Redshirting consequences at Lafayette

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Has anyone seen this bonkers newsletter from Eric Goulet, the Ward 3 SBOE rep? It’s a very lengthy piece about how DCPS is now throwing people out of of kindergarten following a Ward wide age audit? Doesn’t seem like DCPS would have its act together to pull something like that off. Are the Lafayette moms behind this? Newsletter was posted on the CC Listseve, which is sort of tabloid like on a good day.

Yes, it was on the Tenleytown one too. Here it is for those interested:

This edition of the Ward 3 DC State Board of Education (SBOE) newsletter focuses on troubling actions by Chancellor Lewis Ferebee and DC Public School (DCPS) leadership that are needlessly traumatizing DC families who just want to send their children to kindergarten next fall. DCPS has abruptly changed policy regarding kindergarten age of enrollment without notice, informed families their children must skip kindergarten and go directly to first grade, and has retaliated against families who pushed back by reporting them to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect. If any family, who has not already been working with me on this issue, has been impacted by these actions, please reach out to me at [e-mail].

BACKGROUND ON DC KINDERGARTEN ENROLLMENT

The District of Columbia has one of the youngest ages in the country at which a child is eligible for kindergarten enrollment. In DC, a child is required to turn five on or before September 30th to be eligible to attend kindergarten. With such a young eligibility age, for decades, some parents with youth who have summer birthdays have decided it was necessary to defer kindergarten enrollment due to academic delays or maturity issues.

Maryland and Virginia, which have age cutoffs of September 1st and September 30th, allow a parent to delay kindergarten enrollment for up to one year with a written request for a maturity exception. A Maryland deferral request requires enrollment in a childcare or pre-K program, while a Virginia parent’s deferral request just needs to include documentation supporting enrollment delay. In the District of Columbia, prior to this year, principals have always utilized the discretion provided in the DC Municipal Regulations (2201.6) to ensure students who are not proficient or who have developmental delays in physical, social or emotional maturity are placed in the appropriate grade level, thus allowing children completing Pre-K4 to progress to kindergarten.

Due to school overcrowding, Ward 3 is the only ward in the District of Columbia that has no DCPS Pre-K3, and it has very limited public options through one charter school and community-based pre-k. Thus, many families are forced to enroll students in private or parochial pre-kindergarten programs. Historically, many of these facilities simply have aligned enrollment based upon the child’s age at the start of the school year, and have applied for licenses that are consistent with serving 3- and 4-year-olds in Pre-K 3 and serving 4- and 5-year-olds in Pre-K4. Thus, a student would need to turn three before starting Pre-K3 at a private school, whereas they often needs to turn three by September 30th to enroll in public Pre-K3. This one-month enrollment misalignment has never been an issue, prior to this year, because a Pre-K4 graduate was always just allowed to advance to kindergarten as the next logical step in their education.

Lastly, I know of an example, where a family moved into DC from a state with a kindergarten age cutoff of September 1st. Since the child has a mid-September birthday, this child was unable to register for kindergarten in the state from which they moved. Historically, upon moving to DC, this family would have been offered the choice of whether they wanted to attend first grade in DC (since DC has a September 30 age cutoff) or whether they wanted the opportunity to attend kindergarten.

Again, there was never a problem with kindergarten enrollment prior to this year. Principals were allowed to exercise their discretion to place children in the appropriate grade based on the child’s academic progress and development.

DCPS LEADERSHIP ABUSES ITS DISCRETION AND INTIMIDATES AND TRAUMATIZES DC FAMILIES

The unfortunate situation at issue began at Lafayette Elementary School with Principal Katie Prall. Some may remember this principal for restricting outdoor recess this past December after alleging the play area was “slippery”. Principal Prall did not utilize the guidance in DC regulations regarding proficiency and physical, social or emotional development to base her decisions. She refused to allow students with birthdays before October 1st to advance from Pre-K4 to Kindergarten, and instead said these students must skip kindergarten and enroll in first grade. Cinthia Ruiz, DCPS Chief Integrity Officer; Andria Caruthers, DCPS Instructional Superintendent for Cluster 4; and Chancellor Lewis Ferebee then became involved.

Parents explained that the guidance in DC Regulations has always been used by principals across DC for decades to place children graduating from Pre-K4 into kindergarten. Unfortunately, rather than understanding that these children should not be forced to skip kindergarten due to an abrupt DCPS policy shift, DCPS decided to escalate matters.

(1) DCPS ordered an age audit of all Ward 3 elementary schools and began disenrolling children that had already previously been enrolled in kindergarten.

(2) Chancellor Ferebee and his staff ordered families to pull their children from the 5-day-a-week Pre-K programs they were attending, with two months left in the school year, and to enroll in DCPS kindergarten. When parents refused, DCPS retaliated by reporting the parents to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect due to purported truancy.

(3) DCPS refused to allow families moving in from other states, whose children could not previously attend kindergarten, to be able to attend this year.

(4) Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

(5) Chancellor Ferebee has refused to assess academic proficiency or physical, social or emotional development before voiding prior age-waivers already granted by DCPS or to even provide assessments this spring. The Chancellor’s position is that he will assess the children in the fall as first graders, after they are forced to skip kindergarten, and if they struggle, then DCPS says it will consider demoting the children to kindergarten.

Some families just received notices of kindergarten disenrollment last week. Parents are understandably confused, panicked, and traumatized. None of these actions by DCPS are in the best interests of these children. This is intentional cruelty and retaliation by Chancellor Ferebee and DCPS leadership against parents who advocated for the best interests of their children. For months, parents have tried to work with the Chancellor, and all he has done is escalate his retaliation to harm more families. The Chancellor’s decision to report families with five-year-old-children attending five-day-a-week Pre-K4 to DC’s child protective service for neglect is unnecessary, chilling, and indefensible.

If a drastic change in DCPS kindergarten enrollment policy was contemplated, DCPS should have provided advance notice to pre-k facilities and to parents. Some impacted parents testified at our State Board of Education meeting that if they had any idea that DCPS was going to remove the enrollment discretion from its principals that had existed for decades, then they would have enrolled their children in kindergarten this year, instead of enrolling in Pre-K4.

SOLUTIONS

There is a very straightforward short-term solution to this, and I have drafted emergency legislation that will solve the immediate problem. None of these families have done anything wrong, and their children should not be victims of DCPS’s poor planning, lack of notice, and sudden policy change. Every one of these children should be allowed to attend kindergarten in School Year 2025-2026. Further, since students have already enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs for next school year, children completing Pre-K4 in 2026 should also be allowed to next attend kindergarten in the 2026-2027 school year. The DC State Board of Education can approve the transmission of this legislation to the DC Council, and then it will be up to the Council to approve the legislation on an emergency basis. SBOE will vote on the transmission of the bill either this week or the following week. The legislation also provides that no family can be reported by DCPS for child neglect, while their child is attending a pre-k program.

There must also be a long-term fix to prevent further confusion and trauma in School Year 2027-2028 and beyond. DC should either align enrollment dates between private and public pre-k providers, or at least provide clear guidance to parents. DC must have a fair and reliable process for families with children who have developmental delays to request waivers. This solution should be developed in a thoughtful manner over the next six months and should include early childhood development experts. After a policy is set for School Year 2027-2028, there should be clear communication with private and parochial pre-k schools and parents. In some cases, pre-k facilities may want to change their licensure to also become licensed to serve 2-year-olds with September birthdays in Pre-K3.

REMINDER TO AFFECTED FAMILIES

I’d like to reiterate what I said at the beginning. If you are a family who has been told your child must skip kindergarten, or who DCPS has reported to CFSA for truancy and educational child neglect, please reach out to me at [e-mail]. I can only imagine how scared and frustrated you must be, but there are still people who want help ensure your child gets to attend kindergarten this coming fall.

Lastly, on Memorial Day, I want to express my gratitude and remember those who gave their lives to serve our nation. My sincere condolences to the friends and family of fallen heroes.

Sincerely,
Eric Goulet

It’s also posted on his twitter account. I like how he named all the offenders including the principal and the bureaucrats in the central office who really overplayed their hands antagonizing parents and voters.

Really brave reporting parents to child protective services. They should and will pay with their jobs. Guaranteed that parents are filing FOIAs and preparing lawsuits.

They are mandated reporters. These parents are technically committing educational neglect and have been very public about that fact.

Educational neglect! Ha!

Well, then why are they only doing this to award 3? There’s no neglect in other wards you say?

Also sure, they’re truant. Hold em back ….. in Kindergarten!!!!

I know others have already responded to you, but I think it's important for you to understand how off base this comment is.

Here's the CPS reports in DC by Ward for 2022 (the most recent year for with data is available at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in collaboration with DC Action):

City District of Columbia 2022 Number 939
Ward Ward 1 2022 Number 56
Ward Ward 2 2022 Number 20
Ward Ward 3 2022 Number 23
Ward Ward 4 2022 Number 76
Ward Ward 5 2022 Number 136
Ward Ward 6 2022 Number 50
Ward Ward 7 2022 Number 228
Ward Ward 8 2022 Number 338

Wards are balanced to have roughly similar populations, and Wards 7 and 8 actually have the smallest populations in the district (even more so in 2022 prior to redistricting).

Ward 7 has an 11x higher rate of CPS reports than Ward 3. Ward 8 has a 17x higher rate. Educational neglect is one of the most common reasons for CPS reports because DC uses the public school system as a way to identify kids at risk for abuse or neglect -- kids who are not being sent to school on time are also more likely to experience other forms of neglect and abuse, including failure to obtain needed medical or dental treatment, inadequate nutrition, housing insecurity, etc. So families that fail to enroll their children in kindergarten on time are highly likely to be investigated by CPS if the problem is identified. Whether that's because a neighbor reports it or because the parents go on the local news to explain that they didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten by age 5.

Now you might say, yeah but these kids aren't experiencing other forms of neglect! In fact the reason these parents didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten on time was because they care so much about their kids that they wanted to optimize their educational experience. Well, I'm glad you mentioned this because guess what, that is also what parents in other wards say when they are investigated by CPS for failure to enroll on time. "He isn't ready for kindergarten, we decided he's better off at home with grandma until he's 6." How receptive do you think CPS is to these arguments for parents in Wards 7 and 8? I can assure you: not very.

The idea that DCPS, or CPS, is somehow *targeting* Ward 3 families on this issue is laughable. As a general matter, families in Ward 3 who are wealthy and white are given much broader latitude by CPS than families of other races and lower socioeconomic levels. However, these Ward 3 families chose to advertise their behavior on television and announce it on list serves, which puts the city in a situation where they pretty much have to enforce these rules and investigate these families just as they would a low income black or Hispanic family in another ward. The Ward 3 families gave the city no real other choice.

If they wanted to change the rules about enrollment for the whole city, they should have lobbied for that but also followed the same rules that every other family in the city is expected to follow. The idea that a handful of wealthy white schools in upper NW get to violate these rules because.... reasons is just ridiculous on its face. And now that those handful of schools are being forced to comply the way everyone else in the city has been complying for years, NOW they are arguing the entire system should be changed? So brave.

+1000

Well stated. And school faculty and staff and explicitly trained to call CPS anytime there are concerns of neglect or abuse. This is clearly spelled out. The person who keeps responding that this isn’t neglect is really saying “it isn’t neglect because these families are in upper NW.” They don’t even try to address the data mentioned above . And don’t even try to mention how much less latitude families in those other wards get for excessive absences. . . the system favors families in Ward 3.

The calling of CPS was clearly retaliatory. That’s why there’s a policy draft that parents can’t be reported if their child is enrolled in preK.

It wasn’t neglect because CPS didn’t find it was neglect, so put that to rest.

If you know how school faculty and staff are trained it’s to report any concerns of neglect or abuse. Examples are outlined in these trainings. It is also made very clear that it is not up to faculty and staff to determine if it is actual neglect or abuse. That investigation is up to CPS. You can now put your comments to rest because you don’t know what the protocols are for school based personnel. Or the threats that are made to them if they don’t report these situations.

We know the district selectively reported two parents that disagreed with their kids placement. That was very stupid of them and I hope the parents sue the district for harassment.

You have FOIA'd documentation that says that DCPS only reported students because they disliked their parents? Like it says that was the reason and not that put themselves into the news and now the school district was made aware?

If you have that proof yeah I agree they shouldn't use political power against individual families. They do though by law have to investigate families that don't send their kids to school.

Do you not know how to read? The kid was in school, he was in pre-kindergarten!

Obviously I don’t have FOIA documentation, but circumstantial evidence points towards a school abuse. Should I go by your rambling speculations, or a public statement from a school board member who is also a lawyer?

I said it multiple times, nobody cares what you personally think.

Not all PKs are eligible. It depends whether they went through the process to qualify to count as an actual school. Also, I heard that one of the kids -- probably not one mentioned here "coincidentally" -- wasn't enrolled in any school.

At this point you’re just pretending to be stupid on purpose. Or maybe you’re actually not faking it. Read what was posted about the PKs in the public statement.

Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

So DCPS rescinds the waver, forces kids to move up a grade and when parents push back they call CPS on those parents.

That’s low by any standards.

This is the first that I am hearing that IEPs were involved. Is this true?

+1, this is the first reference I've heard of approved enrollment deferrals. If that is the case, I would support the parents in putting their kids in K. I know other parents who have done the same (obtained an enrollment deferral due to developmental issues and teacher recommendations) and I don't know anyone who would disagree with that.

But the way this has been discussed and reported on makes it sound like these parents did NOT obtain prior approval of their deferrals, but just chose to keep their 5 yr olds in private PK on the assumption they would be able to enroll them in K the following year, and then when they were placed in 1st instead, started fighting back.

This debate is totally different depending on which facts apply.

You have very strong opinions on this topic but can’t be bothered to read the only official public statement detailing the allegations in this matter, which was already posted in the thread a few pages back.

Gtfoh.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Has anyone seen this bonkers newsletter from Eric Goulet, the Ward 3 SBOE rep? It’s a very lengthy piece about how DCPS is now throwing people out of of kindergarten following a Ward wide age audit? Doesn’t seem like DCPS would have its act together to pull something like that off. Are the Lafayette moms behind this? Newsletter was posted on the CC Listseve, which is sort of tabloid like on a good day.

Yes, it was on the Tenleytown one too. Here it is for those interested:

This edition of the Ward 3 DC State Board of Education (SBOE) newsletter focuses on troubling actions by Chancellor Lewis Ferebee and DC Public School (DCPS) leadership that are needlessly traumatizing DC families who just want to send their children to kindergarten next fall. DCPS has abruptly changed policy regarding kindergarten age of enrollment without notice, informed families their children must skip kindergarten and go directly to first grade, and has retaliated against families who pushed back by reporting them to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect. If any family, who has not already been working with me on this issue, has been impacted by these actions, please reach out to me at [e-mail].

