Does anyone feel unfair because of sibling reference?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I dunno. The State is required to provide free public education to everyone and deciding to start that at age 5 is kind of arbitrary. If a state or municipality and its voters decide they want to start offering public education earlier, I think that is a worthwhile goal. The question is how do you distribute this limited resource before it can be fully implemented. And at what expense is the free preschool- larger classrooms? Fewer arts/music/specials? What has the greater educational impact?
And there are certainly other ways in which semi-universal preK have benefited all D.C. Residents. Property values in, say, Brookland, for one.

[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).

Outside of a handful of schools, most DCPS schools have a sizeable OOB population, especially in the older grades. Education exists beyond preschool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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).

Outside of a handful of schools, most DCPS schools have a sizeable OOB population, especially in the older grades. Education exists beyond preschool.

Ok. But what's your point? We are talking about whether IB sibling preference makes sense for neighborhood (not citywide) DCPS. By definition that is only applicable to preschool.

[Anonymous]

There is no chance this is going to change. So, 7 pages later... sorry for being on the bad side of luck and circumstances on this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We didn't get into preK at our in-bounds school - -Bancroft -- because out-of-bound families with siblings get preference over in-bound families at the preK level. Not a huge deal. I see preK as a bonus and we could go by right in K. But we got into a charter in preK and started there and stayed. I think Bancroft loses a lot of in-bound families who might otherwise stay in the neighborhood because of this policy (which I think is just for bi-lingual schools)

Same thing happened with us. We didn't get in to our inbounds school for pk3 or pk4. We got into a far away charter and are going with that for K. My guess is, if our child had been in our IB school for the last 2 years and had friends there, etc., we would have stayed.

[Anonymous]

As a father of 3, sibling preference is pretty important at the elementary level. Kids are at an age where parents may have to help with getting breakfast, backpack ready & walking to bus stop/dropping off at school. To send a 2nd grader one way and his Kindergarten sister another puts a pretty big burden on families.

That said - I have no problem eliminating the preference at the middle/high school level. By that age kids are self-sufficient and can get up, get ready & go off to school on their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Universal entitlements have universal support. That's why public preschool for all makes sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Universal entitlements have universal support. That's why public preschool for all makes sense.

And there are seats for all, just not necessarily at the school you most prefer.