JKLM residents are killing elementaries in lower NW

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are an ECE squatting family (i.e. planning to return to our IB school for K), and I don't feel guilty at all. The classes we were in weren't full either year, and while we would have been even more active at a school that was closer to our house (or if we hadn't had younger siblings), I have been the room parent for our class both years and have been the one the teachers turn to when they need something done for the class. We have also donated quite a bit of time, supplies, and money to the school as well as gotten involved in advocating for a number of improvements to the school. We've been good citizens, and I don't think the school is worse off for our having been there.

One other aspect that hasn't been brought up is that some schools have a pyramid classroom structure with a lot more ECE classrooms than upper grade classrooms. They basically use OOB kids to fill up the school and bring in money. Whether this is good or bad for the school overall, I can't say. But our current school is structured to have 60 or so PK3 kids, 50 or so PK4 kids, and 40 or so K kids.

It is great that you're contributing a lot more than the other squatters, but who is going to take your place as room parent next year? Other than Garrison-which only retains about 1 in kid in 10 for K - I think the lower NW schools have eliminated the ECE 'mushroom' structure.

Goddammit, there's no pleasing you people. If she hadn't been there the past two years, no one would have been doing the AT ALL. People like that deserve a medal. Who's going to do the job after her kids graduate? She shouldn't be so selfish and stop then, right? Who's going to do the job after she dies? Only a real asshole would die when there is room parenting to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are an ECE squatting family (i.e. planning to return to our IB school for K), and I don't feel guilty at all. The classes we were in weren't full either year, and while we would have been even more active at a school that was closer to our house (or if we hadn't had younger siblings), I have been the room parent for our class both years and have been the one the teachers turn to when they need something done for the class. We have also donated quite a bit of time, supplies, and money to the school as well as gotten involved in advocating for a number of improvements to the school. We've been good citizens, and I don't think the school is worse off for our having been there.

One other aspect that hasn't been brought up is that some schools have a pyramid classroom structure with a lot more ECE classrooms than upper grade classrooms. They basically use OOB kids to fill up the school and bring in money. Whether this is good or bad for the school overall, I can't say. But our current school is structured to have 60 or so PK3 kids, 50 or so PK4 kids, and 40 or so K kids.

It is great that you're contributing a lot more than the other squatters, but who is going to take your place as room parent next year? Other than Garrison-which only retains about 1 in kid in 10 for K - I think the lower NW schools have eliminated the ECE 'mushroom' structure.

Goddammit, there's no pleasing you people. If she hadn't been there the past two years, no one would have been doing the AT ALL. People like that deserve a medal. Who's going to do the job after her kids graduate? She shouldn't be so selfish and stop then, right? Who's going to do the job after she dies? Only a real asshole would die when there is room parenting to do.

LOL, well said, my thoughts exactly. I would be very grateful for the above "squatter" to stay even one year, in any school.

I was the PP above questioning what schools in "lower NW" could be at issue here. Seems I am in the minority on the neighborhood naming question, so fine, I'll drop that debate. I mostly just wanted to know which school or schools we were really talking about here.

So it sounds like we may be talking about Marie Reed? I had no idea that it was so easy to get in OOB to the dual language program, which is the program that I assume Oyster parents would want. Someone posted WL numbers in another thread and MR was among the longest WLs. So there is some disconnect here. Maybe a lot of Oyster parents had proximity preference under the old lottery rules? If so, won't they lose that now, because they are not far enough from Oyster under the new rule? Someone can correct me. Plus, maybe MR was easier to get into before. The WL is so long now that this problem is unlikely to continue.

Or maybe we are talking about other schools... because it was not OP who mentioned Oyster, if I recall. OP mentioned JKLM parents. I'm still not clear on where those parents are currently "squatting" in ECE in large numbers. The ones I know are at downtown daycares and other private options prior to PK4 or K. Argument by anecdote, you may say, but I don't know a single Janney/Key/Lafayette/Mann parent who started their kid at an EOTP DCPS school for ECE except those that moved from the EOTP neighborhood to the WOTP neighborhood part way through ES, and I do know some of those.

[Anonymous]

I wonder how people think this affects a school in terms of the short-timers raising its profile (hey - it's actually a really good school) or hindering its rise (there's no way I'd stay at this school past PK4).

