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DC Public and Public Charter Schools
Charter Lottery
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Anonymous
| For those of us that didn't get into any regular DCPS for PreK -- when is the charter lottery and can a on-line link to it be provided? |
Anonymous
| There are separate lotteries and deadlines for each charter school. You have to look on each school's website. |
Anonymous
| Thanks, that's helpful. Are the charter school websites linked to the DCPS site in a central location? I haven't been able to find that. |
Anonymous
|
here is a link to the public charter school board website:
http://www.dcpubliccharter.com/SearchSchools.aspx The charter school websites are not linked to DCPS site (at least not that I have found) |
Anonymous
| Thanks! |
Anonymous
| It appears from the link above that there are no charter schools in Ward 3 and indeed no charter schools West of the Park. Can anyone confirm that? |
Anonymous
I don't have access to any special knowledge, but the possibility doesn't surprise me one bit. Charter schools need to find their own facilities (I guess there's some help from the city), and I doubt any fledgling nonprofit would choose to pay higher rents west of the Park. The thing to remember is that most charter schools move at least once in their first few years of operation, if not in the years after that. So choosing a charter on the basis of location doesn't make a ton of sense. (Even though, um, my family is doing exactly that.) |
Anonymous
That makes good sense, don't choose by the location (even though you might and we might  ) At the same time though I think one would certainly have to rule a charter school out because the location is just simply too onerous for a family to add to the daily commute morning and evening each day. I'm not finding from the map on the link provided that many (any?) of the charter schools that offer prek don't fall into that category for those in Ward 3 with jobs in the other direction from most of the charters.
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Anonymous
| There are no charters in ward 3. None of the new applicants are in ward 3. Charter movement focuses on serving lower income families with high quality schools typically available in higher income areas. A charter would likely not be approved, or attract outside funding, if it is based in a high income area that already has the top schools in the city. |
Anonymous
Well... not quite. There are definitely families in Ward 3 that leave their neighborhood schools to attend charters! Both Washington Latin and Washington Yu Ying attract families from upper income brackets. EL Haynes & Two Rivers do too, at least in the lower grades. Charters don't get their approval based on where they're located - that has nothing to do with the criteria they need to meet. The reason you don't see any charters in Ward 3 is because of the higher cost of the real estate. There's more land, and more sites available elsewhere. It's true that when the first charter schools in DC opened they attracted lower income families who were being poorly served by their neighborhood schools. There are a lot of charter schools east of the river as a result. But for the past few years charters have been attracting middle and upper middle class families too, even over their neighborhood schools. This is because middle and upper-middle class families became fed up with DCPS and opened charter schools with rich program offerings. These weren't TFA types opening schools for the poor and under-served (although these students do get served and that's a good thing). These were well-educated parents with a lot of resources opening schools that they had designed specifically for their children, in order to provide educational experiences that DCPS wasn't (and still isn't) offering. That's how Cap City, 2 Rivers, and Yu Ying all got started. 38% of public school students in DC attend charter schools and another 31% attend OOB schools. Only 31% attend their neighborhood schools (in other words, don't attend a "school of choice"). |