BACKGROUND ON DC KINDERGARTEN ENROLLMENT

The District of Columbia has one of the youngest ages in the country at which a child is eligible for kindergarten enrollment. In DC, a child is required to turn five on or before September 30th to be eligible to attend kindergarten. With such a young eligibility age, for decades, some parents with youth who have summer birthdays have decided it was necessary to defer kindergarten enrollment due to academic delays or maturity issues.

Maryland and Virginia, which have age cutoffs of September 1st and September 30th, allow a parent to delay kindergarten enrollment for up to one year with a written request for a maturity exception. A Maryland deferral request requires enrollment in a childcare or pre-K program, while a Virginia parent’s deferral request just needs to include documentation supporting enrollment delay. In the District of Columbia, prior to this year, principals have always utilized the discretion provided in the DC Municipal Regulations (2201.6) to ensure students who are not proficient or who have developmental delays in physical, social or emotional maturity are placed in the appropriate grade level, thus allowing children completing Pre-K4 to progress to kindergarten.

Due to school overcrowding, Ward 3 is the only ward in the District of Columbia that has no DCPS Pre-K3, and it has very limited public options through one charter school and community-based pre-k. Thus, many families are forced to enroll students in private or parochial pre-kindergarten programs. Historically, many of these facilities simply have aligned enrollment based upon the child’s age at the start of the school year, and have applied for licenses that are consistent with serving 3- and 4-year-olds in Pre-K 3 and serving 4- and 5-year-olds in Pre-K4. Thus, a student would need to turn three before starting Pre-K3 at a private school, whereas they often needs to turn three by September 30th to enroll in public Pre-K3. This one-month enrollment misalignment has never been an issue, prior to this year, because a Pre-K4 graduate was always just allowed to advance to kindergarten as the next logical step in their education.

Lastly, I know of an example, where a family moved into DC from a state with a kindergarten age cutoff of September 1st. Since the child has a mid-September birthday, this child was unable to register for kindergarten in the state from which they moved. Historically, upon moving to DC, this family would have been offered the choice of whether they wanted to attend first grade in DC (since DC has a September 30 age cutoff) or whether they wanted the opportunity to attend kindergarten.

Again, there was never a problem with kindergarten enrollment prior to this year. Principals were allowed to exercise their discretion to place children in the appropriate grade based on the child’s academic progress and development.

DCPS LEADERSHIP ABUSES ITS DISCRETION AND INTIMIDATES AND TRAUMATIZES DC FAMILIES

The unfortunate situation at issue began at Lafayette Elementary School with Principal Katie Prall. Some may remember this principal for restricting outdoor recess this past December after alleging the play area was “slippery”. Principal Prall did not utilize the guidance in DC regulations regarding proficiency and physical, social or emotional development to base her decisions. She refused to allow students with birthdays before October 1st to advance from Pre-K4 to Kindergarten, and instead said these students must skip kindergarten and enroll in first grade. Cinthia Ruiz, DCPS Chief Integrity Officer; Andria Caruthers, DCPS Instructional Superintendent for Cluster 4; and Chancellor Lewis Ferebee then became involved.

Parents explained that the guidance in DC Regulations has always been used by principals across DC for decades to place children graduating from Pre-K4 into kindergarten. Unfortunately, rather than understanding that these children should not be forced to skip kindergarten due to an abrupt DCPS policy shift, DCPS decided to escalate matters.

(1) DCPS ordered an age audit of all Ward 3 elementary schools and began disenrolling children that had already previously been enrolled in kindergarten.

(2) Chancellor Ferebee and his staff ordered families to pull their children from the 5-day-a-week Pre-K programs they were attending, with two months left in the school year, and to enroll in DCPS kindergarten. When parents refused, DCPS retaliated by reporting the parents to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect due to purported truancy.

(3) DCPS refused to allow families moving in from other states, whose children could not previously attend kindergarten, to be able to attend this year.

(4) Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

(5) Chancellor Ferebee has refused to assess academic proficiency or physical, social or emotional development before voiding prior age-waivers already granted by DCPS or to even provide assessments this spring. The Chancellor’s position is that he will assess the children in the fall as first graders, after they are forced to skip kindergarten, and if they struggle, then DCPS says it will consider demoting the children to kindergarten.

Some families just received notices of kindergarten disenrollment last week. Parents are understandably confused, panicked, and traumatized. None of these actions by DCPS are in the best interests of these children. This is intentional cruelty and retaliation by Chancellor Ferebee and DCPS leadership against parents who advocated for the best interests of their children. For months, parents have tried to work with the Chancellor, and all he has done is escalate his retaliation to harm more families. The Chancellor’s decision to report families with five-year-old-children attending five-day-a-week Pre-K4 to DC’s child protective service for neglect is unnecessary, chilling, and indefensible.

If a drastic change in DCPS kindergarten enrollment policy was contemplated, DCPS should have provided advance notice to pre-k facilities and to parents. Some impacted parents testified at our State Board of Education meeting that if they had any idea that DCPS was going to remove the enrollment discretion from its principals that had existed for decades, then they would have enrolled their children in kindergarten this year, instead of enrolling in Pre-K4.

SOLUTIONS

There is a very straightforward short-term solution to this, and I have drafted emergency legislation that will solve the immediate problem. None of these families have done anything wrong, and their children should not be victims of DCPS’s poor planning, lack of notice, and sudden policy change. Every one of these children should be allowed to attend kindergarten in School Year 2025-2026. Further, since students have already enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs for next school year, children completing Pre-K4 in 2026 should also be allowed to next attend kindergarten in the 2026-2027 school year. The DC State Board of Education can approve the transmission of this legislation to the DC Council, and then it will be up to the Council to approve the legislation on an emergency basis. SBOE will vote on the transmission of the bill either this week or the following week. The legislation also provides that no family can be reported by DCPS for child neglect, while their child is attending a pre-k program.

There must also be a long-term fix to prevent further confusion and trauma in School Year 2027-2028 and beyond. DC should either align enrollment dates between private and public pre-k providers, or at least provide clear guidance to parents. DC must have a fair and reliable process for families with children who have developmental delays to request waivers. This solution should be developed in a thoughtful manner over the next six months and should include early childhood development experts. After a policy is set for School Year 2027-2028, there should be clear communication with private and parochial pre-k schools and parents. In some cases, pre-k facilities may want to change their licensure to also become licensed to serve 2-year-olds with September birthdays in Pre-K3.

REMINDER TO AFFECTED FAMILIES

I’d like to reiterate what I said at the beginning. If you are a family who has been told your child must skip kindergarten, or who DCPS has reported to CFSA for truancy and educational child neglect, please reach out to me at [e-mail]. I can only imagine how scared and frustrated you must be, but there are still people who want help ensure your child gets to attend kindergarten this coming fall.

Lastly, on Memorial Day, I want to express my gratitude and remember those who gave their lives to serve our nation. My sincere condolences to the friends and family of fallen heroes.

Sincerely,
Eric Goulet

It’s also posted on his twitter account. I like how he named all the offenders including the principal and the bureaucrats in the central office who really overplayed their hands antagonizing parents and voters.

Really brave reporting parents to child protective services. They should and will pay with their jobs. Guaranteed that parents are filing FOIAs and preparing lawsuits.

They are mandated reporters. These parents are technically committing educational neglect and have been very public about that fact.

Educational neglect! Ha!

Well, then why are they only doing this to award 3? There’s no neglect in other wards you say?

Also sure, they’re truant. Hold em back ….. in Kindergarten!!!!

I know others have already responded to you, but I think it's important for you to understand how off base this comment is.

Here's the CPS reports in DC by Ward for 2022 (the most recent year for with data is available at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in collaboration with DC Action):

City District of Columbia 2022 Number 939
Ward Ward 1 2022 Number 56
Ward Ward 2 2022 Number 20
Ward Ward 3 2022 Number 23
Ward Ward 4 2022 Number 76
Ward Ward 5 2022 Number 136
Ward Ward 6 2022 Number 50
Ward Ward 7 2022 Number 228
Ward Ward 8 2022 Number 338

Wards are balanced to have roughly similar populations, and Wards 7 and 8 actually have the smallest populations in the district (even more so in 2022 prior to redistricting).

Ward 7 has an 11x higher rate of CPS reports than Ward 3. Ward 8 has a 17x higher rate. Educational neglect is one of the most common reasons for CPS reports because DC uses the public school system as a way to identify kids at risk for abuse or neglect -- kids who are not being sent to school on time are also more likely to experience other forms of neglect and abuse, including failure to obtain needed medical or dental treatment, inadequate nutrition, housing insecurity, etc. So families that fail to enroll their children in kindergarten on time are highly likely to be investigated by CPS if the problem is identified. Whether that's because a neighbor reports it or because the parents go on the local news to explain that they didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten by age 5.

Now you might say, yeah but these kids aren't experiencing other forms of neglect! In fact the reason these parents didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten on time was because they care so much about their kids that they wanted to optimize their educational experience. Well, I'm glad you mentioned this because guess what, that is also what parents in other wards say when they are investigated by CPS for failure to enroll on time. "He isn't ready for kindergarten, we decided he's better off at home with grandma until he's 6." How receptive do you think CPS is to these arguments for parents in Wards 7 and 8? I can assure you: not very.

The idea that DCPS, or CPS, is somehow *targeting* Ward 3 families on this issue is laughable. As a general matter, families in Ward 3 who are wealthy and white are given much broader latitude by CPS than families of other races and lower socioeconomic levels. However, these Ward 3 families chose to advertise their behavior on television and announce it on list serves, which puts the city in a situation where they pretty much have to enforce these rules and investigate these families just as they would a low income black or Hispanic family in another ward. The Ward 3 families gave the city no real other choice.

If they wanted to change the rules about enrollment for the whole city, they should have lobbied for that but also followed the same rules that every other family in the city is expected to follow. The idea that a handful of wealthy white schools in upper NW get to violate these rules because.... reasons is just ridiculous on its face. And now that those handful of schools are being forced to comply the way everyone else in the city has been complying for years, NOW they are arguing the entire system should be changed? So brave.

+1000

Well stated. And school faculty and staff and explicitly trained to call CPS anytime there are concerns of neglect or abuse. This is clearly spelled out. The person who keeps responding that this isn’t neglect is really saying “it isn’t neglect because these families are in upper NW.” They don’t even try to address the data mentioned above . And don’t even try to mention how much less latitude families in those other wards get for excessive absences. . . the system favors families in Ward 3.

The calling of CPS was clearly retaliatory. That’s why there’s a policy draft that parents can’t be reported if their child is enrolled in preK.

It wasn’t neglect because CPS didn’t find it was neglect, so put that to rest.

If you know how school faculty and staff are trained it’s to report any concerns of neglect or abuse. Examples are outlined in these trainings. It is also made very clear that it is not up to faculty and staff to determine if it is actual neglect or abuse. That investigation is up to CPS. You can now put your comments to rest because you don’t know what the protocols are for school based personnel. Or the threats that are made to them if they don’t report these situations.

We know the district selectively reported two parents that disagreed with their kids placement. That was very stupid of them and I hope the parents sue the district for harassment.

You have FOIA'd documentation that says that DCPS only reported students because they disliked their parents? Like it says that was the reason and not that put themselves into the news and now the school district was made aware?

If you have that proof yeah I agree they shouldn't use political power against individual families. They do though by law have to investigate families that don't send their kids to school.

Do you not know how to read? The kid was in school, he was in pre-kindergarten!

Obviously I don’t have FOIA documentation, but circumstantial evidence points towards a school abuse. Should I go by your rambling speculations, or a public statement from a school board member who is also a lawyer?

I said it multiple times, nobody cares what you personally think.

Not all PKs are eligible. It depends whether they went through the process to qualify to count as an actual school. Also, I heard that one of the kids -- probably not one mentioned here "coincidentally" -- wasn't enrolled in any school.

At this point you’re just pretending to be stupid on purpose. Or maybe you’re actually not faking it. Read what was posted about the PKs in the public statement.

Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

So DCPS rescinds the waver, forces kids to move up a grade and when parents push back they call CPS on those parents.

That’s low by any standards.

This is the first that I am hearing that IEPs were involved. Is this true?

+1, this is the first reference I've heard of approved enrollment deferrals. If that is the case, I would support the parents in putting their kids in K. I know other parents who have done the same (obtained an enrollment deferral due to developmental issues and teacher recommendations) and I don't know anyone who would disagree with that.

But the way this has been discussed and reported on makes it sound like these parents did NOT obtain prior approval of their deferrals, but just chose to keep their 5 yr olds in private PK on the assumption they would be able to enroll them in K the following year, and then when they were placed in 1st instead, started fighting back.

This debate is totally different depending on which facts apply.

Agree. And Goulet’s email also mentions that DCPS said it would assess kids in 1st and might send them to K if necessary.

I still think this is not right if the child had an IEP - the decision to redshirt should have been made in that context (even though as I understand it, redshirting is not an IEP accommodation per se). But for kids who just attempt to enroll in K past the age cutoff (because they came from another state, stayed home, or were in PK an extra year) it makes some sense for them to go into 1st then make a decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Has anyone seen this bonkers newsletter from Eric Goulet, the Ward 3 SBOE rep? It’s a very lengthy piece about how DCPS is now throwing people out of of kindergarten following a Ward wide age audit? Doesn’t seem like DCPS would have its act together to pull something like that off. Are the Lafayette moms behind this? Newsletter was posted on the CC Listseve, which is sort of tabloid like on a good day.

Yes, it was on the Tenleytown one too. Here it is for those interested:

This edition of the Ward 3 DC State Board of Education (SBOE) newsletter focuses on troubling actions by Chancellor Lewis Ferebee and DC Public School (DCPS) leadership that are needlessly traumatizing DC families who just want to send their children to kindergarten next fall. DCPS has abruptly changed policy regarding kindergarten age of enrollment without notice, informed families their children must skip kindergarten and go directly to first grade, and has retaliated against families who pushed back by reporting them to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect. If any family, who has not already been working with me on this issue, has been impacted by these actions, please reach out to me at [e-mail].

BACKGROUND ON DC KINDERGARTEN ENROLLMENT

The District of Columbia has one of the youngest ages in the country at which a child is eligible for kindergarten enrollment. In DC, a child is required to turn five on or before September 30th to be eligible to attend kindergarten. With such a young eligibility age, for decades, some parents with youth who have summer birthdays have decided it was necessary to defer kindergarten enrollment due to academic delays or maturity issues.

