What would you do - early lottery question for charters
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Anonymous
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I know this is many months early, but thinking about it now.
Here's the situation: My small family lives in an apartment WOTP in a district that does not have PK3. We are zoned for Murch once DC is in Kindergarten. BUT, we want to buy a home and we won't be able to afford something where we currently rent. We would really love to stay in the city. I originally thought I would shoot for Appletree for PK 3 and 4 and then send kiddo to Murch once K rolls around. But we want to buy before then, so now I'm wondering if I shoot for the moon for some DC Charters that go beyond early ed in hopes of getting in early, and then we can have more flexibility about where to buy. What would you do? |
Anonymous
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Make a list of the charters you like, and see if yiu like the neighborhoods where that would place you. It basically depends on how you feel about gentrifying areas.
If you don't get a DCI feeder, are you ok with moving for high school? |
Anonymous
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Stay where you are through K. If your child is enrolled at K they have a right to stay at Murch / Deal / Wilson regardless of where you buy/move (at least under current rules).
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Anonymous
Really? I did not know that! |
Anonymous
Moving, or we could save accordingly for private. |
Anonymous
Not true. Principal's discretion. |
Anonymous
It is true. They codified it / took away principal's discretion. They released new written guidance in Jan 2017. I'll find the link. |
Anonymous
This was supposedly done to protect the rights of transient students whose parents are homeless, or have unstable housing situations. But it can, and probably will be, exploited by lot of folks outside that category. See page 8 https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/publication/attachments/SY17-18%20Enrollment%20and%20Lottery%20Handbook5317.pdf "In-Boundary K-12 Schools DC law requires students to attend school between the ages of 5 and 18, which corresponds to kindergarten through grade 12. 1 A right-to-attend school can be identified as a student’s in-boundary school or feeder pattern school. 2 If a family moves out of boundary during the school year, the student maintains the right to attend their current school through the terminal grade, and can continue to attend schools in the feeder pattern of the original school. 3 They also have a right to attend their in-boundary school. Some school attendance boundaries and feeder patterns have shifted since SY14-15, which are outlined in the Student Assignment and School Boundary Implementation Plan. 4 Feeder patterns are subject to change each year. |
Anonymous
Principal discretion can only be utilized if the student has an attendance problem and has been referred during the school year for that attendance |
Anonymous
| Hey 9:39 - What do you know about DCI that makes you know for a fact that it is a fantastic middle/high school for all children? It is new and has no track record at all. I hope it succeeds but really we know nothing right now. And why do you think the only good elementary charters are those that feed into DCI? The OP did not indicate that language was an interest or priority. Not everyone thinks that their kid is doomed to a life of nothingness if they do not get into a bilingual/immersion program. |
Anonymous
It has a lower FARMS rate than almost all other middle schools, thereby DCUM associated as fantastic. |
Anonymous
Actually that's not true. 56% of its students are economically disadvantaged. |
Anonymous
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Best option: 1) play prK3 lottery. If you win, you can move. 2) if you lose, you can send the child to Murch in a few years.
Here is the tricky part. Even if you win the lottery for a highly regarded charter (which we did), you don't know if it will be a good long term fit for your kid. Lots of kids have special needs that don't appear until later and even the great charters are only somewhat equipped to handle them. Also, lots of charters have particularly learning approaches that just might not be the best fit for your family. So, buying a house based on a PReK3 assignment has some risks to it. (But so does waiting to be in bounds for Murch K and assuming that will be a school that works for your kid.....) It's a bit of a crap shoot. We live inbounds for Lafayette but child attends a highly regarded charter. I am frequently grateful for the amazing "backup" option of Lafayette. And we are also in an apartment, although we chose to buy one and settle into condo living long term (it is a great, easy life for working parents). We are also staying here for the Deal feeder, I'm not sold on DCI yet. |
Anonymous
| I would enter the PK3 lottery and rank schools according to how you prefer them, irregardless of the commute, and then move to somewhere workable. Most charter schools in DC that are not in Wards 7 or 8 are workable if you live in Petworth, Brightwood, or Brookland and work in downtown DC, and those 3 neighborhoods are among the most popular with families with a budget that wouldn't work for WOTP or Capitol Hill. We live in Petworth and work Union Station and Silver Spring. Virtually all the charters between Takoma Park and downtown could work with our commutes (CMI, Yu Ying, Mundo Verde, LAMB, Cap City PCS, Lee, Shining Stars, Two Rivers, Stokes, EL Haynes, Bridges, DC Bilingual - all would be reasonable; our kids currently go to Inspired Teaching in Edgewood, just south of Catholic University. |
Anonymous
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"2 If a family moves out of boundary during the school year, the student maintains the right to attend their current school through the terminal grade, and can continue to attend schools in the feeder pattern of
the original school." If this is indeed true, what would stop tons of families from renting 1 year in-bounds for the Deal/Wilson feeder school of their choice, and then moving out and getting grandfathered in all the way through Wilson? I thought that once you move OOB, you must register at your new in-bounds school, with the only exception being that you were already OOB? |