[Anonymous]

OP mentioned JKLM parents. I'm still not clear on where those parents are currently "squatting" in ECE in large numbers. The ones I know are at downtown daycares and other private options prior to PK4 or K. Argument by anecdote, you may say, but I don't know a single Janney/Key/Lafayette/Mann parent who started their kid at an EOTP DCPS school for ECE except those that moved from the EOTP neighborhood to the WOTP neighborhood part way through ES, and I do know some of those.

You're not clear on where these purported AU Park and CCDC and Palisades families are squatting because .... this is not in fact happening. OP is a classic shit stirrer in the grand tradition of the DCPS / PCS forum.

I do think a handful of price-sensitive households along Wisconsin and Connective probably apply to Janney and Murch pre-K as their first choice, and also apply to Hearst as a backup plan for preK 4. But Hearst, essentially a few blocks from Janney and in Ward 3, is not a decimated "lower NW" school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Op, I am confused. Are you asserting that the unprepared K kids result from IB students who don't get into ECE at their neighborhood schools? If they applied- they would beat out the OB kids, right? So the problem is that folks IB for your school don't want ECE. Your beef is not with OOB folks- but with your IB population.

This is exactly right. The OOB kids don't get in unless there are available slots after all the IB kids are placed. What OP really is arguing for is that her school's PS and PK classes remain under-enrolled rather that be filled with kids who are IB at JKLM. Which is, of course, ridiculous. She's also claiming that the presence is these children results in underprepared IB kindergarteners. Equally ridiculous.

No. OP here. We want our classes full. But at K we get OOB kids who are underprepared who could have been in our school since PK3 but were displaced by Ward 3 families who were space hogging for a year or two. Surely you remember what it feels like to have students who need a bit of a lift JKLM?

Seems like Ward 3's progressive values go out the window when they have can free daycare.

But most likely those students are at PK3 elsewhere or would not have chosen to go to PK at all. Not sure why you think they would be better prepared at your school than anywhere else.

It's more likely that they were shut out with crappy lottery numbers.

[Anonymous]

I have a DS in a JKLM school and I do not know any of his friends and classmates who went to ECE in lower NW. He did not do so either, because it would make our schedules unworkable. As other PPs have been pointing out, unless the parents have an unusual work location, it would be a giant pain to commute from upper NW to e.g., Marie Reed every day. Hearst is about the only NW school convenient to JKLM and it does not have a PS3. So I severely doubt hordes of 3-yr olds from AU Park or Chevy Chase are taking up valuable spots in the schools OP is so concerned about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Op, I am confused. Are you asserting that the unprepared K kids result from IB students who don't get into ECE at their neighborhood schools? If they applied- they would beat out the OB kids, right? So the problem is that folks IB for your school don't want ECE. Your beef is not with OOB folks- but with your IB population.

This is exactly right. The OOB kids don't get in unless there are available slots after all the IB kids are placed. What OP really is arguing for is that her school's PS and PK classes remain under-enrolled rather that be filled with kids who are IB at JKLM. Which is, of course, ridiculous. She's also claiming that the presence is these children results in underprepared IB kindergarteners. Equally ridiculous.

No. OP here. We want our classes full. But at K we get OOB kids who are underprepared who could have been in our school since PK3 but were displaced by Ward 3 families who were space hogging for a year or two. Surely you remember what it feels like to have students who need a bit of a lift JKLM?

Seems like Ward 3's progressive values go out the window when they have can free daycare.

But most likely those students are at PK3 elsewhere or would not have chosen to go to PK at all. Not sure why you think they would be better prepared at your school than anywhere else.

It's more likely that they were shut out with crappy lottery numbers.

Doubt it. There are a number of elementary schools that never get discussed on here that do not fill up their ECE classes. Some of kids OP is talking about are from neighborhoods where those schools are located (we all know that 'unprepared' in her post is code for lower SES). So I am pretty sure the implication is, indeed, that the not so desirable ECE programs those kids got into are inadequate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I agree with PP that the schools that ultimately feed to Cardozo, including both Marie Reed and SWW@F-S, are lower NW. I'm part of the Lower NW Education Collective, which includes reps from both those schools (among others).