Maryland and Virginia, which have age cutoffs of September 1st and September 30th, allow a parent to delay kindergarten enrollment for up to one year with a written request for a maturity exception. A Maryland deferral request requires enrollment in a childcare or pre-K program, while a Virginia parent’s deferral request just needs to include documentation supporting enrollment delay. In the District of Columbia, prior to this year, principals have always utilized the discretion provided in the DC Municipal Regulations (2201.6) to ensure students who are not proficient or who have developmental delays in physical, social or emotional maturity are placed in the appropriate grade level, thus allowing children completing Pre-K4 to progress to kindergarten.

Due to school overcrowding, Ward 3 is the only ward in the District of Columbia that has no DCPS Pre-K3, and it has very limited public options through one charter school and community-based pre-k. Thus, many families are forced to enroll students in private or parochial pre-kindergarten programs. Historically, many of these facilities simply have aligned enrollment based upon the child’s age at the start of the school year, and have applied for licenses that are consistent with serving 3- and 4-year-olds in Pre-K 3 and serving 4- and 5-year-olds in Pre-K4. Thus, a student would need to turn three before starting Pre-K3 at a private school, whereas they often needs to turn three by September 30th to enroll in public Pre-K3. This one-month enrollment misalignment has never been an issue, prior to this year, because a Pre-K4 graduate was always just allowed to advance to kindergarten as the next logical step in their education.

Lastly, I know of an example, where a family moved into DC from a state with a kindergarten age cutoff of September 1st. Since the child has a mid-September birthday, this child was unable to register for kindergarten in the state from which they moved. Historically, upon moving to DC, this family would have been offered the choice of whether they wanted to attend first grade in DC (since DC has a September 30 age cutoff) or whether they wanted the opportunity to attend kindergarten.

Again, there was never a problem with kindergarten enrollment prior to this year. Principals were allowed to exercise their discretion to place children in the appropriate grade based on the child’s academic progress and development.

DCPS LEADERSHIP ABUSES ITS DISCRETION AND INTIMIDATES AND TRAUMATIZES DC FAMILIES

The unfortunate situation at issue began at Lafayette Elementary School with Principal Katie Prall. Some may remember this principal for restricting outdoor recess this past December after alleging the play area was “slippery”. Principal Prall did not utilize the guidance in DC regulations regarding proficiency and physical, social or emotional development to base her decisions. She refused to allow students with birthdays before October 1st to advance from Pre-K4 to Kindergarten, and instead said these students must skip kindergarten and enroll in first grade. Cinthia Ruiz, DCPS Chief Integrity Officer; Andria Caruthers, DCPS Instructional Superintendent for Cluster 4; and Chancellor Lewis Ferebee then became involved.

Parents explained that the guidance in DC Regulations has always been used by principals across DC for decades to place children graduating from Pre-K4 into kindergarten. Unfortunately, rather than understanding that these children should not be forced to skip kindergarten due to an abrupt DCPS policy shift, DCPS decided to escalate matters.

(1) DCPS ordered an age audit of all Ward 3 elementary schools and began disenrolling children that had already previously been enrolled in kindergarten.

(2) Chancellor Ferebee and his staff ordered families to pull their children from the 5-day-a-week Pre-K programs they were attending, with two months left in the school year, and to enroll in DCPS kindergarten. When parents refused, DCPS retaliated by reporting the parents to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect due to purported truancy.

(3) DCPS refused to allow families moving in from other states, whose children could not previously attend kindergarten, to be able to attend this year.

(4) Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

(5) Chancellor Ferebee has refused to assess academic proficiency or physical, social or emotional development before voiding prior age-waivers already granted by DCPS or to even provide assessments this spring. The Chancellor’s position is that he will assess the children in the fall as first graders, after they are forced to skip kindergarten, and if they struggle, then DCPS says it will consider demoting the children to kindergarten.

Some families just received notices of kindergarten disenrollment last week. Parents are understandably confused, panicked, and traumatized. None of these actions by DCPS are in the best interests of these children. This is intentional cruelty and retaliation by Chancellor Ferebee and DCPS leadership against parents who advocated for the best interests of their children. For months, parents have tried to work with the Chancellor, and all he has done is escalate his retaliation to harm more families. The Chancellor’s decision to report families with five-year-old-children attending five-day-a-week Pre-K4 to DC’s child protective service for neglect is unnecessary, chilling, and indefensible.

If a drastic change in DCPS kindergarten enrollment policy was contemplated, DCPS should have provided advance notice to pre-k facilities and to parents. Some impacted parents testified at our State Board of Education meeting that if they had any idea that DCPS was going to remove the enrollment discretion from its principals that had existed for decades, then they would have enrolled their children in kindergarten this year, instead of enrolling in Pre-K4.

SOLUTIONS

There is a very straightforward short-term solution to this, and I have drafted emergency legislation that will solve the immediate problem. None of these families have done anything wrong, and their children should not be victims of DCPS’s poor planning, lack of notice, and sudden policy change. Every one of these children should be allowed to attend kindergarten in School Year 2025-2026. Further, since students have already enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs for next school year, children completing Pre-K4 in 2026 should also be allowed to next attend kindergarten in the 2026-2027 school year. The DC State Board of Education can approve the transmission of this legislation to the DC Council, and then it will be up to the Council to approve the legislation on an emergency basis. SBOE will vote on the transmission of the bill either this week or the following week. The legislation also provides that no family can be reported by DCPS for child neglect, while their child is attending a pre-k program.

There must also be a long-term fix to prevent further confusion and trauma in School Year 2027-2028 and beyond. DC should either align enrollment dates between private and public pre-k providers, or at least provide clear guidance to parents. DC must have a fair and reliable process for families with children who have developmental delays to request waivers. This solution should be developed in a thoughtful manner over the next six months and should include early childhood development experts. After a policy is set for School Year 2027-2028, there should be clear communication with private and parochial pre-k schools and parents. In some cases, pre-k facilities may want to change their licensure to also become licensed to serve 2-year-olds with September birthdays in Pre-K3.

REMINDER TO AFFECTED FAMILIES

I’d like to reiterate what I said at the beginning. If you are a family who has been told your child must skip kindergarten, or who DCPS has reported to CFSA for truancy and educational child neglect, please reach out to me at [e-mail]. I can only imagine how scared and frustrated you must be, but there are still people who want help ensure your child gets to attend kindergarten this coming fall.

Lastly, on Memorial Day, I want to express my gratitude and remember those who gave their lives to serve our nation. My sincere condolences to the friends and family of fallen heroes.

Sincerely,
Eric Goulet

It’s also posted on his twitter account. I like how he named all the offenders including the principal and the bureaucrats in the central office who really overplayed their hands antagonizing parents and voters.

Really brave reporting parents to child protective services. They should and will pay with their jobs. Guaranteed that parents are filing FOIAs and preparing lawsuits.

They are mandated reporters. These parents are technically committing educational neglect and have been very public about that fact.

Educational neglect! Ha!

Well, then why are they only doing this to award 3? There’s no neglect in other wards you say?

Also sure, they’re truant. Hold em back ….. in Kindergarten!!!!

I know others have already responded to you, but I think it's important for you to understand how off base this comment is.

Here's the CPS reports in DC by Ward for 2022 (the most recent year for with data is available at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in collaboration with DC Action):

City District of Columbia 2022 Number 939
Ward Ward 1 2022 Number 56
Ward Ward 2 2022 Number 20
Ward Ward 3 2022 Number 23
Ward Ward 4 2022 Number 76
Ward Ward 5 2022 Number 136
Ward Ward 6 2022 Number 50
Ward Ward 7 2022 Number 228
Ward Ward 8 2022 Number 338

Wards are balanced to have roughly similar populations, and Wards 7 and 8 actually have the smallest populations in the district (even more so in 2022 prior to redistricting).

Ward 7 has an 11x higher rate of CPS reports than Ward 3. Ward 8 has a 17x higher rate. Educational neglect is one of the most common reasons for CPS reports because DC uses the public school system as a way to identify kids at risk for abuse or neglect -- kids who are not being sent to school on time are also more likely to experience other forms of neglect and abuse, including failure to obtain needed medical or dental treatment, inadequate nutrition, housing insecurity, etc. So families that fail to enroll their children in kindergarten on time are highly likely to be investigated by CPS if the problem is identified. Whether that's because a neighbor reports it or because the parents go on the local news to explain that they didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten by age 5.

Now you might say, yeah but these kids aren't experiencing other forms of neglect! In fact the reason these parents didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten on time was because they care so much about their kids that they wanted to optimize their educational experience. Well, I'm glad you mentioned this because guess what, that is also what parents in other wards say when they are investigated by CPS for failure to enroll on time. "He isn't ready for kindergarten, we decided he's better off at home with grandma until he's 6." How receptive do you think CPS is to these arguments for parents in Wards 7 and 8? I can assure you: not very.

The idea that DCPS, or CPS, is somehow *targeting* Ward 3 families on this issue is laughable. As a general matter, families in Ward 3 who are wealthy and white are given much broader latitude by CPS than families of other races and lower socioeconomic levels. However, these Ward 3 families chose to advertise their behavior on television and announce it on list serves, which puts the city in a situation where they pretty much have to enforce these rules and investigate these families just as they would a low income black or Hispanic family in another ward. The Ward 3 families gave the city no real other choice.

If they wanted to change the rules about enrollment for the whole city, they should have lobbied for that but also followed the same rules that every other family in the city is expected to follow. The idea that a handful of wealthy white schools in upper NW get to violate these rules because.... reasons is just ridiculous on its face. And now that those handful of schools are being forced to comply the way everyone else in the city has been complying for years, NOW they are arguing the entire system should be changed? So brave.

+1000

Well stated. And school faculty and staff and explicitly trained to call CPS anytime there are concerns of neglect or abuse. This is clearly spelled out. The person who keeps responding that this isn’t neglect is really saying “it isn’t neglect because these families are in upper NW.” They don’t even try to address the data mentioned above . And don’t even try to mention how much less latitude families in those other wards get for excessive absences. . . the system favors families in Ward 3.

The calling of CPS was clearly retaliatory. That’s why there’s a policy draft that parents can’t be reported if their child is enrolled in preK.

It wasn’t neglect because CPS didn’t find it was neglect, so put that to rest.

If you know how school faculty and staff are trained it’s to report any concerns of neglect or abuse. Examples are outlined in these trainings. It is also made very clear that it is not up to faculty and staff to determine if it is actual neglect or abuse. That investigation is up to CPS. You can now put your comments to rest because you don’t know what the protocols are for school based personnel. Or the threats that are made to them if they don’t report these situations.

We know the district selectively reported two parents that disagreed with their kids placement. That was very stupid of them and I hope the parents sue the district for harassment.

You have FOIA'd documentation that says that DCPS only reported students because they disliked their parents? Like it says that was the reason and not that put themselves into the news and now the school district was made aware?

If you have that proof yeah I agree they shouldn't use political power against individual families. They do though by law have to investigate families that don't send their kids to school.

Do you not know how to read? The kid was in school, he was in pre-kindergarten!

Obviously I don’t have FOIA documentation, but circumstantial evidence points towards a school abuse. Should I go by your rambling speculations, or a public statement from a school board member who is also a lawyer?

I said it multiple times, nobody cares what you personally think.

Not all PKs are eligible. It depends whether they went through the process to qualify to count as an actual school. Also, I heard that one of the kids -- probably not one mentioned here "coincidentally" -- wasn't enrolled in any school.

At this point you’re just pretending to be stupid on purpose. Or maybe you’re actually not faking it. Read what was posted about the PKs in the public statement.

Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

So DCPS rescinds the waver, forces kids to move up a grade and when parents push back they call CPS on those parents.

That’s low by any standards.

This is the first that I am hearing that IEPs were involved. Is this true?

+1, this is the first reference I've heard of approved enrollment deferrals. If that is the case, I would support the parents in putting their kids in K. I know other parents who have done the same (obtained an enrollment deferral due to developmental issues and teacher recommendations) and I don't know anyone who would disagree with that.

But the way this has been discussed and reported on makes it sound like these parents did NOT obtain prior approval of their deferrals, but just chose to keep their 5 yr olds in private PK on the assumption they would be able to enroll them in K the following year, and then when they were placed in 1st instead, started fighting back.

This debate is totally different depending on which facts apply.

You have very strong opinions on this topic but can’t be bothered to read the only official public statement detailing the allegations in this matter, which was already posted in the thread a few pages back.

Gtfoh.

Nothing has been posted that answers these questions

[Anonymous]

I can’t believe there is this much hoopla over starting your kid in kindergarten when they are five or when they are six. I’m very glad I live in a school district that allows the parents to make the decision for themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe there is this much hoopla over starting your kid in kindergarten when they are five or when they are six. I’m very glad I live in a school district that allows the parents to make the decision for themselves.

This.

Unfortunately there are striver parents that have the impression that a kid starting kindergarten later will steal all opportunities from other kids.

Other lunatics in the thread imagine these boys will turn into rapists that will molest their studios 13 yo girl because they are in the same class. No joke!

These people need some serious mental health treatment.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone seen this bonkers newsletter from Eric Goulet, the Ward 3 SBOE rep? It’s a very lengthy piece about how DCPS is now throwing people out of of kindergarten following a Ward wide age audit? Doesn’t seem like DCPS would have its act together to pull something like that off. Are the Lafayette moms behind this? Newsletter was posted on the CC Listseve, which is sort of tabloid like on a good day.

Yes, it was on the Tenleytown one too. Here it is for those interested:

This edition of the Ward 3 DC State Board of Education (SBOE) newsletter focuses on troubling actions by Chancellor Lewis Ferebee and DC Public School (DCPS) leadership that are needlessly traumatizing DC families who just want to send their children to kindergarten next fall. DCPS has abruptly changed policy regarding kindergarten age of enrollment without notice, informed families their children must skip kindergarten and go directly to first grade, and has retaliated against families who pushed back by reporting them to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect. If any family, who has not already been working with me on this issue, has been impacted by these actions, please reach out to me at [e-mail].

BACKGROUND ON DC KINDERGARTEN ENROLLMENT

The District of Columbia has one of the youngest ages in the country at which a child is eligible for kindergarten enrollment. In DC, a child is required to turn five on or before September 30th to be eligible to attend kindergarten. With such a young eligibility age, for decades, some parents with youth who have summer birthdays have decided it was necessary to defer kindergarten enrollment due to academic delays or maturity issues.

Maryland and Virginia, which have age cutoffs of September 1st and September 30th, allow a parent to delay kindergarten enrollment for up to one year with a written request for a maturity exception. A Maryland deferral request requires enrollment in a childcare or pre-K program, while a Virginia parent’s deferral request just needs to include documentation supporting enrollment delay. In the District of Columbia, prior to this year, principals have always utilized the discretion provided in the DC Municipal Regulations (2201.6) to ensure students who are not proficient or who have developmental delays in physical, social or emotional maturity are placed in the appropriate grade level, thus allowing children completing Pre-K4 to progress to kindergarten.

