also another 25 seats available to kids who would be at the school anyway

Thanks, to you and the BOE PP—very helpful!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have always been told that what is at stake is the 1st quarter grade of the 5th grade year. DC's teacher just also said to us recently that it is the main grade in the subject that is considered (not the subgrades). Has anyone else heard the same or different?

That is what has been used for the past 3 years. Prior to that, they used grades from 4th grade. They didn’t notify anyone (students, teachers, parents) that they were changing the criteria until after they conducted the review and sent out lottery results after winter break that year. So those 5th graders did not know that quarter 1 was the quarter that mattered until it was way too late. All to say that they can change the criteria at any time, they have a history of being opaque, etc. and they don’t seem to feel the need to actually communicate to families what the review process will include until they’ve already completed it.

Also, certain years kids seem to get only one offer from one magnet with no one winning the lottery from both, and other years it seems as though the lottery is run so that kids get offers from both at the same time (if in pool) and can choose. It’s never been explained.

Oh and don’t forget there is a set aside for kids in bounds for the school. A big chunk of seats are reserved for students in the zone.

That's the nature of lotteries. They're random.

Yes lotteries are random, but no, I don’t think that’s what happened. I think they changed their process slightly. It went from nearly nobody getting two offers to most lottery winners getting to select from both programs if in both pools. It couldn’t have been random.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have always been told that what is at stake is the 1st quarter grade of the 5th grade year. DC's teacher just also said to us recently that it is the main grade in the subject that is considered (not the subgrades). Has anyone else heard the same or different?

That is what has been used for the past 3 years. Prior to that, they used grades from 4th grade. They didn’t notify anyone (students, teachers, parents) that they were changing the criteria until after they conducted the review and sent out lottery results after winter break that year. So those 5th graders did not know that quarter 1 was the quarter that mattered until it was way too late. All to say that they can change the criteria at any time, they have a history of being opaque, etc. and they don’t seem to feel the need to actually communicate to families what the review process will include until they’ve already completed it.

Also, certain years kids seem to get only one offer from one magnet with no one winning the lottery from both, and other years it seems as though the lottery is run so that kids get offers from both at the same time (if in pool) and can choose. It’s never been explained.

Oh and don’t forget there is a set aside for kids in bounds for the school. A big chunk of seats are reserved for students in the zone.

That's the nature of lotteries. They're random.

You'd think, yes. And the PP should take heed that those differences year to year are natural results of probabilistic randomness across independent lotteries.

Then again, the "lottery luck" of certain families across elementary Centers for Enriched Studies and criteria-based magnet middle schools, along with the then-higher likelihood of selection to HS magnet programs strains credulity. Not impossible, but...

DCCAPS uses a third party to conduct the lotteries. One can hope that there are oversight mechanisms in place, but neither that nor transparency have been MCPS's strong suit to this point.

DP - I agree with the bolded. It's not credible to me that there's no direct input for getting certain kids into the various magnet programs, not knowing the kids we do who have consistently gotten in. MCPS has done almost nothing to build trust in a fair process. It's almost strange to me that people actually believe it's a true lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have always been told that what is at stake is the 1st quarter grade of the 5th grade year. DC's teacher just also said to us recently that it is the main grade in the subject that is considered (not the subgrades). Has anyone else heard the same or different?

That is what has been used for the past 3 years. Prior to that, they used grades from 4th grade. They didn’t notify anyone (students, teachers, parents) that they were changing the criteria until after they conducted the review and sent out lottery results after winter break that year. So those 5th graders did not know that quarter 1 was the quarter that mattered until it was way too late. All to say that they can change the criteria at any time, they have a history of being opaque, etc. and they don’t seem to feel the need to actually communicate to families what the review process will include until they’ve already completed it.

Also, certain years kids seem to get only one offer from one magnet with no one winning the lottery from both, and other years it seems as though the lottery is run so that kids get offers from both at the same time (if in pool) and can choose. It’s never been explained.

Oh and don’t forget there is a set aside for kids in bounds for the school. A big chunk of seats are reserved for students in the zone.

That's the nature of lotteries. They're random.

You'd think, yes. And the PP should take heed that those differences year to year are natural results of probabilistic randomness across independent lotteries.

Then again, the "lottery luck" of certain families across elementary Centers for Enriched Studies and criteria-based magnet middle schools, along with the then-higher likelihood of selection to HS magnet programs strains credulity. Not impossible, but...

DCCAPS uses a third party to conduct the lotteries. One can hope that there are oversight mechanisms in place, but neither that nor transparency have been MCPS's strong suit to this point.

DP. I have absolutely no faith that central office is running a true lottery. There is zero transparency.