Lottery lists: What's best now, or look ahead?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have a 1st grader and no car???? Go nearby!

OP here. Haha. Yeah, next year we’ll have a 1st grader, a kindergartener and a toddler, and no car. We really love the car free lifestyle and actually find it easy and lovely, plus that money saved lets us spend more elsewhere (we’re in a nanny share rather than day care and have a pretty big mortgage).

One of my fears is that if we have a kid at Hearst or something, we’ll last maybe a year and have to buy a car. Even if we can make the commute work (it is manageable on the bus) their social circle would all of a sudden be WOTP - randomly going to other kids houses become a Thing. I just don’t know if I’m willing to upend our whole lifestyle, which we’re REALLY happy with, for the promise of a good middle school.

This is such a DCUM trope, for what? 20 years now? Since ~ the giant influx millennials came for the first Obama administration, met/married/had kids, then stayed.

Answer: definitely and knowingly sacrifice your kids' quality education to maintain Urban Lifestyle

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally would not drive far across town starting in first grade just for feeder rights to Hardy or Deal.

We’ve done this with all three kids, no biggie when it comes to education. Granted it was only a 20 minute drive which was doable.

yeah, and MANY families do it for private school (proportionally few kids coming from walking distance). I taught at one and kids were commuting for an hour each way, and it was quite rare to be closer than 15 minutes. No doubt it was worth it to the families. This is just a choice families have to make.

NP. That is a different scenario altogether though. For a top private school, I might consider a 45 minute commute but for just a mediocre elementary WOTP or mediocre middle school like Deal or Hardy, nope.

You keep posting that Deal is 'mediocre.' Do you have any suggestions of DCPS or PCS that are superior? Or is 'mediocre' that best that the District has to offer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Awesome that you are car-free! Our family, now with a late-elementary student and a middle school student, is as well. The best part is the independence they have as they start taking themselves to activities on the transit they are so accustomed to.

We personally lived in a central-ish spot, went to our not really popular in-bound elementary (that we loved), moved aboard, and when we moved back, we moved into an apartment west of the park. It gave us a foot into the lottery, but we ended up loving the neighborhood, so we are going to stay. I wouldn’t be too worried about moving schools later socially, as people in DC are constantly switching schools for moves or lotteries.

Being car-free is such an amazing positive, but you do have to plan your life carefully (as you know!). I’d start local and then fret about middle school as it gets closer. There are more good options these days as other posters have mentioned.

I think it's more AWESOME and POSITIVE to have all the options: car, bike, foot, transit. the self congratulatory hubris from no car Luddites is weird

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Euclid middle school should be successful if people at the feeders are willing to give it a try.

Do you think it is still needed? All signs seem to point to the DC population shrinking. And Francis seems to have the capacity right now for Ross, Thompson, Seaton, Garrion, Cleveland.

I do think it's needed, because the Cardozo building is pretty full. We'll see next time the Master Facilities Plan is published, but I think Wells middle is pretty full too. Not that Wells is super close by, but all these things are interconnected. Stuart-Hobson is getting more popular too. Some charters may fail this year and next (SSMA, Rocketship), and that will mean DCPS picks up some of the population. None of the soon-to-fails are super close to the Shaw area, but these things have an impact on the whole system.

The 2024 MFP came out in September 2025. The total enrollment projection is to shrink but not by that much. The real shrinkage comes from birth rates, which obviously won't affect middle school enrollment for a while. There's a table of facility utilization-- while it's true that many schools are massively under-utilized, there are others above 100% such as Bancroft, Barnard, and Brightwood. Importantly, CHEC is at 98.7% utilization, and that's one of the middle schools nearest to Cardozo/Euclid. Coolidge is at 127%, wow. Garrison 99.7%, Wells 115%, Oyster-Adams 117%. So yes, I do think that the new school is needed. Just because enrollment is pretty high at the schools nearest the Euclid building, even as it's declining system-wide.

https://dme.dc.gov/publication/2024-master-facilities-plan-supplement

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can’t/won’t move or get a car, don’t go WOTP for ES. You will no longer have the lovely lifestyle you have now. Your kids will be on unreliable public transport during rush hour every day and that’s a big family stressor.

