Anonymous wrote:Don't plan your PK years around Ross. It has become exceptionally competitive. I think around 50% of the inbound non-sibling kids got a PK3 slot this year? And you can expect those odds to go down a lot more in the coming few years as more and more families squeeze into this hot neighborhood.
Before you mentioned Bethesda, I was just going to say to buy where you want to be for a good ES district, and take whatever decent PK you get -- like Seaton, which still decent odds of getting in but is gentrifying and improving quickly these days. But that's the opposite direction for you from GP. Not sure if there are comparable PKs between GP and Bethesda, but if there are, just plan on one of those. 80% of the PK programs in NW are perfectly good at this point, so if you're only worrying about 2 years under your IB ES slot kids in, just do that.
However, I caution you like others did that the savings aren't really that great over private preschool. You *can* save a lot of money through a combo of free PK and cheap aftercare. But the free and cheap aftercare and summer camps are pretty bare bones and may not be right for your three year old. to the extent parents have some money to spend on better aftercare, they are inclined to want to spend it. Our 4-year old son still has regulatory issues and doesn't do well in, well, "chaos". The PKs near us all had free aftercare, but it was essentially just dropping all 7 grades of kids in the gym, putting on a movie, running around the field, etc. I've heard the same about the super cheap YMCA summer programs. Our son will be able to handle that when he's 7, but that just wasn't a good option for us at age 3-4. So then we started having to think about the cost of nicer after care and summer programs, which aren't cheap, and at that point it would have just made more sense for us to spend a bit more on an after school/summer babysitter - making our lives easier and giving my son a break from the chaos of the school day. Taking all this into account and given that preschool is year round, we found that preschool was only going to cost $7200 more per year than the free PK program plus a 2-hour a day/summer babysitter.
Point is that I wouldn't plan my life around the free PK program.
Plus, if you buy into Ross, you get a nice little elementary and then a complete wasteland of a feeder path. You'll have to move anyway - unless you want CHEC or Cardozo while you're saving up for that downpayment in Bethesda.
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