Due to school overcrowding, Ward 3 is the only ward in the District of Columbia that has no DCPS Pre-K3, and it has very limited public options through one charter school and community-based pre-k. Thus, many families are forced to enroll students in private or parochial pre-kindergarten programs. Historically, many of these facilities simply have aligned enrollment based upon the child’s age at the start of the school year, and have applied for licenses that are consistent with serving 3- and 4-year-olds in Pre-K 3 and serving 4- and 5-year-olds in Pre-K4. Thus, a student would need to turn three before starting Pre-K3 at a private school, whereas they often needs to turn three by September 30th to enroll in public Pre-K3. This one-month enrollment misalignment has never been an issue, prior to this year, because a Pre-K4 graduate was always just allowed to advance to kindergarten as the next logical step in their education.

Lastly, I know of an example, where a family moved into DC from a state with a kindergarten age cutoff of September 1st. Since the child has a mid-September birthday, this child was unable to register for kindergarten in the state from which they moved. Historically, upon moving to DC, this family would have been offered the choice of whether they wanted to attend first grade in DC (since DC has a September 30 age cutoff) or whether they wanted the opportunity to attend kindergarten.

Again, there was never a problem with kindergarten enrollment prior to this year. Principals were allowed to exercise their discretion to place children in the appropriate grade based on the child’s academic progress and development.

DCPS LEADERSHIP ABUSES ITS DISCRETION AND INTIMIDATES AND TRAUMATIZES DC FAMILIES

The unfortunate situation at issue began at Lafayette Elementary School with Principal Katie Prall. Some may remember this principal for restricting outdoor recess this past December after alleging the play area was “slippery”. Principal Prall did not utilize the guidance in DC regulations regarding proficiency and physical, social or emotional development to base her decisions. She refused to allow students with birthdays before October 1st to advance from Pre-K4 to Kindergarten, and instead said these students must skip kindergarten and enroll in first grade. Cinthia Ruiz, DCPS Chief Integrity Officer; Andria Caruthers, DCPS Instructional Superintendent for Cluster 4; and Chancellor Lewis Ferebee then became involved.

Parents explained that the guidance in DC Regulations has always been used by principals across DC for decades to place children graduating from Pre-K4 into kindergarten. Unfortunately, rather than understanding that these children should not be forced to skip kindergarten due to an abrupt DCPS policy shift, DCPS decided to escalate matters.

(1) DCPS ordered an age audit of all Ward 3 elementary schools and began disenrolling children that had already previously been enrolled in kindergarten.

(2) Chancellor Ferebee and his staff ordered families to pull their children from the 5-day-a-week Pre-K programs they were attending, with two months left in the school year, and to enroll in DCPS kindergarten. When parents refused, DCPS retaliated by reporting the parents to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect due to purported truancy.

(3) DCPS refused to allow families moving in from other states, whose children could not previously attend kindergarten, to be able to attend this year.

(4) Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

(5) Chancellor Ferebee has refused to assess academic proficiency or physical, social or emotional development before voiding prior age-waivers already granted by DCPS or to even provide assessments this spring. The Chancellor’s position is that he will assess the children in the fall as first graders, after they are forced to skip kindergarten, and if they struggle, then DCPS says it will consider demoting the children to kindergarten.

Some families just received notices of kindergarten disenrollment last week. Parents are understandably confused, panicked, and traumatized. None of these actions by DCPS are in the best interests of these children. This is intentional cruelty and retaliation by Chancellor Ferebee and DCPS leadership against parents who advocated for the best interests of their children. For months, parents have tried to work with the Chancellor, and all he has done is escalate his retaliation to harm more families. The Chancellor’s decision to report families with five-year-old-children attending five-day-a-week Pre-K4 to DC’s child protective service for neglect is unnecessary, chilling, and indefensible.

If a drastic change in DCPS kindergarten enrollment policy was contemplated, DCPS should have provided advance notice to pre-k facilities and to parents. Some impacted parents testified at our State Board of Education meeting that if they had any idea that DCPS was going to remove the enrollment discretion from its principals that had existed for decades, then they would have enrolled their children in kindergarten this year, instead of enrolling in Pre-K4.

SOLUTIONS

There is a very straightforward short-term solution to this, and I have drafted emergency legislation that will solve the immediate problem. None of these families have done anything wrong, and their children should not be victims of DCPS’s poor planning, lack of notice, and sudden policy change. Every one of these children should be allowed to attend kindergarten in School Year 2025-2026. Further, since students have already enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs for next school year, children completing Pre-K4 in 2026 should also be allowed to next attend kindergarten in the 2026-2027 school year. The DC State Board of Education can approve the transmission of this legislation to the DC Council, and then it will be up to the Council to approve the legislation on an emergency basis. SBOE will vote on the transmission of the bill either this week or the following week. The legislation also provides that no family can be reported by DCPS for child neglect, while their child is attending a pre-k program.

There must also be a long-term fix to prevent further confusion and trauma in School Year 2027-2028 and beyond. DC should either align enrollment dates between private and public pre-k providers, or at least provide clear guidance to parents. DC must have a fair and reliable process for families with children who have developmental delays to request waivers. This solution should be developed in a thoughtful manner over the next six months and should include early childhood development experts. After a policy is set for School Year 2027-2028, there should be clear communication with private and parochial pre-k schools and parents. In some cases, pre-k facilities may want to change their licensure to also become licensed to serve 2-year-olds with September birthdays in Pre-K3.

REMINDER TO AFFECTED FAMILIES

I’d like to reiterate what I said at the beginning. If you are a family who has been told your child must skip kindergarten, or who DCPS has reported to CFSA for truancy and educational child neglect, please reach out to me at [e-mail]. I can only imagine how scared and frustrated you must be, but there are still people who want help ensure your child gets to attend kindergarten this coming fall.

Lastly, on Memorial Day, I want to express my gratitude and remember those who gave their lives to serve our nation. My sincere condolences to the friends and family of fallen heroes.

Sincerely,
Eric Goulet

It’s also posted on his twitter account. I like how he named all the offenders including the principal and the bureaucrats in the central office who really overplayed their hands antagonizing parents and voters.

Really brave reporting parents to child protective services. They should and will pay with their jobs. Guaranteed that parents are filing FOIAs and preparing lawsuits.

They are mandated reporters. These parents are technically committing educational neglect and have been very public about that fact.

Educational neglect! Ha!

Well, then why are they only doing this to award 3? There’s no neglect in other wards you say?

Also sure, they’re truant. Hold em back ….. in Kindergarten!!!!

I know others have already responded to you, but I think it's important for you to understand how off base this comment is.

Here's the CPS reports in DC by Ward for 2022 (the most recent year for with data is available at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in collaboration with DC Action):

City District of Columbia 2022 Number 939
Ward Ward 1 2022 Number 56
Ward Ward 2 2022 Number 20
Ward Ward 3 2022 Number 23
Ward Ward 4 2022 Number 76
Ward Ward 5 2022 Number 136
Ward Ward 6 2022 Number 50
Ward Ward 7 2022 Number 228
Ward Ward 8 2022 Number 338

Wards are balanced to have roughly similar populations, and Wards 7 and 8 actually have the smallest populations in the district (even more so in 2022 prior to redistricting).

Ward 7 has an 11x higher rate of CPS reports than Ward 3. Ward 8 has a 17x higher rate. Educational neglect is one of the most common reasons for CPS reports because DC uses the public school system as a way to identify kids at risk for abuse or neglect -- kids who are not being sent to school on time are also more likely to experience other forms of neglect and abuse, including failure to obtain needed medical or dental treatment, inadequate nutrition, housing insecurity, etc. So families that fail to enroll their children in kindergarten on time are highly likely to be investigated by CPS if the problem is identified. Whether that's because a neighbor reports it or because the parents go on the local news to explain that they didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten by age 5.

Now you might say, yeah but these kids aren't experiencing other forms of neglect! In fact the reason these parents didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten on time was because they care so much about their kids that they wanted to optimize their educational experience. Well, I'm glad you mentioned this because guess what, that is also what parents in other wards say when they are investigated by CPS for failure to enroll on time. "He isn't ready for kindergarten, we decided he's better off at home with grandma until he's 6." How receptive do you think CPS is to these arguments for parents in Wards 7 and 8? I can assure you: not very.

The idea that DCPS, or CPS, is somehow *targeting* Ward 3 families on this issue is laughable. As a general matter, families in Ward 3 who are wealthy and white are given much broader latitude by CPS than families of other races and lower socioeconomic levels. However, these Ward 3 families chose to advertise their behavior on television and announce it on list serves, which puts the city in a situation where they pretty much have to enforce these rules and investigate these families just as they would a low income black or Hispanic family in another ward. The Ward 3 families gave the city no real other choice.

If they wanted to change the rules about enrollment for the whole city, they should have lobbied for that but also followed the same rules that every other family in the city is expected to follow. The idea that a handful of wealthy white schools in upper NW get to violate these rules because.... reasons is just ridiculous on its face. And now that those handful of schools are being forced to comply the way everyone else in the city has been complying for years, NOW they are arguing the entire system should be changed? So brave.

+1000

Well stated. And school faculty and staff and explicitly trained to call CPS anytime there are concerns of neglect or abuse. This is clearly spelled out. The person who keeps responding that this isn’t neglect is really saying “it isn’t neglect because these families are in upper NW.” They don’t even try to address the data mentioned above . And don’t even try to mention how much less latitude families in those other wards get for excessive absences. . . the system favors families in Ward 3.

The calling of CPS was clearly retaliatory. That’s why there’s a policy draft that parents can’t be reported if their child is enrolled in preK.

It wasn’t neglect because CPS didn’t find it was neglect, so put that to rest.

If you know how school faculty and staff are trained it’s to report any concerns of neglect or abuse. Examples are outlined in these trainings. It is also made very clear that it is not up to faculty and staff to determine if it is actual neglect or abuse. That investigation is up to CPS. You can now put your comments to rest because you don’t know what the protocols are for school based personnel. Or the threats that are made to them if they don’t report these situations.

We know the district selectively reported two parents that disagreed with their kids placement. That was very stupid of them and I hope the parents sue the district for harassment.

You have FOIA'd documentation that says that DCPS only reported students because they disliked their parents? Like it says that was the reason and not that put themselves into the news and now the school district was made aware?

If you have that proof yeah I agree they shouldn't use political power against individual families. They do though by law have to investigate families that don't send their kids to school.

Do you not know how to read? The kid was in school, he was in pre-kindergarten!

Obviously I don’t have FOIA documentation, but circumstantial evidence points towards a school abuse. Should I go by your rambling speculations, or a public statement from a school board member who is also a lawyer?

I said it multiple times, nobody cares what you personally think.

Not all PKs are eligible. It depends whether they went through the process to qualify to count as an actual school. Also, I heard that one of the kids -- probably not one mentioned here "coincidentally" -- wasn't enrolled in any school.

At this point you’re just pretending to be stupid on purpose. Or maybe you’re actually not faking it. Read what was posted about the PKs in the public statement.

Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

So DCPS rescinds the waver, forces kids to move up a grade and when parents push back they call CPS on those parents.

That’s low by any standards.

This is the first that I am hearing that IEPs were involved. Is this true?

+1, this is the first reference I've heard of approved enrollment deferrals. If that is the case, I would support the parents in putting their kids in K. I know other parents who have done the same (obtained an enrollment deferral due to developmental issues and teacher recommendations) and I don't know anyone who would disagree with that.

But the way this has been discussed and reported on makes it sound like these parents did NOT obtain prior approval of their deferrals, but just chose to keep their 5 yr olds in private PK on the assumption they would be able to enroll them in K the following year, and then when they were placed in 1st instead, started fighting back.

This debate is totally different depending on which facts apply.

Agree. And Goulet’s email also mentions that DCPS said it would assess kids in 1st and might send them to K if necessary.

I still think this is not right if the child had an IEP - the decision to redshirt should have been made in that context (even though as I understand it, redshirting is not an IEP accommodation per se). But for kids who just attempt to enroll in K past the age cutoff (because they came from another state, stayed home, or were in PK an extra year) it makes some sense for them to go into 1st then make a decision.

The parent who has been most outspoken about this admits that she wanted to redshirt her child and assumed she could because she had done the same thing with their older sibling. There has been zero suggestion that that child has or needs an IEP and I think a poster in this thread is just making things up. Also, at least one of the parents wasn't in DC last year and so definitely did not have a previous deferral form. Also, none of the emergency legislation requries any of these things -- so even if you think these particular parents (or some of them) deserve a break for whatever reason, principal's discretion (which is the status quo) is 100% not what they are pushing for. I think there are just tons of fake facts floating around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe there is this much hoopla over starting your kid in kindergarten when they are five or when they are six. I’m very glad I live in a school district that allows the parents to make the decision for themselves.

I think it’s sad parents and preschools aren’t preparing kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe there is this much hoopla over starting your kid in kindergarten when they are five or when they are six. I’m very glad I live in a school district that allows the parents to make the decision for themselves.

This.

Unfortunately there are striver parents that have the impression that a kid starting kindergarten later will steal all opportunities from other kids.

Other lunatics in the thread imagine these boys will turn into rapists that will molest their studios 13 yo girl because they are in the same class. No joke!

These people need some serious mental health treatment.

These kids who are held back for maturity need mental health treatment as do their parents to better met their needs.

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Anonymous wrote:Has anyone seen this bonkers newsletter from Eric Goulet, the Ward 3 SBOE rep? It’s a very lengthy piece about how DCPS is now throwing people out of of kindergarten following a Ward wide age audit? Doesn’t seem like DCPS would have its act together to pull something like that off. Are the Lafayette moms behind this? Newsletter was posted on the CC Listseve, which is sort of tabloid like on a good day.

Yes, it was on the Tenleytown one too. Here it is for those interested:

This edition of the Ward 3 DC State Board of Education (SBOE) newsletter focuses on troubling actions by Chancellor Lewis Ferebee and DC Public School (DCPS) leadership that are needlessly traumatizing DC families who just want to send their children to kindergarten next fall. DCPS has abruptly changed policy regarding kindergarten age of enrollment without notice, informed families their children must skip kindergarten and go directly to first grade, and has retaliated against families who pushed back by reporting them to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect. If any family, who has not already been working with me on this issue, has been impacted by these actions, please reach out to me at [e-mail].