I don't find the metro (how our middle schooler commutes) to be unreliable. Though we are a "car-light" family and use it to get to activities that aren't convenient on transit.

Depends on the school. For those right on Metro (Murch, Ross, Janney?), it’s not bad, even remembering that OP will have to go with two or three young children who can’t ride by themselves. If on a bus line (OP mentions Eaton and Hearst), it gets less reliable and much more of a hassle with two or three ES age kids.

Our kids have gotten to school on foot, by bike and car, and on Metro and the bus.

+1, bus commutes can be dodgy because they are so traffic-dependent. Also buses tend to get backed up later in the day so your kid may wind up waiting an hour for the bus coming home some days. It's not reliable, unfortunately.

I think the real issue here is that they have two separate issues: (1) desire to maintain car free lifestyle, and (2) desire to get into a sure bet through HS. The only way to solve that problem would be to move to a place where either Deal/J-R or Hardy/MacArthur are workable commutes without a car from where they live. Neither will be an easy commute via public transit from where they live now. But it doesn't sound like they want to move.

So I think, OP, you need to rank your priorities. If the car free lifestyle is a top priority, I would punt on the HS issue and just take care of MS for now, since you can do that without moving by lotterying into a Stuart-Hobson or Francis feeder, both of which are reasonable commutes from your current location. You also might luck out with charters for MS, and have S-H/Francis as your backup, and the charter option would set you up through HS.

If HS path is your top priority, and presuming J-R is your preference there, then you either need to move or accept that you will likely need a car from your current location (and accept a longer commute even now to the feeder elementary, as any of those will be further than the S-H or Francis feeders.

If not moving is your top priority, then you need to either accept you can't lock down HS down OR accept you will have to get a car to accommodate the commute to schools that are tough commutes from where you live now.

Only you can decide which of these things is the most important to you. No judgement here -- I can see why they are all important. But one has to be most important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Euclid middle school should be successful if people at the feeders are willing to give it a try.

Do you think it is still needed? All signs seem to point to the DC population shrinking. And Francis seems to have the capacity right now for Ross, Thompson, Seaton, Garrion, Cleveland.

I do think it's needed, because the Cardozo building is pretty full. We'll see next time the Master Facilities Plan is published, but I think Wells middle is pretty full too. Not that Wells is super close by, but all these things are interconnected. Stuart-Hobson is getting more popular too. Some charters may fail this year and next (SSMA, Rocketship), and that will mean DCPS picks up some of the population. None of the soon-to-fails are super close to the Shaw area, but these things have an impact on the whole system.

The 2024 MFP came out in September 2025. The total enrollment projection is to shrink but not by that much. The real shrinkage comes from birth rates, which obviously won't affect middle school enrollment for a while. There's a table of facility utilization-- while it's true that many schools are massively under-utilized, there are others above 100% such as Bancroft, Barnard, and Brightwood. Importantly, CHEC is at 98.7% utilization, and that's one of the middle schools nearest to Cardozo/Euclid. Coolidge is at 127%, wow. Garrison 99.7%, Wells 115%, Oyster-Adams 117%. So yes, I do think that the new school is needed. Just because enrollment is pretty high at the schools nearest the Euclid building, even as it's declining system-wide.

https://dme.dc.gov/publication/2024-master-facilities-plan-supplement

But didn't everything change in January 2025? We have twice as many houses on the market now as we did a year ago. The shrunk Fed is not coming back, and the associated contracted jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Euclid middle school should be successful if people at the feeders are willing to give it a try.

Do you think it is still needed? All signs seem to point to the DC population shrinking. And Francis seems to have the capacity right now for Ross, Thompson, Seaton, Garrion, Cleveland.

