Do charters really differ that much from regular public schools?
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Anonymous
They offer more language immersion schools. With the exception of Oyster, DCPS language immersion schools seem to be immersion because of a high percentage of ELL students, not because there is a strong desire to create a rigorous bilingual program. The charter language schools all seem to have a specialized design with language immersion. They also have a MS/HS plan. CHEC is DC's language MS/HS plan, and it is a bad apple. |
Anonymous
Does a student IB for a neighborhood school have to enter the lottery? |
Anonymous
For now -- Yes lottery for PK3 and PK4 even for your IB neighborhood school. If you are entering school mid-year (Oct -- March) you have to sign up via MSDC but there is no 'lotterying' for slots. |
Anonymous
So a student entering after PK4 to their IB school does not need to participate in the lottery? So not everyone goes through the lottery to get into every school? |
Anonymous
Correct -- there is talk of going to a central registration system, but you only enter the lottery if you want to go to an OOB school or a charter. But since only 25-30% of students in DCPS attend their neighborhood school most everyone is using the lottery system. |
Anonymous
The lottery is getting close to universal. In 2013-14 50% of DCPS students attended an OOB school (23K). chrome-extension://gbkeegbaiigmenfmjfclcdgdpimamgkj/views/app.html Add to that every student at an application high school Add to that every student attending their IB DCPS PK3 or PK4 And every student at a charter school (41K in 16-17) There are a total of 90K student in public school in DC. |
Anonymous
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But the fraction of kids who move to the District mid-year, or who get kicked out/counseled out of their charters or OOB schools, or whose parents or guardians can't get it together in February to think about what school their kid will go to in August (or maybe can't even get it together enough to send their kid until after Labor Day).....
those kids will all have a right to attend their IB DCPS schools. The registrar may have to help the family fill out some stuff on MSDC if OSSE requires it, but they have to take the kid. And no charter has to take kids mid year like that. That is a huge difference. I know a DCPS elementary classroom that had several kids come and go throughout the year, including some from other countries who spoke limited English, some who switched out of charter schools, and some who were dealing with foster care or other trauma, or who didn't come with IEPs when they were obviously needed. Losing 2 or 3 kids and gaining 2 or 3 kids in a 20-kid class over the course of 10 months is a lot. It's a huge advantage for charters never to have a new kid join a class mid year. |
Anonymous
Yes, that happens. But maybe not as frequently as you think. Here's a report that looks at several years of data. https://dme.dc.gov/node/1164281 92% of students don't move during the school year. The single biggest driver of mid-year movement is families entering or exiting the city. Pk3, 9th and 10th grades are the years with the most mid-year movement, followed by middle school. |
Anonymous
If School A has 2 kids come and 1 kid go from each classroom during the school year and School B has 1 kid go from every other class and no kids come, which school has an advantage? Also, at School A, there are kids who show up on the first day of school, or 2 weeks or 4 months after the first day of school, that have never interacted with the school before. If the kid shows up with an IEP that calls for 2 hours of speech therapy a week and a cool-down option of eating lunch in the principal's office when the cafeteria is too noisy, the school has to do it. If the parent curses out the registrar, the school still needs to educate the kid. At School B, every single kid has an adult in their life who accessed a computer more than 6 months before school started and affirmatively chose to list School B as one they'd like their kid to attend. School B can send information to the parents in advance and gather information to help with staffing and class assignments. |
Anonymous
| Universal participation does not mean that barriers to entry don't exist. |
Anonymous
All students do not go through the lottery!!! The neighborhood schools that are not sought out for are often enrolling at least 60+ students during the first week of school. This is why the poster before stated that "Just the fact that they get more engaged families (who exercise choice) makes them stronger than your typical neighborhood DCPS.". It's true, charter schools get students who are often higher performing and have parents that are involved/engaged with their children's school. These parents apply for the lottery and get their students in the schools of their choice, opposed to just going to the local public school. |
Anonymous
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At my IB elementary school (a 40/40 school), nearly 12% of the kids enter over the course of the school year and about 8% leave.
So in a 350 kid school, that means 42 kids come mid-year. They aren't coming to PK, so that's 7 new kids per grade in K-5. Every single classroom has 2-4 new kids over the course of the year, and loses 2 or 3 kids. 40+ of the 42 kids who come in are at-risk. If they match the rest of the school population, 10 qualify for special ed services. What is it like to be a teacher who already has more than 20 kids in a classroom (because based on enrollment it looked like 2 classes of 20 but now it's a class of 22 and a class of 23), nearly all of whom are poor, 5 of whom have IEPs, most are well below grade level, everyone's experienced trauma...and every other month you get a new kid to integrate into all of this? How do you find time to meet all the different needs? What support services would you need to make that work? When a position opened up at a different school, what would make you stay? |
Anonymous
NP: So this question never got answered, right? So it was wrong, as I thought it was when I first read it. If you can't name examples of schools and laws they're exempt from, then statements like this are useless. And wrong, until proven otherwise. |
Anonymous
The same could be said for any student attending an out-of-bounds school in DCPS. |
Anonymous
Or an application high school. Basically 70-75% of the parents in DC meet this definition -- only 25-30% of all students actually attend their IB schools. |