BACKGROUND ON DC KINDERGARTEN ENROLLMENT

The District of Columbia has one of the youngest ages in the country at which a child is eligible for kindergarten enrollment. In DC, a child is required to turn five on or before September 30th to be eligible to attend kindergarten. With such a young eligibility age, for decades, some parents with youth who have summer birthdays have decided it was necessary to defer kindergarten enrollment due to academic delays or maturity issues.

Maryland and Virginia, which have age cutoffs of September 1st and September 30th, allow a parent to delay kindergarten enrollment for up to one year with a written request for a maturity exception. A Maryland deferral request requires enrollment in a childcare or pre-K program, while a Virginia parent’s deferral request just needs to include documentation supporting enrollment delay. In the District of Columbia, prior to this year, principals have always utilized the discretion provided in the DC Municipal Regulations (2201.6) to ensure students who are not proficient or who have developmental delays in physical, social or emotional maturity are placed in the appropriate grade level, thus allowing children completing Pre-K4 to progress to kindergarten.

Due to school overcrowding, Ward 3 is the only ward in the District of Columbia that has no DCPS Pre-K3, and it has very limited public options through one charter school and community-based pre-k. Thus, many families are forced to enroll students in private or parochial pre-kindergarten programs. Historically, many of these facilities simply have aligned enrollment based upon the child’s age at the start of the school year, and have applied for licenses that are consistent with serving 3- and 4-year-olds in Pre-K 3 and serving 4- and 5-year-olds in Pre-K4. Thus, a student would need to turn three before starting Pre-K3 at a private school, whereas they often needs to turn three by September 30th to enroll in public Pre-K3. This one-month enrollment misalignment has never been an issue, prior to this year, because a Pre-K4 graduate was always just allowed to advance to kindergarten as the next logical step in their education.

Lastly, I know of an example, where a family moved into DC from a state with a kindergarten age cutoff of September 1st. Since the child has a mid-September birthday, this child was unable to register for kindergarten in the state from which they moved. Historically, upon moving to DC, this family would have been offered the choice of whether they wanted to attend first grade in DC (since DC has a September 30 age cutoff) or whether they wanted the opportunity to attend kindergarten.

Again, there was never a problem with kindergarten enrollment prior to this year. Principals were allowed to exercise their discretion to place children in the appropriate grade based on the child’s academic progress and development.

DCPS LEADERSHIP ABUSES ITS DISCRETION AND INTIMIDATES AND TRAUMATIZES DC FAMILIES

The unfortunate situation at issue began at Lafayette Elementary School with Principal Katie Prall. Some may remember this principal for restricting outdoor recess this past December after alleging the play area was “slippery”. Principal Prall did not utilize the guidance in DC regulations regarding proficiency and physical, social or emotional development to base her decisions. She refused to allow students with birthdays before October 1st to advance from Pre-K4 to Kindergarten, and instead said these students must skip kindergarten and enroll in first grade. Cinthia Ruiz, DCPS Chief Integrity Officer; Andria Caruthers, DCPS Instructional Superintendent for Cluster 4; and Chancellor Lewis Ferebee then became involved.

Parents explained that the guidance in DC Regulations has always been used by principals across DC for decades to place children graduating from Pre-K4 into kindergarten. Unfortunately, rather than understanding that these children should not be forced to skip kindergarten due to an abrupt DCPS policy shift, DCPS decided to escalate matters.

(1) DCPS ordered an age audit of all Ward 3 elementary schools and began disenrolling children that had already previously been enrolled in kindergarten.

(2) Chancellor Ferebee and his staff ordered families to pull their children from the 5-day-a-week Pre-K programs they were attending, with two months left in the school year, and to enroll in DCPS kindergarten. When parents refused, DCPS retaliated by reporting the parents to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect due to purported truancy.

(3) DCPS refused to allow families moving in from other states, whose children could not previously attend kindergarten, to be able to attend this year.

(4) Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

(5) Chancellor Ferebee has refused to assess academic proficiency or physical, social or emotional development before voiding prior age-waivers already granted by DCPS or to even provide assessments this spring. The Chancellor’s position is that he will assess the children in the fall as first graders, after they are forced to skip kindergarten, and if they struggle, then DCPS says it will consider demoting the children to kindergarten.

Some families just received notices of kindergarten disenrollment last week. Parents are understandably confused, panicked, and traumatized. None of these actions by DCPS are in the best interests of these children. This is intentional cruelty and retaliation by Chancellor Ferebee and DCPS leadership against parents who advocated for the best interests of their children. For months, parents have tried to work with the Chancellor, and all he has done is escalate his retaliation to harm more families. The Chancellor’s decision to report families with five-year-old-children attending five-day-a-week Pre-K4 to DC’s child protective service for neglect is unnecessary, chilling, and indefensible.

If a drastic change in DCPS kindergarten enrollment policy was contemplated, DCPS should have provided advance notice to pre-k facilities and to parents. Some impacted parents testified at our State Board of Education meeting that if they had any idea that DCPS was going to remove the enrollment discretion from its principals that had existed for decades, then they would have enrolled their children in kindergarten this year, instead of enrolling in Pre-K4.

SOLUTIONS

There is a very straightforward short-term solution to this, and I have drafted emergency legislation that will solve the immediate problem. None of these families have done anything wrong, and their children should not be victims of DCPS’s poor planning, lack of notice, and sudden policy change. Every one of these children should be allowed to attend kindergarten in School Year 2025-2026. Further, since students have already enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs for next school year, children completing Pre-K4 in 2026 should also be allowed to next attend kindergarten in the 2026-2027 school year. The DC State Board of Education can approve the transmission of this legislation to the DC Council, and then it will be up to the Council to approve the legislation on an emergency basis. SBOE will vote on the transmission of the bill either this week or the following week. The legislation also provides that no family can be reported by DCPS for child neglect, while their child is attending a pre-k program.

There must also be a long-term fix to prevent further confusion and trauma in School Year 2027-2028 and beyond. DC should either align enrollment dates between private and public pre-k providers, or at least provide clear guidance to parents. DC must have a fair and reliable process for families with children who have developmental delays to request waivers. This solution should be developed in a thoughtful manner over the next six months and should include early childhood development experts. After a policy is set for School Year 2027-2028, there should be clear communication with private and parochial pre-k schools and parents. In some cases, pre-k facilities may want to change their licensure to also become licensed to serve 2-year-olds with September birthdays in Pre-K3.

REMINDER TO AFFECTED FAMILIES

I’d like to reiterate what I said at the beginning. If you are a family who has been told your child must skip kindergarten, or who DCPS has reported to CFSA for truancy and educational child neglect, please reach out to me at [e-mail]. I can only imagine how scared and frustrated you must be, but there are still people who want help ensure your child gets to attend kindergarten this coming fall.

Lastly, on Memorial Day, I want to express my gratitude and remember those who gave their lives to serve our nation. My sincere condolences to the friends and family of fallen heroes.

Sincerely,
Eric Goulet

It’s also posted on his twitter account. I like how he named all the offenders including the principal and the bureaucrats in the central office who really overplayed their hands antagonizing parents and voters.

Really brave reporting parents to child protective services. They should and will pay with their jobs. Guaranteed that parents are filing FOIAs and preparing lawsuits.

They are mandated reporters. These parents are technically committing educational neglect and have been very public about that fact.

Educational neglect! Ha!

Well, then why are they only doing this to award 3? There’s no neglect in other wards you say?

Also sure, they’re truant. Hold em back ….. in Kindergarten!!!!

I know others have already responded to you, but I think it's important for you to understand how off base this comment is.

Here's the CPS reports in DC by Ward for 2022 (the most recent year for with data is available at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in collaboration with DC Action):

City District of Columbia 2022 Number 939
Ward Ward 1 2022 Number 56
Ward Ward 2 2022 Number 20
Ward Ward 3 2022 Number 23
Ward Ward 4 2022 Number 76
Ward Ward 5 2022 Number 136
Ward Ward 6 2022 Number 50
Ward Ward 7 2022 Number 228
Ward Ward 8 2022 Number 338

Wards are balanced to have roughly similar populations, and Wards 7 and 8 actually have the smallest populations in the district (even more so in 2022 prior to redistricting).

Ward 7 has an 11x higher rate of CPS reports than Ward 3. Ward 8 has a 17x higher rate. Educational neglect is one of the most common reasons for CPS reports because DC uses the public school system as a way to identify kids at risk for abuse or neglect -- kids who are not being sent to school on time are also more likely to experience other forms of neglect and abuse, including failure to obtain needed medical or dental treatment, inadequate nutrition, housing insecurity, etc. So families that fail to enroll their children in kindergarten on time are highly likely to be investigated by CPS if the problem is identified. Whether that's because a neighbor reports it or because the parents go on the local news to explain that they didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten by age 5.

Now you might say, yeah but these kids aren't experiencing other forms of neglect! In fact the reason these parents didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten on time was because they care so much about their kids that they wanted to optimize their educational experience. Well, I'm glad you mentioned this because guess what, that is also what parents in other wards say when they are investigated by CPS for failure to enroll on time. "He isn't ready for kindergarten, we decided he's better off at home with grandma until he's 6." How receptive do you think CPS is to these arguments for parents in Wards 7 and 8? I can assure you: not very.

The idea that DCPS, or CPS, is somehow *targeting* Ward 3 families on this issue is laughable. As a general matter, families in Ward 3 who are wealthy and white are given much broader latitude by CPS than families of other races and lower socioeconomic levels. However, these Ward 3 families chose to advertise their behavior on television and announce it on list serves, which puts the city in a situation where they pretty much have to enforce these rules and investigate these families just as they would a low income black or Hispanic family in another ward. The Ward 3 families gave the city no real other choice.

If they wanted to change the rules about enrollment for the whole city, they should have lobbied for that but also followed the same rules that every other family in the city is expected to follow. The idea that a handful of wealthy white schools in upper NW get to violate these rules because.... reasons is just ridiculous on its face. And now that those handful of schools are being forced to comply the way everyone else in the city has been complying for years, NOW they are arguing the entire system should be changed? So brave.

+1000

Well stated. And school faculty and staff and explicitly trained to call CPS anytime there are concerns of neglect or abuse. This is clearly spelled out. The person who keeps responding that this isn’t neglect is really saying “it isn’t neglect because these families are in upper NW.” They don’t even try to address the data mentioned above . And don’t even try to mention how much less latitude families in those other wards get for excessive absences. . . the system favors families in Ward 3.

The calling of CPS was clearly retaliatory. That’s why there’s a policy draft that parents can’t be reported if their child is enrolled in preK.

It wasn’t neglect because CPS didn’t find it was neglect, so put that to rest.

If you know how school faculty and staff are trained it’s to report any concerns of neglect or abuse. Examples are outlined in these trainings. It is also made very clear that it is not up to faculty and staff to determine if it is actual neglect or abuse. That investigation is up to CPS. You can now put your comments to rest because you don’t know what the protocols are for school based personnel. Or the threats that are made to them if they don’t report these situations.

We know the district selectively reported two parents that disagreed with their kids placement. That was very stupid of them and I hope the parents sue the district for harassment.

You have FOIA'd documentation that says that DCPS only reported students because they disliked their parents? Like it says that was the reason and not that put themselves into the news and now the school district was made aware?

If you have that proof yeah I agree they shouldn't use political power against individual families. They do though by law have to investigate families that don't send their kids to school.

Do you not know how to read? The kid was in school, he was in pre-kindergarten!

Obviously I don’t have FOIA documentation, but circumstantial evidence points towards a school abuse. Should I go by your rambling speculations, or a public statement from a school board member who is also a lawyer?

I said it multiple times, nobody cares what you personally think.

Not all PKs are eligible. It depends whether they went through the process to qualify to count as an actual school. Also, I heard that one of the kids -- probably not one mentioned here "coincidentally" -- wasn't enrolled in any school.

At this point you’re just pretending to be stupid on purpose. Or maybe you’re actually not faking it. Read what was posted about the PKs in the public statement.

Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

So DCPS rescinds the waver, forces kids to move up a grade and when parents push back they call CPS on those parents.

That’s low by any standards.

This is the first that I am hearing that IEPs were involved. Is this true?

+1, this is the first reference I've heard of approved enrollment deferrals. If that is the case, I would support the parents in putting their kids in K. I know other parents who have done the same (obtained an enrollment deferral due to developmental issues and teacher recommendations) and I don't know anyone who would disagree with that.

But the way this has been discussed and reported on makes it sound like these parents did NOT obtain prior approval of their deferrals, but just chose to keep their 5 yr olds in private PK on the assumption they would be able to enroll them in K the following year, and then when they were placed in 1st instead, started fighting back.

This debate is totally different depending on which facts apply.

Agree. And Goulet’s email also mentions that DCPS said it would assess kids in 1st and might send them to K if necessary.

I still think this is not right if the child had an IEP - the decision to redshirt should have been made in that context (even though as I understand it, redshirting is not an IEP accommodation per se). But for kids who just attempt to enroll in K past the age cutoff (because they came from another state, stayed home, or were in PK an extra year) it makes some sense for them to go into 1st then make a decision.

None of these kids have special needs. They have lazy parents who want it easier on themselves and cannot bother working with their kids.

[Anonymous]

I’ll start with a caveat that I don’t want to stereotype or paint with a broad brush, however many immigrant parents bring an extremely unhealthy competitive background. To the point of assuming everyone is in direct competition and everyone is scheming to get an unfair advantage however minute.

Also in these cultures there is a broad ignorance about mental health issues and many of these posters exhibit troublesome paranoia traits that have little anchoring in reality.

I’m sympathetic to these people whom were active posters in this thread, but they end up hurting people around them including their own kids. It’s important to bring awareness and perspective.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Has anyone seen this bonkers newsletter from Eric Goulet, the Ward 3 SBOE rep? It’s a very lengthy piece about how DCPS is now throwing people out of of kindergarten following a Ward wide age audit? Doesn’t seem like DCPS would have its act together to pull something like that off. Are the Lafayette moms behind this? Newsletter was posted on the CC Listseve, which is sort of tabloid like on a good day.

Yes, it was on the Tenleytown one too. Here it is for those interested:

This edition of the Ward 3 DC State Board of Education (SBOE) newsletter focuses on troubling actions by Chancellor Lewis Ferebee and DC Public School (DCPS) leadership that are needlessly traumatizing DC families who just want to send their children to kindergarten next fall. DCPS has abruptly changed policy regarding kindergarten age of enrollment without notice, informed families their children must skip kindergarten and go directly to first grade, and has retaliated against families who pushed back by reporting them to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect. If any family, who has not already been working with me on this issue, has been impacted by these actions, please reach out to me at [e-mail].