I do think it's needed, because the Cardozo building is pretty full. We'll see next time the Master Facilities Plan is published, but I think Wells middle is pretty full too. Not that Wells is super close by, but all these things are interconnected. Stuart-Hobson is getting more popular too. Some charters may fail this year and next (SSMA, Rocketship), and that will mean DCPS picks up some of the population. None of the soon-to-fails are super close to the Shaw area, but these things have an impact on the whole system.

The 2024 MFP came out in September 2025. The total enrollment projection is to shrink but not by that much. The real shrinkage comes from birth rates, which obviously won't affect middle school enrollment for a while. There's a table of facility utilization-- while it's true that many schools are massively under-utilized, there are others above 100% such as Bancroft, Barnard, and Brightwood. Importantly, CHEC is at 98.7% utilization, and that's one of the middle schools nearest to Cardozo/Euclid. Coolidge is at 127%, wow. Garrison 99.7%, Wells 115%, Oyster-Adams 117%. So yes, I do think that the new school is needed. Just because enrollment is pretty high at the schools nearest the Euclid building, even as it's declining system-wide.

https://dme.dc.gov/publication/2024-master-facilities-plan-supplement

But didn't everything change in January 2025? We have twice as many houses on the market now as we did a year ago. The shrunk Fed is not coming back, and the associated contracted jobs.

Well, only a portion of those people have children in public school. I think people tend to overestimate the impact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Euclid middle school should be successful if people at the feeders are willing to give it a try.

Do you think it is still needed? All signs seem to point to the DC population shrinking. And Francis seems to have the capacity right now for Ross, Thompson, Seaton, Garrion, Cleveland.

I do think it's needed, because the Cardozo building is pretty full. We'll see next time the Master Facilities Plan is published, but I think Wells middle is pretty full too. Not that Wells is super close by, but all these things are interconnected. Stuart-Hobson is getting more popular too. Some charters may fail this year and next (SSMA, Rocketship), and that will mean DCPS picks up some of the population. None of the soon-to-fails are super close to the Shaw area, but these things have an impact on the whole system.

The 2024 MFP came out in September 2025. The total enrollment projection is to shrink but not by that much. The real shrinkage comes from birth rates, which obviously won't affect middle school enrollment for a while. There's a table of facility utilization-- while it's true that many schools are massively under-utilized, there are others above 100% such as Bancroft, Barnard, and Brightwood. Importantly, CHEC is at 98.7% utilization, and that's one of the middle schools nearest to Cardozo/Euclid. Coolidge is at 127%, wow. Garrison 99.7%, Wells 115%, Oyster-Adams 117%. So yes, I do think that the new school is needed. Just because enrollment is pretty high at the schools nearest the Euclid building, even as it's declining system-wide.

https://dme.dc.gov/publication/2024-master-facilities-plan-supplement

But didn't everything change in January 2025? We have twice as many houses on the market now as we did a year ago. The shrunk Fed is not coming back, and the associated contracted jobs.

Well, only a portion of those people have children in public school. I think people tend to overestimate the impact.

From Brookings:

Laid off approximately 300,000 federal workers. The White House moved swiftly to terminate jobs, prompting media organizations, firms, and nonprofits to track employment losses, including by agency. In total, there will be 300,000 fewer federal workers on payroll nationwide by the end of calendar year 2025, according to a Trump administration official, with most of the reductions taking place by September 30 (the date by which most deferred resignations go into effect).


Terminated over 13,000 federal contracts and over 15,000 federal grants[b]. According to a White House tracker, these contract and grant cuts have yielded $59 billion and $44 billion in savings, respectively. While several investigative pieces have challenged these figures, it is nonetheless hard to ignore the impact of these cuts on public safety organizations, humanitarian relief groups, and health researchers, to name a few.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Euclid middle school should be successful if people at the feeders are willing to give it a try.

