Does anyone feel unfair because of sibling reference?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally, I think it's a bit ridiculous if a family moves into the neighborhood over the summer with an older, by-right-attendance child and then their youngest gets to skip the entire queue for pre-K. That family didn't wait their turn. And, frankly, they can shlep the youngest pre-K child to another school for a year.

I'm fine with the sibling preference if the pre-K child was in the waitlist from the very beginning. But it's ridiculous that they get to jump line at the end of the summer. That seems to be an equitable way to deal with the pre-K sibling preference issue.

I totally agree with you. It will be okay if they also attend the entire process like others.

Are there any good "excuses" for moving late in the year in your book? Job transfer? Military orders?

There are lots of legitimate reasons for moving. The question is how should a limited resource get distributed (classroom seats for PreK at a school that does not have enough spots for all IB PreK aged students).
Should children who lived IB at the time of the lottery and were in the lottery have priority over children who moved into the neighborhood after the initial lottery cut-off?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally, I think it's a bit ridiculous if a family moves into the neighborhood over the summer with an older, by-right-attendance child and then their youngest gets to skip the entire queue for pre-K. That family didn't wait their turn. And, frankly, they can shlep the youngest pre-K child to another school for a year.

I'm fine with the sibling preference if the pre-K child was in the waitlist from the very beginning. But it's ridiculous that they get to jump line at the end of the summer. That seems to be an equitable way to deal with the pre-K sibling preference issue.

I totally agree with you. It will be okay if they also attend the entire process like others.

Are there any good "excuses" for moving late in the year in your book? Job transfer? Military orders?

There are lots of legitimate reasons for moving. The question is how should a limited resource get distributed (classroom seats for PreK at a school that does not have enough spots for all IB PreK aged students).
Should children who lived IB at the time of the lottery and were in the lottery have priority over children who moved into the neighborhood after the initial lottery cut-off?

No, they should not.

[Anonymous]

In bound students should always have preference over out of bound students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In bound students should always have preference over out of bound students.

They do.

[Anonymous]

the issue is people who move to the boundary (from OOB but in DC, or outside of DC). I think it would be very hard to verify all of this and there are legit reasons why people move kids IB like the kid being taken into foster care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the issue is people who move to the boundary (from OOB but in DC, or outside of DC). I think it would be very hard to verify all of this and there are legit reasons why people move kids IB like the kid being taken into foster care.

Well where do you draw that line?

I (the parent) was born and raised IB for X school, so my child should get priority for preschool lottery over someone whose family moved here 2 years ago or 6 months ago?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the issue is people who move to the boundary (from OOB but in DC, or outside of DC). I think it would be very hard to verify all of this and there are legit reasons why people move kids IB like the kid being taken into foster care.

Well where do you draw that line?

I (the parent) was born and raised IB for X school, so my child should get priority for preschool lottery over someone whose family moved here 2 years ago or 6 months ago?

You draw the line at the day the lottery closes. You can add your name to the list after the lottery - but IB people who had their name in before the lottery close get priority over IB people who add their name after the lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's just eliminate free PK for any school that isn't Title 1.

+1. Since they are always complaining about being overcrowded.

Even better idea: these schools can offer PK but ONLY for at-risk kids.

good way to solve overcrowding - make the school less attractive to young families and provide more incentives to exit or never enter the system. Easy to solve overcrowding by killing demand.

Some posters take quality for granted. Only a few years ago many parents wouldn't touch some now in demand schools with a ten foot pole.

If a few dozen low-income kids will kill demand for the entire school, you really have bigger problems.

That has nothing to do with it. If there are no PS/PK prospects in DC plenty of families will look elsewhere and never enter the system. When you look at private PS options in DC it's limited to fed/corporate/parochial options and there are far fewer spaces in DC than in suburbs.

Or it would exacerbate the classism between Wilson feeders and everyone else (notice that none offer PK3 and many families can easily afford to deal with shut getting shut out of PK4). It would cost the system any kind of reasonable balance or middle class base. It would only extend the currently flawed and highly segregated approach to a systemic one. Set asides are one thing (all talk but good in principal) but reserving PS/PK for income based qualification makes no sense. A 'few dozen' low-income student set-aside at any one school is basically the bulk of PS/PK

Huh? In most of this country, elementary schools have no preschool whatsoever, and people still enter the school system. Paying for 12 years of private school because of no free preschool is insane.