BACKGROUND ON DC KINDERGARTEN ENROLLMENT

The District of Columbia has one of the youngest ages in the country at which a child is eligible for kindergarten enrollment. In DC, a child is required to turn five on or before September 30th to be eligible to attend kindergarten. With such a young eligibility age, for decades, some parents with youth who have summer birthdays have decided it was necessary to defer kindergarten enrollment due to academic delays or maturity issues.

Maryland and Virginia, which have age cutoffs of September 1st and September 30th, allow a parent to delay kindergarten enrollment for up to one year with a written request for a maturity exception. A Maryland deferral request requires enrollment in a childcare or pre-K program, while a Virginia parent’s deferral request just needs to include documentation supporting enrollment delay. In the District of Columbia, prior to this year, principals have always utilized the discretion provided in the DC Municipal Regulations (2201.6) to ensure students who are not proficient or who have developmental delays in physical, social or emotional maturity are placed in the appropriate grade level, thus allowing children completing Pre-K4 to progress to kindergarten.

Due to school overcrowding, Ward 3 is the only ward in the District of Columbia that has no DCPS Pre-K3, and it has very limited public options through one charter school and community-based pre-k. Thus, many families are forced to enroll students in private or parochial pre-kindergarten programs. Historically, many of these facilities simply have aligned enrollment based upon the child’s age at the start of the school year, and have applied for licenses that are consistent with serving 3- and 4-year-olds in Pre-K 3 and serving 4- and 5-year-olds in Pre-K4. Thus, a student would need to turn three before starting Pre-K3 at a private school, whereas they often needs to turn three by September 30th to enroll in public Pre-K3. This one-month enrollment misalignment has never been an issue, prior to this year, because a Pre-K4 graduate was always just allowed to advance to kindergarten as the next logical step in their education.

Lastly, I know of an example, where a family moved into DC from a state with a kindergarten age cutoff of September 1st. Since the child has a mid-September birthday, this child was unable to register for kindergarten in the state from which they moved. Historically, upon moving to DC, this family would have been offered the choice of whether they wanted to attend first grade in DC (since DC has a September 30 age cutoff) or whether they wanted the opportunity to attend kindergarten.

Again, there was never a problem with kindergarten enrollment prior to this year. Principals were allowed to exercise their discretion to place children in the appropriate grade based on the child’s academic progress and development.

DCPS LEADERSHIP ABUSES ITS DISCRETION AND INTIMIDATES AND TRAUMATIZES DC FAMILIES

The unfortunate situation at issue began at Lafayette Elementary School with Principal Katie Prall. Some may remember this principal for restricting outdoor recess this past December after alleging the play area was “slippery”. Principal Prall did not utilize the guidance in DC regulations regarding proficiency and physical, social or emotional development to base her decisions. She refused to allow students with birthdays before October 1st to advance from Pre-K4 to Kindergarten, and instead said these students must skip kindergarten and enroll in first grade. Cinthia Ruiz, DCPS Chief Integrity Officer; Andria Caruthers, DCPS Instructional Superintendent for Cluster 4; and Chancellor Lewis Ferebee then became involved.

Parents explained that the guidance in DC Regulations has always been used by principals across DC for decades to place children graduating from Pre-K4 into kindergarten. Unfortunately, rather than understanding that these children should not be forced to skip kindergarten due to an abrupt DCPS policy shift, DCPS decided to escalate matters.

(1) DCPS ordered an age audit of all Ward 3 elementary schools and began disenrolling children that had already previously been enrolled in kindergarten.

(2) Chancellor Ferebee and his staff ordered families to pull their children from the 5-day-a-week Pre-K programs they were attending, with two months left in the school year, and to enroll in DCPS kindergarten. When parents refused, DCPS retaliated by reporting the parents to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect due to purported truancy.

(3) DCPS refused to allow families moving in from other states, whose children could not previously attend kindergarten, to be able to attend this year.

(4) Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

(5) Chancellor Ferebee has refused to assess academic proficiency or physical, social or emotional development before voiding prior age-waivers already granted by DCPS or to even provide assessments this spring. The Chancellor’s position is that he will assess the children in the fall as first graders, after they are forced to skip kindergarten, and if they struggle, then DCPS says it will consider demoting the children to kindergarten.

Some families just received notices of kindergarten disenrollment last week. Parents are understandably confused, panicked, and traumatized. None of these actions by DCPS are in the best interests of these children. This is intentional cruelty and retaliation by Chancellor Ferebee and DCPS leadership against parents who advocated for the best interests of their children. For months, parents have tried to work with the Chancellor, and all he has done is escalate his retaliation to harm more families. The Chancellor’s decision to report families with five-year-old-children attending five-day-a-week Pre-K4 to DC’s child protective service for neglect is unnecessary, chilling, and indefensible.

If a drastic change in DCPS kindergarten enrollment policy was contemplated, DCPS should have provided advance notice to pre-k facilities and to parents. Some impacted parents testified at our State Board of Education meeting that if they had any idea that DCPS was going to remove the enrollment discretion from its principals that had existed for decades, then they would have enrolled their children in kindergarten this year, instead of enrolling in Pre-K4.

SOLUTIONS

There is a very straightforward short-term solution to this, and I have drafted emergency legislation that will solve the immediate problem. None of these families have done anything wrong, and their children should not be victims of DCPS’s poor planning, lack of notice, and sudden policy change. Every one of these children should be allowed to attend kindergarten in School Year 2025-2026. Further, since students have already enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs for next school year, children completing Pre-K4 in 2026 should also be allowed to next attend kindergarten in the 2026-2027 school year. The DC State Board of Education can approve the transmission of this legislation to the DC Council, and then it will be up to the Council to approve the legislation on an emergency basis. SBOE will vote on the transmission of the bill either this week or the following week. The legislation also provides that no family can be reported by DCPS for child neglect, while their child is attending a pre-k program.

There must also be a long-term fix to prevent further confusion and trauma in School Year 2027-2028 and beyond. DC should either align enrollment dates between private and public pre-k providers, or at least provide clear guidance to parents. DC must have a fair and reliable process for families with children who have developmental delays to request waivers. This solution should be developed in a thoughtful manner over the next six months and should include early childhood development experts. After a policy is set for School Year 2027-2028, there should be clear communication with private and parochial pre-k schools and parents. In some cases, pre-k facilities may want to change their licensure to also become licensed to serve 2-year-olds with September birthdays in Pre-K3.

REMINDER TO AFFECTED FAMILIES

I’d like to reiterate what I said at the beginning. If you are a family who has been told your child must skip kindergarten, or who DCPS has reported to CFSA for truancy and educational child neglect, please reach out to me at [e-mail]. I can only imagine how scared and frustrated you must be, but there are still people who want help ensure your child gets to attend kindergarten this coming fall.

Lastly, on Memorial Day, I want to express my gratitude and remember those who gave their lives to serve our nation. My sincere condolences to the friends and family of fallen heroes.

Sincerely,
Eric Goulet

It’s also posted on his twitter account. I like how he named all the offenders including the principal and the bureaucrats in the central office who really overplayed their hands antagonizing parents and voters.

Really brave reporting parents to child protective services. They should and will pay with their jobs. Guaranteed that parents are filing FOIAs and preparing lawsuits.

They are mandated reporters. These parents are technically committing educational neglect and have been very public about that fact.

Educational neglect! Ha!

Well, then why are they only doing this to award 3? There’s no neglect in other wards you say?

Also sure, they’re truant. Hold em back ….. in Kindergarten!!!!

I know others have already responded to you, but I think it's important for you to understand how off base this comment is.

Here's the CPS reports in DC by Ward for 2022 (the most recent year for with data is available at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in collaboration with DC Action):

City District of Columbia 2022 Number 939
Ward Ward 1 2022 Number 56
Ward Ward 2 2022 Number 20
Ward Ward 3 2022 Number 23
Ward Ward 4 2022 Number 76
Ward Ward 5 2022 Number 136
Ward Ward 6 2022 Number 50
Ward Ward 7 2022 Number 228
Ward Ward 8 2022 Number 338

Wards are balanced to have roughly similar populations, and Wards 7 and 8 actually have the smallest populations in the district (even more so in 2022 prior to redistricting).

Ward 7 has an 11x higher rate of CPS reports than Ward 3. Ward 8 has a 17x higher rate. Educational neglect is one of the most common reasons for CPS reports because DC uses the public school system as a way to identify kids at risk for abuse or neglect -- kids who are not being sent to school on time are also more likely to experience other forms of neglect and abuse, including failure to obtain needed medical or dental treatment, inadequate nutrition, housing insecurity, etc. So families that fail to enroll their children in kindergarten on time are highly likely to be investigated by CPS if the problem is identified. Whether that's because a neighbor reports it or because the parents go on the local news to explain that they didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten by age 5.

Now you might say, yeah but these kids aren't experiencing other forms of neglect! In fact the reason these parents didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten on time was because they care so much about their kids that they wanted to optimize their educational experience. Well, I'm glad you mentioned this because guess what, that is also what parents in other wards say when they are investigated by CPS for failure to enroll on time. "He isn't ready for kindergarten, we decided he's better off at home with grandma until he's 6." How receptive do you think CPS is to these arguments for parents in Wards 7 and 8? I can assure you: not very.

The idea that DCPS, or CPS, is somehow *targeting* Ward 3 families on this issue is laughable. As a general matter, families in Ward 3 who are wealthy and white are given much broader latitude by CPS than families of other races and lower socioeconomic levels. However, these Ward 3 families chose to advertise their behavior on television and announce it on list serves, which puts the city in a situation where they pretty much have to enforce these rules and investigate these families just as they would a low income black or Hispanic family in another ward. The Ward 3 families gave the city no real other choice.

If they wanted to change the rules about enrollment for the whole city, they should have lobbied for that but also followed the same rules that every other family in the city is expected to follow. The idea that a handful of wealthy white schools in upper NW get to violate these rules because.... reasons is just ridiculous on its face. And now that those handful of schools are being forced to comply the way everyone else in the city has been complying for years, NOW they are arguing the entire system should be changed? So brave.

+1000

Well stated. And school faculty and staff and explicitly trained to call CPS anytime there are concerns of neglect or abuse. This is clearly spelled out. The person who keeps responding that this isn’t neglect is really saying “it isn’t neglect because these families are in upper NW.” They don’t even try to address the data mentioned above . And don’t even try to mention how much less latitude families in those other wards get for excessive absences. . . the system favors families in Ward 3.

The calling of CPS was clearly retaliatory. That’s why there’s a policy draft that parents can’t be reported if their child is enrolled in preK.

It wasn’t neglect because CPS didn’t find it was neglect, so put that to rest.

If you know how school faculty and staff are trained it’s to report any concerns of neglect or abuse. Examples are outlined in these trainings. It is also made very clear that it is not up to faculty and staff to determine if it is actual neglect or abuse. That investigation is up to CPS. You can now put your comments to rest because you don’t know what the protocols are for school based personnel. Or the threats that are made to them if they don’t report these situations.

We know the district selectively reported two parents that disagreed with their kids placement. That was very stupid of them and I hope the parents sue the district for harassment.

You have FOIA'd documentation that says that DCPS only reported students because they disliked their parents? Like it says that was the reason and not that put themselves into the news and now the school district was made aware?

If you have that proof yeah I agree they shouldn't use political power against individual families. They do though by law have to investigate families that don't send their kids to school.

Do you not know how to read? The kid was in school, he was in pre-kindergarten!

Obviously I don’t have FOIA documentation, but circumstantial evidence points towards a school abuse. Should I go by your rambling speculations, or a public statement from a school board member who is also a lawyer?

I said it multiple times, nobody cares what you personally think.

Not all PKs are eligible. It depends whether they went through the process to qualify to count as an actual school. Also, I heard that one of the kids -- probably not one mentioned here "coincidentally" -- wasn't enrolled in any school.

At this point you’re just pretending to be stupid on purpose. Or maybe you’re actually not faking it. Read what was posted about the PKs in the public statement.

Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

So DCPS rescinds the waver, forces kids to move up a grade and when parents push back they call CPS on those parents.

That’s low by any standards.

This is the first that I am hearing that IEPs were involved. Is this true?

+1, this is the first reference I've heard of approved enrollment deferrals. If that is the case, I would support the parents in putting their kids in K. I know other parents who have done the same (obtained an enrollment deferral due to developmental issues and teacher recommendations) and I don't know anyone who would disagree with that.

But the way this has been discussed and reported on makes it sound like these parents did NOT obtain prior approval of their deferrals, but just chose to keep their 5 yr olds in private PK on the assumption they would be able to enroll them in K the following year, and then when they were placed in 1st instead, started fighting back.

This debate is totally different depending on which facts apply.

You have very strong opinions on this topic but can’t be bothered to read the only official public statement detailing the allegations in this matter, which was already posted in the thread a few pages back.

Gtfoh.

PP here, and before I show myself out, I will note that you are misreading that "official public statement" which is not actually an official statement but a campaign statement by the Ward 3 SBOE rep who is working WITH the parents asking for this exception and has drafted "emergency legislation" that would allow them to send their kid's to K.

But in any case, his statement does not say that the parents received IEPs last year with an enrollment waiver. Rather, he mentions that some districts in Maryland and Virginia both have flexible enrollment policies that enable parents to obtain enrollment waivers should they want to delay kindergarten for 5 yr olds with summer birthdays. However this system does not exist in DC, and there is no indiction that any of the parents now asking to enroll their 6 year olds in kindergarten spoke to DCPS prior to making the decision to keep their kids in private PK last year, or received IEPs or even a diagnosis of developmental delays that could be used for one.

On the contrary, the parents have presented from the beginning of this mess that they assumed they would be able to enroll their children in K at age 6 based on the actions of a prior principal at Lafayette. They have never indicated that their children have special needs that would necessitate a late start -- their contention has always been that they simply assumed they could get one and were surprised/angered when the new principal did not extend the same leeway.

So maybe actually I'll stay in the thread, since you seem to be inventing facts to suit your arguments, just so we can make sure we're all be truthful about what is happening here.

[Anonymous]

Many parents bring an extremely unhealthy competitive background. To the point of assuming everyone is in direct competition and everyone is scheming to get an unfair advantage however minute.

There is a broad ignorance about mental health issues and many of these posters exhibit troublesome paranoia traits that have little anchoring in reality.

I’m sympathetic to these people whom were active posters in this thread, but they end up hurting people around them including their own kids. It’s important to bring awareness and perspective.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Has anyone seen this bonkers newsletter from Eric Goulet, the Ward 3 SBOE rep? It’s a very lengthy piece about how DCPS is now throwing people out of of kindergarten following a Ward wide age audit? Doesn’t seem like DCPS would have its act together to pull something like that off. Are the Lafayette moms behind this? Newsletter was posted on the CC Listseve, which is sort of tabloid like on a good day.