Do you think it is still needed? All signs seem to point to the DC population shrinking. And Francis seems to have the capacity right now for Ross, Thompson, Seaton, Garrion, Cleveland.

I do think it's needed, because the Cardozo building is pretty full. We'll see next time the Master Facilities Plan is published, but I think Wells middle is pretty full too. Not that Wells is super close by, but all these things are interconnected. Stuart-Hobson is getting more popular too. Some charters may fail this year and next (SSMA, Rocketship), and that will mean DCPS picks up some of the population. None of the soon-to-fails are super close to the Shaw area, but these things have an impact on the whole system.

The 2024 MFP came out in September 2025. The total enrollment projection is to shrink but not by that much. The real shrinkage comes from birth rates, which obviously won't affect middle school enrollment for a while. There's a table of facility utilization-- while it's true that many schools are massively under-utilized, there are others above 100% such as Bancroft, Barnard, and Brightwood. Importantly, CHEC is at 98.7% utilization, and that's one of the middle schools nearest to Cardozo/Euclid. Coolidge is at 127%, wow. Garrison 99.7%, Wells 115%, Oyster-Adams 117%. So yes, I do think that the new school is needed. Just because enrollment is pretty high at the schools nearest the Euclid building, even as it's declining system-wide.

https://dme.dc.gov/publication/2024-master-facilities-plan-supplement

But didn't everything change in January 2025? We have twice as many houses on the market now as we did a year ago. The shrunk Fed is not coming back, and the associated contracted jobs.

Well, only a portion of those people have children in public school. I think people tend to overestimate the impact.

From Brookings:

Laid off approximately 300,000 federal workers. The White House moved swiftly to terminate jobs, prompting media organizations, firms, and nonprofits to track employment losses, including by agency. In total, there will be 300,000 fewer federal workers on payroll nationwide by the end of calendar year 2025, according to a Trump administration official, with most of the reductions taking place by September 30 (the date by which most deferred resignations go into effect).


Terminated over 13,000 federal contracts and over 15,000 federal grants[b]. According to a White House tracker, these contract and grant cuts have yielded $59 billion and $44 billion in savings, respectively. While several investigative pieces have challenged these figures, it is nonetheless hard to ignore the impact of these cuts on public safety organizations, humanitarian relief groups, and health researchers, to name a few.

From here: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/early-warning-signs-for-the-dc-regions-economy-amid-federal-downsizing/


There is no way the population of DC doesn't drop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Euclid middle school should be successful if people at the feeders are willing to give it a try.

Do you think it is still needed? All signs seem to point to the DC population shrinking. And Francis seems to have the capacity right now for Ross, Thompson, Seaton, Garrion, Cleveland.

I do think it's needed, because the Cardozo building is pretty full. We'll see next time the Master Facilities Plan is published, but I think Wells middle is pretty full too. Not that Wells is super close by, but all these things are interconnected. Stuart-Hobson is getting more popular too. Some charters may fail this year and next (SSMA, Rocketship), and that will mean DCPS picks up some of the population. None of the soon-to-fails are super close to the Shaw area, but these things have an impact on the whole system.

The 2024 MFP came out in September 2025. The total enrollment projection is to shrink but not by that much. The real shrinkage comes from birth rates, which obviously won't affect middle school enrollment for a while. There's a table of facility utilization-- while it's true that many schools are massively under-utilized, there are others above 100% such as Bancroft, Barnard, and Brightwood. Importantly, CHEC is at 98.7% utilization, and that's one of the middle schools nearest to Cardozo/Euclid. Coolidge is at 127%, wow. Garrison 99.7%, Wells 115%, Oyster-Adams 117%. So yes, I do think that the new school is needed. Just because enrollment is pretty high at the schools nearest the Euclid building, even as it's declining system-wide.

https://dme.dc.gov/publication/2024-master-facilities-plan-supplement

But didn't everything change in January 2025? We have twice as many houses on the market now as we did a year ago. The shrunk Fed is not coming back, and the associated contracted jobs.

