Mann Waitlist

[Anonymous]

Hi - we have a decent waitlist number in the OOB lottery for 1st for Mann - by decent I mean within top 5. Does anyone know if that waitlist ever moves, and, if so, in other years how far down the list have they gone, if at all, for 1st? TIA

[Anonymous]

It won't move because Michelle Rhee puts Mayor Fenty's friends' kids in Mann without them going through the lottery.

[Anonymous]

i don't think it tends to move much. we were in the top 5 for pre-k last year and never got a call.

[Anonymous]

Call May 1st and ask. By then re-enrollment would have occurred.

[Anonymous]

Fenty's kids go to Lafayette. Rhee simply won't mess with those families.

[Anonymous]

Fenty's kids go to Lafayette, but several of his friends got their kids in at Mann without going through the lottery.

[Anonymous]

That would be interesting to confirm...that would take a lot of manipulating with posting fake lottery numbers for 'in boundary' wouldn't it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That would be interesting to confirm...that would take a lot of manipulating with posting fake lottery numbers for 'in boundary' wouldn't it?

I'm not sure there would be any need to create a paper trail like that. Assuming Mann has very good student:teacher ratios, it's easy enough to squeeze an extra child into a classroom without ever going through the lottery process. Just call the principal in August, and apply whatever necessary pressure until s/he folds.

[Anonymous]

I disagree; I don't think Whisnant is 'folding' with the commitment she has to the parents in that neighborhood. They max out at 19 every year and it's a small school. No wiggle room.

[Anonymous]

Nope, no lottery involved. Rhee has discretion to place kids in schools under a vaguely worded exception provision that she used to put Fenty's kids in Lafayette. Same thing used at Mann.

[Anonymous]

Yes, there are also a few big-money, non-Administration business types that pole-vaulted into Mann from their assigned schools. I know this as an absolute fact.

[Anonymous]

We were number 1 in the preK lottery one year, and the principal was very clear (and somewhat rude) about it. Principal said there would not be any space, never was, never will be.

[Anonymous]

She's not rude, just certain.

[Anonymous]

Sheila Ford, the rude one, started this sham teacher's training institute in DC and received tons of cash with little documentation as to either purpose or success. The teachers and administrators at Mann and other high performing schools start to believe that they've been touched by god because they happen to have some politically connected kids in their classroom.

[Anonymous]

OP, there is probably not going to be enough movement on the Mann waitlist for you to get a spot. Twenty in-boundary families with siblings applied for the 19 spots.

I suppose there is a chance that one or two of the families will be forced to relocate over the summer, but not five of them.