Yes, it was on the Tenleytown one too. Here it is for those interested:

This edition of the Ward 3 DC State Board of Education (SBOE) newsletter focuses on troubling actions by Chancellor Lewis Ferebee and DC Public School (DCPS) leadership that are needlessly traumatizing DC families who just want to send their children to kindergarten next fall. DCPS has abruptly changed policy regarding kindergarten age of enrollment without notice, informed families their children must skip kindergarten and go directly to first grade, and has retaliated against families who pushed back by reporting them to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect. If any family, who has not already been working with me on this issue, has been impacted by these actions, please reach out to me at [e-mail].

BACKGROUND ON DC KINDERGARTEN ENROLLMENT

The District of Columbia has one of the youngest ages in the country at which a child is eligible for kindergarten enrollment. In DC, a child is required to turn five on or before September 30th to be eligible to attend kindergarten. With such a young eligibility age, for decades, some parents with youth who have summer birthdays have decided it was necessary to defer kindergarten enrollment due to academic delays or maturity issues.

Maryland and Virginia, which have age cutoffs of September 1st and September 30th, allow a parent to delay kindergarten enrollment for up to one year with a written request for a maturity exception. A Maryland deferral request requires enrollment in a childcare or pre-K program, while a Virginia parent’s deferral request just needs to include documentation supporting enrollment delay. In the District of Columbia, prior to this year, principals have always utilized the discretion provided in the DC Municipal Regulations (2201.6) to ensure students who are not proficient or who have developmental delays in physical, social or emotional maturity are placed in the appropriate grade level, thus allowing children completing Pre-K4 to progress to kindergarten.

Due to school overcrowding, Ward 3 is the only ward in the District of Columbia that has no DCPS Pre-K3, and it has very limited public options through one charter school and community-based pre-k. Thus, many families are forced to enroll students in private or parochial pre-kindergarten programs. Historically, many of these facilities simply have aligned enrollment based upon the child’s age at the start of the school year, and have applied for licenses that are consistent with serving 3- and 4-year-olds in Pre-K 3 and serving 4- and 5-year-olds in Pre-K4. Thus, a student would need to turn three before starting Pre-K3 at a private school, whereas they often needs to turn three by September 30th to enroll in public Pre-K3. This one-month enrollment misalignment has never been an issue, prior to this year, because a Pre-K4 graduate was always just allowed to advance to kindergarten as the next logical step in their education.

Lastly, I know of an example, where a family moved into DC from a state with a kindergarten age cutoff of September 1st. Since the child has a mid-September birthday, this child was unable to register for kindergarten in the state from which they moved. Historically, upon moving to DC, this family would have been offered the choice of whether they wanted to attend first grade in DC (since DC has a September 30 age cutoff) or whether they wanted the opportunity to attend kindergarten.

Again, there was never a problem with kindergarten enrollment prior to this year. Principals were allowed to exercise their discretion to place children in the appropriate grade based on the child’s academic progress and development.

DCPS LEADERSHIP ABUSES ITS DISCRETION AND INTIMIDATES AND TRAUMATIZES DC FAMILIES

The unfortunate situation at issue began at Lafayette Elementary School with Principal Katie Prall. Some may remember this principal for restricting outdoor recess this past December after alleging the play area was “slippery”. Principal Prall did not utilize the guidance in DC regulations regarding proficiency and physical, social or emotional development to base her decisions. She refused to allow students with birthdays before October 1st to advance from Pre-K4 to Kindergarten, and instead said these students must skip kindergarten and enroll in first grade. Cinthia Ruiz, DCPS Chief Integrity Officer; Andria Caruthers, DCPS Instructional Superintendent for Cluster 4; and Chancellor Lewis Ferebee then became involved.

Parents explained that the guidance in DC Regulations has always been used by principals across DC for decades to place children graduating from Pre-K4 into kindergarten. Unfortunately, rather than understanding that these children should not be forced to skip kindergarten due to an abrupt DCPS policy shift, DCPS decided to escalate matters.

(1) DCPS ordered an age audit of all Ward 3 elementary schools and began disenrolling children that had already previously been enrolled in kindergarten.

(2) Chancellor Ferebee and his staff ordered families to pull their children from the 5-day-a-week Pre-K programs they were attending, with two months left in the school year, and to enroll in DCPS kindergarten. When parents refused, DCPS retaliated by reporting the parents to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect due to purported truancy.

(3) DCPS refused to allow families moving in from other states, whose children could not previously attend kindergarten, to be able to attend this year.

(4) Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

(5) Chancellor Ferebee has refused to assess academic proficiency or physical, social or emotional development before voiding prior age-waivers already granted by DCPS or to even provide assessments this spring. The Chancellor’s position is that he will assess the children in the fall as first graders, after they are forced to skip kindergarten, and if they struggle, then DCPS says it will consider demoting the children to kindergarten.

Some families just received notices of kindergarten disenrollment last week. Parents are understandably confused, panicked, and traumatized. None of these actions by DCPS are in the best interests of these children. This is intentional cruelty and retaliation by Chancellor Ferebee and DCPS leadership against parents who advocated for the best interests of their children. For months, parents have tried to work with the Chancellor, and all he has done is escalate his retaliation to harm more families. The Chancellor’s decision to report families with five-year-old-children attending five-day-a-week Pre-K4 to DC’s child protective service for neglect is unnecessary, chilling, and indefensible.

If a drastic change in DCPS kindergarten enrollment policy was contemplated, DCPS should have provided advance notice to pre-k facilities and to parents. Some impacted parents testified at our State Board of Education meeting that if they had any idea that DCPS was going to remove the enrollment discretion from its principals that had existed for decades, then they would have enrolled their children in kindergarten this year, instead of enrolling in Pre-K4.

SOLUTIONS

There is a very straightforward short-term solution to this, and I have drafted emergency legislation that will solve the immediate problem. None of these families have done anything wrong, and their children should not be victims of DCPS’s poor planning, lack of notice, and sudden policy change. Every one of these children should be allowed to attend kindergarten in School Year 2025-2026. Further, since students have already enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs for next school year, children completing Pre-K4 in 2026 should also be allowed to next attend kindergarten in the 2026-2027 school year. The DC State Board of Education can approve the transmission of this legislation to the DC Council, and then it will be up to the Council to approve the legislation on an emergency basis. SBOE will vote on the transmission of the bill either this week or the following week. The legislation also provides that no family can be reported by DCPS for child neglect, while their child is attending a pre-k program.

There must also be a long-term fix to prevent further confusion and trauma in School Year 2027-2028 and beyond. DC should either align enrollment dates between private and public pre-k providers, or at least provide clear guidance to parents. DC must have a fair and reliable process for families with children who have developmental delays to request waivers. This solution should be developed in a thoughtful manner over the next six months and should include early childhood development experts. After a policy is set for School Year 2027-2028, there should be clear communication with private and parochial pre-k schools and parents. In some cases, pre-k facilities may want to change their licensure to also become licensed to serve 2-year-olds with September birthdays in Pre-K3.

REMINDER TO AFFECTED FAMILIES

I’d like to reiterate what I said at the beginning. If you are a family who has been told your child must skip kindergarten, or who DCPS has reported to CFSA for truancy and educational child neglect, please reach out to me at [e-mail]. I can only imagine how scared and frustrated you must be, but there are still people who want help ensure your child gets to attend kindergarten this coming fall.

Lastly, on Memorial Day, I want to express my gratitude and remember those who gave their lives to serve our nation. My sincere condolences to the friends and family of fallen heroes.

Sincerely,
Eric Goulet

It’s also posted on his twitter account. I like how he named all the offenders including the principal and the bureaucrats in the central office who really overplayed their hands antagonizing parents and voters.

Really brave reporting parents to child protective services. They should and will pay with their jobs. Guaranteed that parents are filing FOIAs and preparing lawsuits.

They are mandated reporters. These parents are technically committing educational neglect and have been very public about that fact.

Educational neglect! Ha!

Well, then why are they only doing this to award 3? There’s no neglect in other wards you say?

Also sure, they’re truant. Hold em back ….. in Kindergarten!!!!

I know others have already responded to you, but I think it's important for you to understand how off base this comment is.

Here's the CPS reports in DC by Ward for 2022 (the most recent year for with data is available at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in collaboration with DC Action):

City District of Columbia 2022 Number 939
Ward Ward 1 2022 Number 56
Ward Ward 2 2022 Number 20
Ward Ward 3 2022 Number 23
Ward Ward 4 2022 Number 76
Ward Ward 5 2022 Number 136
Ward Ward 6 2022 Number 50
Ward Ward 7 2022 Number 228
Ward Ward 8 2022 Number 338

Wards are balanced to have roughly similar populations, and Wards 7 and 8 actually have the smallest populations in the district (even more so in 2022 prior to redistricting).

Ward 7 has an 11x higher rate of CPS reports than Ward 3. Ward 8 has a 17x higher rate. Educational neglect is one of the most common reasons for CPS reports because DC uses the public school system as a way to identify kids at risk for abuse or neglect -- kids who are not being sent to school on time are also more likely to experience other forms of neglect and abuse, including failure to obtain needed medical or dental treatment, inadequate nutrition, housing insecurity, etc. So families that fail to enroll their children in kindergarten on time are highly likely to be investigated by CPS if the problem is identified. Whether that's because a neighbor reports it or because the parents go on the local news to explain that they didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten by age 5.

Now you might say, yeah but these kids aren't experiencing other forms of neglect! In fact the reason these parents didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten on time was because they care so much about their kids that they wanted to optimize their educational experience. Well, I'm glad you mentioned this because guess what, that is also what parents in other wards say when they are investigated by CPS for failure to enroll on time. "He isn't ready for kindergarten, we decided he's better off at home with grandma until he's 6." How receptive do you think CPS is to these arguments for parents in Wards 7 and 8? I can assure you: not very.

The idea that DCPS, or CPS, is somehow *targeting* Ward 3 families on this issue is laughable. As a general matter, families in Ward 3 who are wealthy and white are given much broader latitude by CPS than families of other races and lower socioeconomic levels. However, these Ward 3 families chose to advertise their behavior on television and announce it on list serves, which puts the city in a situation where they pretty much have to enforce these rules and investigate these families just as they would a low income black or Hispanic family in another ward. The Ward 3 families gave the city no real other choice.

If they wanted to change the rules about enrollment for the whole city, they should have lobbied for that but also followed the same rules that every other family in the city is expected to follow. The idea that a handful of wealthy white schools in upper NW get to violate these rules because.... reasons is just ridiculous on its face. And now that those handful of schools are being forced to comply the way everyone else in the city has been complying for years, NOW they are arguing the entire system should be changed? So brave.

+1000

Well stated. And school faculty and staff and explicitly trained to call CPS anytime there are concerns of neglect or abuse. This is clearly spelled out. The person who keeps responding that this isn’t neglect is really saying “it isn’t neglect because these families are in upper NW.” They don’t even try to address the data mentioned above . And don’t even try to mention how much less latitude families in those other wards get for excessive absences. . . the system favors families in Ward 3.

The calling of CPS was clearly retaliatory. That’s why there’s a policy draft that parents can’t be reported if their child is enrolled in preK.

It wasn’t neglect because CPS didn’t find it was neglect, so put that to rest.

If you know how school faculty and staff are trained it’s to report any concerns of neglect or abuse. Examples are outlined in these trainings. It is also made very clear that it is not up to faculty and staff to determine if it is actual neglect or abuse. That investigation is up to CPS. You can now put your comments to rest because you don’t know what the protocols are for school based personnel. Or the threats that are made to them if they don’t report these situations.

We know the district selectively reported two parents that disagreed with their kids placement. That was very stupid of them and I hope the parents sue the district for harassment.

You have FOIA'd documentation that says that DCPS only reported students because they disliked their parents? Like it says that was the reason and not that put themselves into the news and now the school district was made aware?

If you have that proof yeah I agree they shouldn't use political power against individual families. They do though by law have to investigate families that don't send their kids to school.

Do you not know how to read? The kid was in school, he was in pre-kindergarten!

Obviously I don’t have FOIA documentation, but circumstantial evidence points towards a school abuse. Should I go by your rambling speculations, or a public statement from a school board member who is also a lawyer?

I said it multiple times, nobody cares what you personally think.

Not all PKs are eligible. It depends whether they went through the process to qualify to count as an actual school. Also, I heard that one of the kids -- probably not one mentioned here "coincidentally" -- wasn't enrolled in any school.

At this point you’re just pretending to be stupid on purpose. Or maybe you’re actually not faking it. Read what was posted about the PKs in the public statement.

Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

So DCPS rescinds the waver, forces kids to move up a grade and when parents push back they call CPS on those parents.

That’s low by any standards.

This is the first that I am hearing that IEPs were involved. Is this true?

+1, this is the first reference I've heard of approved enrollment deferrals. If that is the case, I would support the parents in putting their kids in K. I know other parents who have done the same (obtained an enrollment deferral due to developmental issues and teacher recommendations) and I don't know anyone who would disagree with that.

But the way this has been discussed and reported on makes it sound like these parents did NOT obtain prior approval of their deferrals, but just chose to keep their 5 yr olds in private PK on the assumption they would be able to enroll them in K the following year, and then when they were placed in 1st instead, started fighting back.

This debate is totally different depending on which facts apply.

Yeah this is the first I'm hearing too. The one parent in public statements said they expected to be able to do based on past precedent with an older child so I'm very confused.

Absolutely agree no waivers should have been rescinded. It sounds like maybe DCPS did something terrible, like rescinding waivers, and possibly other parents are jumping on this to also get a redshirt that they expected but was not given? The way this has been rolled out publicly, possibly conflating two very different things, is not helping anyone.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Has anyone seen this bonkers newsletter from Eric Goulet, the Ward 3 SBOE rep? It’s a very lengthy piece about how DCPS is now throwing people out of of kindergarten following a Ward wide age audit? Doesn’t seem like DCPS would have its act together to pull something like that off. Are the Lafayette moms behind this? Newsletter was posted on the CC Listseve, which is sort of tabloid like on a good day.

Yes, it was on the Tenleytown one too. Here it is for those interested:

This edition of the Ward 3 DC State Board of Education (SBOE) newsletter focuses on troubling actions by Chancellor Lewis Ferebee and DC Public School (DCPS) leadership that are needlessly traumatizing DC families who just want to send their children to kindergarten next fall. DCPS has abruptly changed policy regarding kindergarten age of enrollment without notice, informed families their children must skip kindergarten and go directly to first grade, and has retaliated against families who pushed back by reporting them to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect. If any family, who has not already been working with me on this issue, has been impacted by these actions, please reach out to me at [e-mail].