Well, only a portion of those people have children in public school. I think people tend to overestimate the impact.

From Brookings:

Laid off approximately 300,000 federal workers. The White House moved swiftly to terminate jobs, prompting media organizations, firms, and nonprofits to track employment losses, including by agency. In total, there will be 300,000 fewer federal workers on payroll nationwide by the end of calendar year 2025, according to a Trump administration official, with most of the reductions taking place by September 30 (the date by which most deferred resignations go into effect).


Terminated over 13,000 federal contracts and over 15,000 federal grants[b]. According to a White House tracker, these contract and grant cuts have yielded $59 billion and $44 billion in savings, respectively. While several investigative pieces have challenged these figures, it is nonetheless hard to ignore the impact of these cuts on public safety organizations, humanitarian relief groups, and health researchers, to name a few.

From here: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/early-warning-signs-for-the-dc-regions-economy-amid-federal-downsizing/


There is no way the population of DC doesn't drop.

Of course it will drop. But not all of those people lived in DC. Some of them lived in MD and VA. Some of them were remote and lived even farther away. They don't all have kids. Some of them have kids but in private school. Some of them lost their jobs but found other jobs or are SAHP. Yes, the cuts were big, but the impact on the school system is mediated by all of these factors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Euclid middle school should be successful if people at the feeders are willing to give it a try.

Do you think it is still needed? All signs seem to point to the DC population shrinking. And Francis seems to have the capacity right now for Ross, Thompson, Seaton, Garrion, Cleveland.

I do think it's needed, because the Cardozo building is pretty full. We'll see next time the Master Facilities Plan is published, but I think Wells middle is pretty full too. Not that Wells is super close by, but all these things are interconnected. Stuart-Hobson is getting more popular too. Some charters may fail this year and next (SSMA, Rocketship), and that will mean DCPS picks up some of the population. None of the soon-to-fails are super close to the Shaw area, but these things have an impact on the whole system.

The 2024 MFP came out in September 2025. The total enrollment projection is to shrink but not by that much. The real shrinkage comes from birth rates, which obviously won't affect middle school enrollment for a while. There's a table of facility utilization-- while it's true that many schools are massively under-utilized, there are others above 100% such as Bancroft, Barnard, and Brightwood. Importantly, CHEC is at 98.7% utilization, and that's one of the middle schools nearest to Cardozo/Euclid. Coolidge is at 127%, wow. Garrison 99.7%, Wells 115%, Oyster-Adams 117%. So yes, I do think that the new school is needed. Just because enrollment is pretty high at the schools nearest the Euclid building, even as it's declining system-wide.

https://dme.dc.gov/publication/2024-master-facilities-plan-supplement

But didn't everything change in January 2025? We have twice as many houses on the market now as we did a year ago. The shrunk Fed is not coming back, and the associated contracted jobs.

Well, only a portion of those people have children in public school. I think people tend to overestimate the impact.

From Brookings:

Laid off approximately 300,000 federal workers. The White House moved swiftly to terminate jobs, prompting media organizations, firms, and nonprofits to track employment losses, including by agency. In total, there will be 300,000 fewer federal workers on payroll nationwide by the end of calendar year 2025, according to a Trump administration official, with most of the reductions taking place by September 30 (the date by which most deferred resignations go into effect).


Terminated over 13,000 federal contracts and over 15,000 federal grants[b]. According to a White House tracker, these contract and grant cuts have yielded $59 billion and $44 billion in savings, respectively. While several investigative pieces have challenged these figures, it is nonetheless hard to ignore the impact of these cuts on public safety organizations, humanitarian relief groups, and health researchers, to name a few.

How many are in DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Awesome that you are car-free! Our family, now with a late-elementary student and a middle school student, is as well. The best part is the independence they have as they start taking themselves to activities on the transit they are so accustomed to.

