Primer on the DC school process for a new mom
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Anonymous
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I'd love a short primer on the school process in DC. I have a 5 month old (born in October) and am trying to piece together what the school timeline might look like for him. We live in Columbia Heights and I haven't heard very good things about our in-boundary school (Raymond) -- when can I enter the lottery? Does he need to be 3 by the end of September the first year he's in school, or are there schools that accept kids with fall birthdays? Are we better off going private for a couple years given the fact that we barely missed the deadline? Is that even an option?
Sorry for the hugely broad questions, I'm a bit overwhelmed and don't know where to start! Any advices or resources would be hugely helpful! |
Anonymous
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To go to a DCPS or a public charter school PK3 program your child must be 3 by Sept 30. No exceptions.
As for private preschools, all will have their own birthday cutoffs. Some of the private schools want kids to be even older than the public options. It just depends. My advice is to not worry about things for a couple more years. It changes fast and your child is not eligible for the lottery until 2020. |
Anonymous
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This is a good, readable document. http://www.myschooldc.org/sites/default/files/dc/sites/myschooldc/page/attachments/Guide%20to%20MSDC%20%28ENG%29.pdf
There's also a video on the myschooldc.org website |
Anonymous
| The website myschooldc.org is the online home of the lottery, and has a FAQ section that is a good place to start. |
Anonymous
| Thanks for these links -- I'll definitely take a look. Part of the reason I'm hoping to get some sense now is because I'm wondering whether we should move to Montgomery or Fairfax to avoid some of the hurdles of the October birthday and terrible in boundary option. |
Anonymous
Moving to Moco won't help you. You have no free preschool options there and their cutoff is even earlier-- Sept. 1. Hard to petition for an early entry to K. What most people do is play the lottery in PK3-4 and K and/or try out their local school. If that all fails, Moco is an option. But there's no sense in rushing across the border now. |
Anonymous
Fairfax County has the same cutoff date as DC, and no preK at all except for children with special needs or Head Start eligible children. Montgomery County's cutoff is Sept 1, and offers no universal PreK either. Both have appeals processes to apply start a child early, but it's not an easy threshold to meet. |
Anonymous
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First of all, you're actually lucky that you have an October boy. It's better for him to be older in the class than younger, IMO. Much more likely to be issues related to him being younger than older. I very rarely hear people complain that their child is the oldest in the class (apart from people who regret redshirting).
Second of all, do you like your neighborhood and living in DC in general? If so, there's no rush to move. Daycare and childcare options in DC are actually pretty good -- you have to go pretty far out in Fairfax and MoCo to get cheaper options than in DC, and for the older kids, daycare actually appears to be cheaper in DC than in MoCo from what I'v heard. You can do a nanny share for a while (easier to set up in the denser neighborhoods), and then move into a daycare/preschool when the time comes. The one caveat to this is facilities -- DC being a city means that the daycare/preschool facilities can be quite cramped compared to the burbs. But if you look around you'll find something acceptable, if this is one of your priorities. So IF you like living in DC then there's no need to rush out right now. If you don't lottery into a school you find acceptable at 3, you can do daycare "preschool" or a dedicated preschool, and lottery again for PK3 and K. At that point, you can decide if you want to move. |
Anonymous
+1. Don't rush to the burbs, stay in DC and at least try the lottery. You might get somethig you like, and if not, just pay for preschool like you would have to in the burbs anyway. FWIW my highly verbal, early October DD has been just fine in our EOTP neighborhood school. The teacher is a gem and keeps her challenged, and several other kids are at her level. So I wouldn't sweat it. Also, a school can make a lot of progress in 3 years if conditions are right. Don't write off the school because of an outdated bad reputation. Tell us what school it is and you might be surprised. |
Anonymous
+1 (MD resident that wishes she had stayed around DC until after PK) |
Anonymous
| I think Raymond will likely improve over the next few years. Don't give up on it. Most DCPS preschool is totally adequate. |
Anonymous
| +1 as others have said moving to the burbs won't help you in any way. In DC, your kid will be able to start full day PK3 in 2020, in the burbs the earliest you can start school is 2021 or 2022. |
Anonymous
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You don't know yet if your kid is going to be academically, socially, physically, etc. ahead or behind or on target and what his needs will be. You don't know if you'll still have the same job or financial situation or friends 3 years from now. You don't know how the school's feeder patterns and demographics will change over time and whether that will matter to you.
You seem super anxious and no matter what school you send your kid to there will be stuff you like and stuff you don't--the stuff may feel different at an urban school that is (my assumption based on your post, and perhaps I'm wrong) is very different from the schools where you grew up, and where you and your child will be in the racial and socioeconomic minority. But it is PreK. They play dress up and sing songs and look at books. Some kids take a little longer to get into the routine than others. But they are all toddlers together and almost all of the schools do a really good job with the littlest ones, even if the test scores for grades 3-5 look low (and usually, part of the reason they are low is because most of the well-educated families move away from the school by the testing grades). If it makes you feel better to move to the suburbs and do private preschool, you absolutely should do that. There are plenty of people who will take your spot in DCPS. But I'm not convinced it is better overall, and certainly impossible to predict based for a specific child who at this point probably does not even reliably roll over. |
Anonymous
You can also get involved at Raymond as a community member and potential future parent. You might learn that Raymond works for PK, or you might be able to help make it work for PK by the time you're ready for it. |
Anonymous
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It sounds like OP feels the need to make a real estate decision in the short run.
If I knew her IRL I'd tell her to go snuggle her infant, or take a nap. Please don't borrow stress by thinking about preschool for a 5 month old. |