Wilson enrollment numbers increasing

[Anonymous]

I wrote about the sibling. Not paranoid--I emailed a supervisor I know at Wilson who said I should do the OOB lottery and the the principal would hv to get approval from Asst Super, and even then no concrete promise. Also suggested registering right after April 1 with current IB address and I may be fine but no promises! I think they are being very cautious because the matter is still in flux. Tomorrow morning I will contact Central Office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Seems to me that the kids that are actually attending the feeder middle schools are the kids that are most deserving of going to the high schools into which those schools feed, regardless of where those kids live.

Let's cut to the chase. You're really talking about Hardy, the only Wilson feeder where significant numbers of kids leave DCPS for middle school and return for high school. Most of those kids would attend Deal in a heartbeat, if they had the chance. So the kids who did attend Deal -- many of whom did so only by virtue of having won a lottery spot -- are somehow more deserving?

Please.

And in the future there may be even more such students who leave and return because DCPS is removing two more schools from the Deal cluster (Eaton and Oyster) and sending them down to Hardy, which a lot of parents are pretty upset about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Exactly. And the way to do this is to make sure that once people leave a coveted DCPS slot, they leave it. If you want to leave Hardy to attend a charter school, that's fine. But now you lose your feeder rights to Wilson.

This kills two birds with one stone. One reason for Wilson overcrowding is that tons of parents leave spots open in 5th grades in WOTP elementary schools that are then filled by OOB students that then have feeder rights all the way to Wilson. If those OOB kids go to Wilson, and the IB students return to Wilson after going to charter middle schools, you get overcrowding.

So this policy would encourage parents to stay in DCPS schools near their home, and help reduce Wilson overcrowding.

This is the kind of upside-down thinking that got DCPS into the mess it is today. Why not just limit OOB slots to the number of available seats instead? Because somehow kids who won a slot in a lottery in pre-k are "more deserving" than kids who "abandoned" DCPS for charter schools? Please.

DCPS needs to make up its mind whether it's a neighborhood school system or not. If it's not going to be a neighborhood school system, it needs to figure out a way of assigning students.

This messed up proposal would "prefer" OOB students who get into schools via the lottery over those IB parents who leave for a while because their local middle school option basically sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Exactly. And the way to do this is to make sure that once people leave a coveted DCPS slot, they leave it. If you want to leave Hardy to attend a charter school, that's fine. But now you lose your feeder rights to Wilson.

This kills two birds with one stone. One reason for Wilson overcrowding is that tons of parents leave spots open in 5th grades in WOTP elementary schools that are then filled by OOB students that then have feeder rights all the way to Wilson. If those OOB kids go to Wilson, and the IB students return to Wilson after going to charter middle schools, you get overcrowding.

So this policy would encourage parents to stay in DCPS schools near their home, and help reduce Wilson overcrowding.

This is the kind of upside-down thinking that got DCPS into the mess it is today. Why not just limit OOB slots to the number of available seats instead? Because somehow kids who won a slot in a lottery in pre-k are "more deserving" than kids who "abandoned" DCPS for charter schools? Please.

DCPS needs to make up its mind whether it's a neighborhood school system or not. If it's not going to be a neighborhood school system, it needs to figure out a way of assigning students.

This messed up proposal would "prefer" OOB students who get into schools via the lottery over those IB parents who leave for a while because their local middle school option basically sucks.

Right, they're being punished because DCPS is unable to meet their needs. But this kind of thinking is incredibly common in DCPS -- families shouldn't be enticed, only coerced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Exactly. And the way to do this is to make sure that once people leave a coveted DCPS slot, they leave it. If you want to leave Hardy to attend a charter school, that's fine. But now you lose your feeder rights to Wilson.

This kills two birds with one stone. One reason for Wilson overcrowding is that tons of parents leave spots open in 5th grades in WOTP elementary schools that are then filled by OOB students that then have feeder rights all the way to Wilson. If those OOB kids go to Wilson, and the IB students return to Wilson after going to charter middle schools, you get overcrowding.

So this policy would encourage parents to stay in DCPS schools near their home, and help reduce Wilson overcrowding.

This is the kind of upside-down thinking that got DCPS into the mess it is today. Why not just limit OOB slots to the number of available seats instead? Because somehow kids who won a slot in a lottery in pre-k are "more deserving" than kids who "abandoned" DCPS for charter schools? Please.

DCPS needs to make up its mind whether it's a neighborhood school system or not. If it's not going to be a neighborhood school system, it needs to figure out a way of assigning students.

This messed up proposal would "prefer" OOB students who get into schools via the lottery over those IB parents who leave for a while because their local middle school option basically sucks.

Right, they're being punished because DCPS is unable to meet their needs. But this kind of thinking is incredibly common in DCPS -- families shouldn't be enticed, only coerced.

True dat. I mean, look at the Hardy mess. For several years, DCPS tried encouraging kids one or more WOTP elementary schools to consider Hardy as well as Deal, by giving them the option of both. When no one chose Hardy, DCPS substituted compulsion for competition.

[Anonymous]

why don't they give all the Deal feeders the hardy "option", maybe some parents would choose the smaller school after all, and then be able to convince then to drop the uniforms and be more welcoming of IB families.

and oyster has no right to complain about losing deal, they have a middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:why don't they give all the Deal feeders the hardy "option", maybe some parents would choose the smaller school after all, and then be able to convince then to drop the uniforms and be more welcoming of IB families.

and oyster has no right to complain about losing deal, they have a middle school.

Oyster's middle school is not very robust.

Agreed that Deal feeders should be given the Hardy option. You're correct that some may opt for the smaller school environment because Deal is getting very large. But they tried that with Eaton, and virtually no one chose Hardy, so the bureaucrats downtown decided that more coercive measures were required.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:why don't they give all the Deal feeders the hardy "option", maybe some parents would choose the smaller school after all, and then be able to convince then to drop the uniforms and be more welcoming of IB families.

and oyster has no right to complain about losing deal, they have a middle school.

The Hardy conundrum is that most in-boundary families don't feel the school is up to snuff and those at Hardy (some teachers and existing parents) are wary of an influx of what they view as demanding, entitled IB families who will want to change the school a lot.

[Anonymous]

Current Hardy parents are 100% correct about this concern. Plenty of snobby parents have a grudge based only on color, as much as they deny it. Hardy always had greatness and seriously dedicated teachers who probably wish they didn't have to deal with DEAL type parents. To those parents worried Hardy is not Deal, hardy is BETTER in many ways--smaller - better location- more diversity- hunger for dedicated families-- don't u spoiled w3 crowd screw it up!!

[Anonymous]

We are IB for Deal and have every intent to lottery for Hardy.

[Anonymous]

Hardy parents - how do the afterschool activities compare to Deal? Deal is very large, but with that comes all the extras that a smaller school can't provide -- and this has nothing to do with color or $.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are IB for Deal and have every intent to lottery for Hardy.

+1. We're years away from that decision but considering the same thing, depending in our kid's needs at the time--Deal seems awesome in many ways but just so huge. I think we'll take a serious look at Hardy when the time comes (if we can even get in OOB then).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are IB for Deal and have every intent to lottery for Hardy.

*meant to say intention. Was going to say we intend to ... Anyway sorry had to fix before the claws come out

[Anonymous]

GREAT to hear future famirs appreciating Hardy!! Go for it!! Deal a bit too much too much, Hardy be a deep and enriching atmosphere -- my kids are now in HS but Hardy would hv been my top choice.

[Anonymous]

It is OK that Hardy is not adjacent to Wilson. Hardy gets +1.