We personally lived in a central-ish spot, went to our not really popular in-bound elementary (that we loved), moved aboard, and when we moved back, we moved into an apartment west of the park. It gave us a foot into the lottery, but we ended up loving the neighborhood, so we are going to stay. I wouldn’t be too worried about moving schools later socially, as people in DC are constantly switching schools for moves or lotteries.

Being car-free is such an amazing positive, but you do have to plan your life carefully (as you know!). I’d start local and then fret about middle school as it gets closer. There are more good options these days as other posters have mentioned.

I think it's more AWESOME and POSITIVE to have all the options: car, bike, foot, transit. the self congratulatory hubris from no car Luddites is weird

The difference between OP and the above PP is that the PP moved and so could remain car-free. OP wants to remain car-free but does not want to move. As another PP said, one of OP’s three has to give.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can’t/won’t move or get a car, don’t go WOTP for ES. You will no longer have the lovely lifestyle you have now. Your kids will be on unreliable public transport during rush hour every day and that’s a big family stressor.

I don't find the metro (how our middle schooler commutes) to be unreliable. Though we are a "car-light" family and use it to get to activities that aren't convenient on transit.

Depends on the school. For those right on Metro (Murch, Ross, Janney?), it’s not bad, even remembering that OP will have to go with two or three young children who can’t ride by themselves. If on a bus line (OP mentions Eaton and Hearst), it gets less reliable and much more of a hassle with two or three ES age kids.

Our kids have gotten to school on foot, by bike and car, and on Metro and the bus.

+1, bus commutes can be dodgy because they are so traffic-dependent. Also buses tend to get backed up later in the day so your kid may wind up waiting an hour for the bus coming home some days. It's not reliable, unfortunately.

I think the real issue here is that they have two separate issues: (1) desire to maintain car free lifestyle, and (2) desire to get into a sure bet through HS. The only way to solve that problem would be to move to a place where either Deal/J-R or Hardy/MacArthur are workable commutes without a car from where they live. Neither will be an easy commute via public transit from where they live now. But it doesn't sound like they want to move.

So I think, OP, you need to rank your priorities. If the car free lifestyle is a top priority, I would punt on the HS issue and just take care of MS for now, since you can do that without moving by lotterying into a Stuart-Hobson or Francis feeder, both of which are reasonable commutes from your current location. You also might luck out with charters for MS, and have S-H/Francis as your backup, and the charter option would set you up through HS.

If HS path is your top priority, and presuming J-R is your preference there, then you either need to move or accept that you will likely need a car from your current location (and accept a longer commute even now to the feeder elementary, as any of those will be further than the S-H or Francis feeders.

If not moving is your top priority, then you need to either accept you can't lock down HS down OR accept you will have to get a car to accommodate the commute to schools that are tough commutes from where you live now.

Only you can decide which of these things is the most important to you. No judgement here -- I can see why they are all important. But one has to be most important.

This is great advice. +1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For kids in 3rd grade and below, there will be a new middle school by the time they’re in 6th: Euclid in Shaw (feeders: Garrison, Seaton, and Cleveland). How many would consider it?

Where in Shaw? I thought it was going to be in the old Banneker building.

Pretty sure the old Banneker building neighborhood is in Shaw, so both things are accurate

The old Banneker building is definitely not in Shaw and North Shaw isn’t a thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For kids in 3rd grade and below, there will be a new middle school by the time they’re in 6th: Euclid in Shaw (feeders: Garrison, Seaton, and Cleveland). How many would consider it?

Where in Shaw? I thought it was going to be in the old Banneker building.

Pretty sure the old Banneker building neighborhood is in Shaw, so both things are accurate

The old Banneker building is definitely not in Shaw and North Shaw isn’t a thing.

I would definitely not call it Shaw. But it is within in the bounds of one of the elementary feeders -- Cleveland (the northern edge).