"most of this country" isn't DC and in many cases you're talking about places with minimal choice or mobility. If I had to wait until my kid was 5 to enter an elementary school which begins in K I'd consider other DMV public school districts before DC where I'd have to pay for preschool either way. As it is I didn't look beyond DC -- that's an advantage for attracting and potentially retaining families in DC vs MD/VA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's just eliminate free PK for any school that isn't Title 1.

+1. Since they are always complaining about being overcrowded.

Even better idea: these schools can offer PK but ONLY for at-risk kids.

An at-risk preference would make more sense than a sibling preference. That way the seats would go to those who need it most, whether sibling or only.

And it could boost the proportion of at-risk kids in wealthy schools.

Thus overcrowding them even more. Good plan.

Cry me a river. Get rid of preschool and free up those rooms if it's so crowded. Or there's plenty of space at my child's Title I.

+1 This.

[Anonymous]

Free preschool at Title 1 schools only.

IB students get first priority, and OOB gets any extra seats still available on first day of school (determined by lottery).

[Anonymous]

Sibling preference is a model designed for charter or magnet schools, where school assignments are not determined by geographic boundaries at all. It would be impossible to retain families without that benefit.
When applied to public schools that serve, whether officially or practically, exclusively in boundary students that all have a right to attend at K, they don't make sense. Instead, they serve as a means to deciding who gets free, formal preK and who does not.
It's not about "keeping families together" at that point since the school is presumably in your neighborhood to begin with and your younger child will have a spot there within a couple years. Maybe it makes sense for twins, but not for younger siblings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sibling preference is a model designed for charter or magnet schools, where school assignments are not determined by geographic boundaries at all. It would be impossible to retain families without that benefit.
When applied to public schools that serve, whether officially or practically, exclusively in boundary students that all have a right to attend at K, they don't make sense. Instead, they serve as a means to deciding who gets free, formal preK and who does not.
It's not about "keeping families together" at that point since the school is presumably in your neighborhood to begin with and your younger child will have a spot there within a couple years. Maybe it makes sense for twins, but not for younger siblings.

+1

Agree that this makes sense for charter schools and magnet schools, but not neighborhood schools. After being shut out of our IB school for two years, we ended up moving inbounds for a different highly regarded IB. Part of the reason was that we had no affiliation- nor sense of belonging- to our desirable neighborhood school. That same one we were devastated to have not gotten into for either PS3 or PK4.

Outside of twins, our family does not buy into sibling preference. Artificial divide.

Preference for low income? Yes. Preference for native language speakers? Yes.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, PP. I'm not buying it. You moved for lots of reasons beyond not getting into PS3 and PK in the first hood, because if that school was so great you could have started there in K, forging the brand new friendships you had to do in your new neighborhood. "devastated?" really? Hope all goes well for you now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sibling preference is a model designed for charter or magnet schools, where school assignments are not determined by geographic boundaries at all. It would be impossible to retain families without that benefit.
When applied to public schools that serve, whether officially or practically, exclusively in boundary students that all have a right to attend at K, they don't make sense. Instead, they serve as a means to deciding who gets free, formal preK and who does not.
It's not about "keeping families together" at that point since the school is presumably in your neighborhood to begin with and your younger child will have a spot there within a couple years. Maybe it makes sense for twins, but not for younger siblings.

Agree with this 100%. Sibling preference does not make sense for public schools with geographic boundaries (not citywide).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sibling preference is a model designed for charter or magnet schools, where school assignments are not determined by geographic boundaries at all. It would be impossible to retain families without that benefit.
When applied to public schools that serve, whether officially or practically, exclusively in boundary students that all have a right to attend at K, they don't make sense. Instead, they serve as a means to deciding who gets free, formal preK and who does not.
It's not about "keeping families together" at that point since the school is presumably in your neighborhood to begin with and your younger child will have a spot there within a couple years. Maybe it makes sense for twins, but not for younger siblings.

Agree with this 100%. Sibling preference does not make sense for public schools with geographic boundaries (not citywide).

Free preschool doesn't make sense for schools with wealthy students either.