This is an actual group? What does it do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I agree with PP that the schools that ultimately feed to Cardozo, including both Marie Reed and SWW@F-S, are lower NW. I'm part of the Lower NW Education Collective, which includes reps from both those schools (among others).

This is an actual group? What does it do?

It's an email group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Op, I am confused. Are you asserting that the unprepared K kids result from IB students who don't get into ECE at their neighborhood schools? If they applied- they would beat out the OB kids, right? So the problem is that folks IB for your school don't want ECE. Your beef is not with OOB folks- but with your IB population.

This is exactly right. The OOB kids don't get in unless there are available slots after all the IB kids are placed. What OP really is arguing for is that her school's PS and PK classes remain under-enrolled rather that be filled with kids who are IB at JKLM. Which is, of course, ridiculous. She's also claiming that the presence is these children results in underprepared IB kindergarteners. Equally ridiculous.

No. OP here. We want our classes full. But at K we get OOB kids who are underprepared who could have been in our school since PK3 but were displaced by Ward 3 families who were space hogging for a year or two. Surely you remember what it feels like to have students who need a bit of a lift JKLM?

Seems like Ward 3's progressive values go out the window when they have can free daycare.

MD resident, so you are not addressing my DC, but my guess is that tax revenue pays for public schools programming.
So free...it's not actually free. It's been paid for by the tax payers. Good chance these JKLM "squatters" have paid taxes.

[Anonymous]

I have to agree with the posters calling BS on this one. Looking at the post-lottery data, most of the schools mentioned so far took ONLY in bounds kids for prek-3 AND put a handful on the wait lists.

Ross has been in bounds only for a few years now, and this year Francis Stevens was too. I suspect the schools people might have been talking about where this was a problem the last few years might be Marie Reed or H.D. Cooke - and both of these accepted only in bounds this year.

Blame it on more families staying in the city - but I think this "squatting trend" is ceasing to exist!

I think this is a positive thing, schools aren't going to get better until people ACTUALLY invest in them for the long term.

[Anonymous]

Good chance these JKLM "squatters" have paid taxes.

Once again, with feeling, there is no such unicorn. OP is making up shit, or else doesn't actually understand where Key, Mann, etc are located and is using Janney and Powell interchangeably. Which is pretty amusing, when you think about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have to agree with the posters calling BS on this one. Looking at the post-lottery data, most of the schools mentioned so far took ONLY in bounds kids for prek-3 AND put a handful on the wait lists.

Ross has been in bounds only for a few years now, and this year Francis Stevens was too. I suspect the schools people might have been talking about where this was a problem the last few years might be Marie Reed or H.D. Cooke - and both of these accepted only in bounds this year.

Blame it on more families staying in the city - but I think this "squatting trend" is ceasing to exist!

I think this is a positive thing, schools aren't going to get better until people ACTUALLY invest in them for the long term.

It's a disease that is heading east! A contagion heading west out of Bancroft to Tubman, from Ross to Seaton, from SWW@FS to Garrison, from Marie Reed to Langley, from Amidon Bowen to Van Mess.

The only way to solve it is to universalize the pilot where Title I schools offer automatic right-of-entry to ECE for all neighborhood families.

Oh snap, why hasn't anybody blamed charters yet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't most jklm do private preschool?

Yes, absolutely for age 3. I have never once met a person in my Murch boundary neighborhood who has cast about the city for a free spot in a DCPS for pk3.

For age four, I have met two household IB for Murch who sent their kids -- interestingly, both families had twins -- to Hearst for pk4. One of these families did this about 8 years ago, the other, more recently.

It's not a common thing in these parts, at all.

Fight by anecdote! I know several Upper NW families that used public schools for PK3, and many who sent their kids to other schools for PK4 because they couldn't get into their IB school. So by my limited experience it must be a very common thing!

"upper NW" isn't the same as Ward 3.

How many families do you know who own homes in 20015 or 20016 and send their kids across the city for pk3? Be honest.

We do....20016 code.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And, contrary to popular belief, not all families residing in ward 3 are rich. The cost of quality childcare is outrageous as is ward 3 housing. Many families are on a tight budget exactly because they have invested their money in ensuring a quality education. If the families have an equal right, are dc taxpayers, etc., why should they stand down from accessing available educational resources for their children consistent with the system that has been established?

+1.

Also, there IS NO PK3 in ward 3.