BACKGROUND ON DC KINDERGARTEN ENROLLMENT

The District of Columbia has one of the youngest ages in the country at which a child is eligible for kindergarten enrollment. In DC, a child is required to turn five on or before September 30th to be eligible to attend kindergarten. With such a young eligibility age, for decades, some parents with youth who have summer birthdays have decided it was necessary to defer kindergarten enrollment due to academic delays or maturity issues.

Maryland and Virginia, which have age cutoffs of September 1st and September 30th, allow a parent to delay kindergarten enrollment for up to one year with a written request for a maturity exception. A Maryland deferral request requires enrollment in a childcare or pre-K program, while a Virginia parent’s deferral request just needs to include documentation supporting enrollment delay. In the District of Columbia, prior to this year, principals have always utilized the discretion provided in the DC Municipal Regulations (2201.6) to ensure students who are not proficient or who have developmental delays in physical, social or emotional maturity are placed in the appropriate grade level, thus allowing children completing Pre-K4 to progress to kindergarten.

Due to school overcrowding, Ward 3 is the only ward in the District of Columbia that has no DCPS Pre-K3, and it has very limited public options through one charter school and community-based pre-k. Thus, many families are forced to enroll students in private or parochial pre-kindergarten programs. Historically, many of these facilities simply have aligned enrollment based upon the child’s age at the start of the school year, and have applied for licenses that are consistent with serving 3- and 4-year-olds in Pre-K 3 and serving 4- and 5-year-olds in Pre-K4. Thus, a student would need to turn three before starting Pre-K3 at a private school, whereas they often needs to turn three by September 30th to enroll in public Pre-K3. This one-month enrollment misalignment has never been an issue, prior to this year, because a Pre-K4 graduate was always just allowed to advance to kindergarten as the next logical step in their education.

Lastly, I know of an example, where a family moved into DC from a state with a kindergarten age cutoff of September 1st. Since the child has a mid-September birthday, this child was unable to register for kindergarten in the state from which they moved. Historically, upon moving to DC, this family would have been offered the choice of whether they wanted to attend first grade in DC (since DC has a September 30 age cutoff) or whether they wanted the opportunity to attend kindergarten.

Again, there was never a problem with kindergarten enrollment prior to this year. Principals were allowed to exercise their discretion to place children in the appropriate grade based on the child’s academic progress and development.

DCPS LEADERSHIP ABUSES ITS DISCRETION AND INTIMIDATES AND TRAUMATIZES DC FAMILIES

The unfortunate situation at issue began at Lafayette Elementary School with Principal Katie Prall. Some may remember this principal for restricting outdoor recess this past December after alleging the play area was “slippery”. Principal Prall did not utilize the guidance in DC regulations regarding proficiency and physical, social or emotional development to base her decisions. She refused to allow students with birthdays before October 1st to advance from Pre-K4 to Kindergarten, and instead said these students must skip kindergarten and enroll in first grade. Cinthia Ruiz, DCPS Chief Integrity Officer; Andria Caruthers, DCPS Instructional Superintendent for Cluster 4; and Chancellor Lewis Ferebee then became involved.

Parents explained that the guidance in DC Regulations has always been used by principals across DC for decades to place children graduating from Pre-K4 into kindergarten. Unfortunately, rather than understanding that these children should not be forced to skip kindergarten due to an abrupt DCPS policy shift, DCPS decided to escalate matters.

(1) DCPS ordered an age audit of all Ward 3 elementary schools and began disenrolling children that had already previously been enrolled in kindergarten.

(2) Chancellor Ferebee and his staff ordered families to pull their children from the 5-day-a-week Pre-K programs they were attending, with two months left in the school year, and to enroll in DCPS kindergarten. When parents refused, DCPS retaliated by reporting the parents to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect due to purported truancy.

(3) DCPS refused to allow families moving in from other states, whose children could not previously attend kindergarten, to be able to attend this year.

(4) Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

(5) Chancellor Ferebee has refused to assess academic proficiency or physical, social or emotional development before voiding prior age-waivers already granted by DCPS or to even provide assessments this spring. The Chancellor’s position is that he will assess the children in the fall as first graders, after they are forced to skip kindergarten, and if they struggle, then DCPS says it will consider demoting the children to kindergarten.

Some families just received notices of kindergarten disenrollment last week. Parents are understandably confused, panicked, and traumatized. None of these actions by DCPS are in the best interests of these children. This is intentional cruelty and retaliation by Chancellor Ferebee and DCPS leadership against parents who advocated for the best interests of their children. For months, parents have tried to work with the Chancellor, and all he has done is escalate his retaliation to harm more families. The Chancellor’s decision to report families with five-year-old-children attending five-day-a-week Pre-K4 to DC’s child protective service for neglect is unnecessary, chilling, and indefensible.

If a drastic change in DCPS kindergarten enrollment policy was contemplated, DCPS should have provided advance notice to pre-k facilities and to parents. Some impacted parents testified at our State Board of Education meeting that if they had any idea that DCPS was going to remove the enrollment discretion from its principals that had existed for decades, then they would have enrolled their children in kindergarten this year, instead of enrolling in Pre-K4.

SOLUTIONS

There is a very straightforward short-term solution to this, and I have drafted emergency legislation that will solve the immediate problem. None of these families have done anything wrong, and their children should not be victims of DCPS’s poor planning, lack of notice, and sudden policy change. Every one of these children should be allowed to attend kindergarten in School Year 2025-2026. Further, since students have already enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs for next school year, children completing Pre-K4 in 2026 should also be allowed to next attend kindergarten in the 2026-2027 school year. The DC State Board of Education can approve the transmission of this legislation to the DC Council, and then it will be up to the Council to approve the legislation on an emergency basis. SBOE will vote on the transmission of the bill either this week or the following week. The legislation also provides that no family can be reported by DCPS for child neglect, while their child is attending a pre-k program.

There must also be a long-term fix to prevent further confusion and trauma in School Year 2027-2028 and beyond. DC should either align enrollment dates between private and public pre-k providers, or at least provide clear guidance to parents. DC must have a fair and reliable process for families with children who have developmental delays to request waivers. This solution should be developed in a thoughtful manner over the next six months and should include early childhood development experts. After a policy is set for School Year 2027-2028, there should be clear communication with private and parochial pre-k schools and parents. In some cases, pre-k facilities may want to change their licensure to also become licensed to serve 2-year-olds with September birthdays in Pre-K3.

REMINDER TO AFFECTED FAMILIES

I’d like to reiterate what I said at the beginning. If you are a family who has been told your child must skip kindergarten, or who DCPS has reported to CFSA for truancy and educational child neglect, please reach out to me at [e-mail]. I can only imagine how scared and frustrated you must be, but there are still people who want help ensure your child gets to attend kindergarten this coming fall.

Lastly, on Memorial Day, I want to express my gratitude and remember those who gave their lives to serve our nation. My sincere condolences to the friends and family of fallen heroes.

Sincerely,
Eric Goulet

It’s also posted on his twitter account. I like how he named all the offenders including the principal and the bureaucrats in the central office who really overplayed their hands antagonizing parents and voters.

Really brave reporting parents to child protective services. They should and will pay with their jobs. Guaranteed that parents are filing FOIAs and preparing lawsuits.

They are mandated reporters. These parents are technically committing educational neglect and have been very public about that fact.

Educational neglect! Ha!

Well, then why are they only doing this to award 3? There’s no neglect in other wards you say?

Also sure, they’re truant. Hold em back ….. in Kindergarten!!!!

I know others have already responded to you, but I think it's important for you to understand how off base this comment is.

Here's the CPS reports in DC by Ward for 2022 (the most recent year for with data is available at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in collaboration with DC Action):

City District of Columbia 2022 Number 939
Ward Ward 1 2022 Number 56
Ward Ward 2 2022 Number 20
Ward Ward 3 2022 Number 23
Ward Ward 4 2022 Number 76
Ward Ward 5 2022 Number 136
Ward Ward 6 2022 Number 50
Ward Ward 7 2022 Number 228
Ward Ward 8 2022 Number 338

Wards are balanced to have roughly similar populations, and Wards 7 and 8 actually have the smallest populations in the district (even more so in 2022 prior to redistricting).

Ward 7 has an 11x higher rate of CPS reports than Ward 3. Ward 8 has a 17x higher rate. Educational neglect is one of the most common reasons for CPS reports because DC uses the public school system as a way to identify kids at risk for abuse or neglect -- kids who are not being sent to school on time are also more likely to experience other forms of neglect and abuse, including failure to obtain needed medical or dental treatment, inadequate nutrition, housing insecurity, etc. So families that fail to enroll their children in kindergarten on time are highly likely to be investigated by CPS if the problem is identified. Whether that's because a neighbor reports it or because the parents go on the local news to explain that they didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten by age 5.

Now you might say, yeah but these kids aren't experiencing other forms of neglect! In fact the reason these parents didn't enroll their kids in kindergarten on time was because they care so much about their kids that they wanted to optimize their educational experience. Well, I'm glad you mentioned this because guess what, that is also what parents in other wards say when they are investigated by CPS for failure to enroll on time. "He isn't ready for kindergarten, we decided he's better off at home with grandma until he's 6." How receptive do you think CPS is to these arguments for parents in Wards 7 and 8? I can assure you: not very.

The idea that DCPS, or CPS, is somehow *targeting* Ward 3 families on this issue is laughable. As a general matter, families in Ward 3 who are wealthy and white are given much broader latitude by CPS than families of other races and lower socioeconomic levels. However, these Ward 3 families chose to advertise their behavior on television and announce it on list serves, which puts the city in a situation where they pretty much have to enforce these rules and investigate these families just as they would a low income black or Hispanic family in another ward. The Ward 3 families gave the city no real other choice.

If they wanted to change the rules about enrollment for the whole city, they should have lobbied for that but also followed the same rules that every other family in the city is expected to follow. The idea that a handful of wealthy white schools in upper NW get to violate these rules because.... reasons is just ridiculous on its face. And now that those handful of schools are being forced to comply the way everyone else in the city has been complying for years, NOW they are arguing the entire system should be changed? So brave.

+1000

Well stated. And school faculty and staff and explicitly trained to call CPS anytime there are concerns of neglect or abuse. This is clearly spelled out. The person who keeps responding that this isn’t neglect is really saying “it isn’t neglect because these families are in upper NW.” They don’t even try to address the data mentioned above . And don’t even try to mention how much less latitude families in those other wards get for excessive absences. . . the system favors families in Ward 3.

The calling of CPS was clearly retaliatory. That’s why there’s a policy draft that parents can’t be reported if their child is enrolled in preK.

It wasn’t neglect because CPS didn’t find it was neglect, so put that to rest.

If you know how school faculty and staff are trained it’s to report any concerns of neglect or abuse. Examples are outlined in these trainings. It is also made very clear that it is not up to faculty and staff to determine if it is actual neglect or abuse. That investigation is up to CPS. You can now put your comments to rest because you don’t know what the protocols are for school based personnel. Or the threats that are made to them if they don’t report these situations.

We know the district selectively reported two parents that disagreed with their kids placement. That was very stupid of them and I hope the parents sue the district for harassment.

You have FOIA'd documentation that says that DCPS only reported students because they disliked their parents? Like it says that was the reason and not that put themselves into the news and now the school district was made aware?

If you have that proof yeah I agree they shouldn't use political power against individual families. They do though by law have to investigate families that don't send their kids to school.

Do you not know how to read? The kid was in school, he was in pre-kindergarten!

Obviously I don’t have FOIA documentation, but circumstantial evidence points towards a school abuse. Should I go by your rambling speculations, or a public statement from a school board member who is also a lawyer?

I said it multiple times, nobody cares what you personally think.

Not all PKs are eligible. It depends whether they went through the process to qualify to count as an actual school. Also, I heard that one of the kids -- probably not one mentioned here "coincidentally" -- wasn't enrolled in any school.

At this point you’re just pretending to be stupid on purpose. Or maybe you’re actually not faking it. Read what was posted about the PKs in the public statement.

Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.

So DCPS rescinds the waver, forces kids to move up a grade and when parents push back they call CPS on those parents.

That’s low by any standards.

This is the first that I am hearing that IEPs were involved. Is this true?

+1, this is the first reference I've heard of approved enrollment deferrals. If that is the case, I would support the parents in putting their kids in K. I know other parents who have done the same (obtained an enrollment deferral due to developmental issues and teacher recommendations) and I don't know anyone who would disagree with that.

But the way this has been discussed and reported on makes it sound like these parents did NOT obtain prior approval of their deferrals, but just chose to keep their 5 yr olds in private PK on the assumption they would be able to enroll them in K the following year, and then when they were placed in 1st instead, started fighting back.

This debate is totally different depending on which facts apply.

Agree. And Goulet’s email also mentions that DCPS said it would assess kids in 1st and might send them to K if necessary.

I still think this is not right if the child had an IEP - the decision to redshirt should have been made in that context (even though as I understand it, redshirting is not an IEP accommodation per se). But for kids who just attempt to enroll in K past the age cutoff (because they came from another state, stayed home, or were in PK an extra year) it makes some sense for them to go into 1st then make a decision.

The parent who has been most outspoken about this admits that she wanted to redshirt her child and assumed she could because she had done the same thing with their older sibling. There has been zero suggestion that that child has or needs an IEP and I think a poster in this thread is just making things up. Also, at least one of the parents wasn't in DC last year and so definitely did not have a previous deferral form. Also, none of the emergency legislation requries any of these things -- so even if you think these particular parents (or some of them) deserve a break for whatever reason, principal's discretion (which is the status quo) is 100% not what they are pushing for. I think there are just tons of fake facts floating around.

I think it's entirely possible there is one person who received a waiver that was rescinded. Also possible as a PP mentions that people are misinterpreting Goulet's newsletter to say that's the case when actually it's examples of other districts who allow it.

But that's not the original story from the parent leading the charge publicly about their own kid. It's not in their testimony, either. It's nowhere in the original press coverage.

So if that is the case, and this happened to a family, that's both reprehensible on the part of DCPS and also on the parents using that particular family to create their own personal rule carve out and generate sympathy for themselves from a case that is not at all related.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many parents bring an extremely unhealthy competitive background. To the point of assuming everyone is in direct competition and everyone is scheming to get an unfair advantage however minute.

There is a broad ignorance about mental health issues and many of these posters exhibit troublesome paranoia traits that have little anchoring in reality.

I’m sympathetic to these people whom were active posters in this thread, but they end up hurting people around them including their own kids. It’s important to bring awareness and perspective.

Are you trying to diagnose anonymous posters on a message board as clinically paranoid?

I admit I think the comments about older boys are a bit of a reach but good grief trying to make yourself feel better by saying parents are mentally ill because they disagree with you is very low.