Message
For DCPS, the max is 16 for PK3 (15 plus 1 from Early Stages), 18 for mixed (17 plus 1 from Early Stages), and 21 for PK4 (20 plus 1 from early stages). OP, is your child at a charter? I don't think there are any limits for charters.
Bridges does this. They could easily have separated 3 and 4 year old classes, but philosophically they think joint classes are better.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:But only for PK3 & 4. No admissions beyond those years.
No undesirables with the special snowflakes.
will they have to change that if they ever join the common lottery?
No. Yu Ying doesn't accept past 1st and is in the common lottery.
I really like having a uniform at our EOTP DCPS. Makes getting ready so much faster. My daughter used to spend a lot of time picking out clothes, and now it's just standardized.
Thanks, PP! super helpful.
Re: Murch - did they have sibs there? Or was is straight no preference?
I think you can get this info on the myschooldc website.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:+1
Another first grade parent here. Great kids, great teachers. A few kids moved away, some kids moved to good IB neighborhoods, some didn't follow to permanent site. Not entirely sure of the reasons for the wait list movement being the most of any grade. Know they are adding to size of class to be 24 each, not 21 like in K.
Really? I didn't know this. We have 22. So I guess they're adding more.
Are they adding more to their PK3 and PK4 classes too, or will those still be 22?
I have several friends who go there (not Quaker at all) and absolutely love it. From their descriptions, it sounds entirely play-based. It also sounds like one of the things they work on is having children learn to work through conflict with minimal adult intervention. Best of luck with your decision!
Next year, after the lottery occurs, the principals will no longer manage the waitlists, according to the MSDC people at the focus group I attended. All waitlists will be managed centrally through MSDC. This year, MSDC only did the lottery, not the waitlist management.
We put all our info in. Also for PK3.
I downloaded the DCPCSB spreadsheet after round 1, and it shows that all PK3 spots were filled at Bethune in round 1 but that there was not a wait list. So, the list should only move w/round 2 people if people declined after round 1 (which I would expect a few would). It says there were 88 people wait listed total in all the other grades.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I think after three years, you'll get a spot you want.
You're the second person who has said something to this effect, but wouldn't the statisticians among us say that you have no better chance at pulling good numbers in your successive rounds than you would in your first? I don't think that playing repeatedly will guarantee entry to the desired schools (especially with fewer slots in K than PS3), and I would be scared to rely on the chances of that and fail to make other plans, like moving to an area with a better IB school or investigating private if you're in the position to do so. I worry that this optimistic attitude, actually useful in other areas of life, might not yield the best results in this situation.
Yes, but by continuing to play, you're entering over and over again, thus increasing your odds. No guarantees, of course, but definitely a higher probability. And past PK4, my understanding is that you have many fewer students applying.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:But that is the whole point! There is no more incentive to rank your first choice #1 than for it to increase your chances of getting in if you rank it #1! The ideal matching system matches not just what the school is looking for (families with preference first, than no preference) but also what families are looking for (I wanted School A most, so ranked it #1, so I should get a better shot than the next person who ranked School A #2).
There is no additional incentive to do anything differently if the parent's ranking counts, it just makes it count more. But you were always a fool to not arrange your choices in the order you most wanted them, because to order them differently means risking getting into your #4 school and being dropped from #s 5-12. If you liked #5 better than #4, you should have switched their rankings.
Sure there is. I ranked MV #1 this year even though they only had 8 non sib spots. If only the people who had ranked it #1 had a chance, then I would have had an only slightly higher odds of getting in (since there are only 8 seats) but I would have had no chance at my #2 choice (two rivers), because only those ranking it #1 would have had any chance of getting in. The best strategy for me would have been to apply to one of my late choices who would not have had many people ranking it #1 but would have been a lot less desirable for me.
One of the goals of the DME's office when I spoke with them was to ensure that the lottery didn't have people making strategic ranking choices once they chose the schools to apply to ("strategy proof"). Of course, there is strategy in choosing where to apply since you aren't guaranteed anywhere for PK3 and PK4, which is why I applied (and am sending my child to) my unpopular IB school.
I didn't do well with the lottery, but it was still the best algorithm.
There is simply no such thing as "stragegy-proofing" the lottery. Whether it goes the way it did this year, or there are lotteries for each school within the common lottery, or all #1 rankings for one school are considered first... whatever the rules are, parents will do exactly what they feel they need to: apply in the way they think will give them the best shot at the best school for their child.
At the end of the day, there are finite spots at finite schools. I don't understand how you can say that it's better to have people who ranked a school #7 have a chance to get in over all the people who ranked it #1, but that's what you're saying by saying you prefer the current system. Doing the algorithm in a way where only people who ranked a popular school #1 have a chance basically makes people really think about what school they most want, but it doesn't somehow decrease the number of slots at a school or increase the number of people who get in. Your odds of getting in at any school (including the less popular safety schools) do not change, but the matching of parents to schools they want the most actually increases. Why is it a bad idea to have only people who get into the most popular schools be the people who wanted it badly enough to rank it #1? I don't understand your point.
If the common lottery were run the way you suggest, I would not place my #1 school there and would move it elsewhere. If out in a school where I had a decent shot at getting in there. Otherwise I would probably get shut out of my decent shot school too and not get into my top choices. In other words, I would rerank and my #1 school would not really be the #1 school among my 12 choices. That is what the DME wants to avoid. Otherwise, people's #1 choices aren't actually their top choices. It messed with the whole point of the system.
I agree with you entirely that there are limited spots at schools--that's why a lottery is needed. The common lottery gets people to put their choices down in the order that they actually prefer them and them puts them into the highest-ranked choice with space, after preferences are taken into account. It sucks if, like me, you get a late lottery draw, but it is fair and does put people where they want to be based on what is available when their lottery number comes up.
Anonymous wrote:Non-economically disadvantaged students (who are disproportionately but not all white) are doing fine in every school they attend. I really think that if you switched the student bodies of--for example--Aiton and Eaton, all of a sudden you'd have different perceptions of each school.
A kid with involved, educated, parents is going to score advanced on DC-CAS wherever they go. So that's one reason to stay. The teachers are largely just fine, and the kids can get a diverse experience.
But if the school isn't doing anything to differentiate or challenge the few advanced kids, or if there are discipline/bullying problems I can see why parents want to leave.
I would be fine sending an academically advanced kid to my neighborhood school, where proficiency rates are about 30%, if the teachers could provide some real enrichment (not tutoring other kids or just sitting in a corner with a book) and the other students were well-behaved.
And in a small school, it only takes a few families making that choice before test scores go up. For example, in an elementary school with 100 kids in testing grades and 35% proficiency, moving in 10 proficient kids (so, 3 or 4 per grade) allows the teachers to move 5 students from basic to proficient (1 or 2 per grade) and wind up with 45% proficiency. Do it again the following year--find 10 families to stay or come in OOB at the testing grades, and get 6 students from basic to proficient. Now you're at 55% proficiency and DCPS and DCUM are giving it buzz. It's not easy to find or keep those proficient students though.
One thing that really hurts schools that are trying to retain students is the policy that once you're in OOB you can go to the destination middle school. People are therefore willing to play the lottery and leave an elementary they're fairly happy with in hopes of getting into one that feeds a better middle school. I am really disappointed that the DME's plan didn't address this issue, because I think it might be one of the major hurdles to improving schools (and probably one of the few hurdles DME is actually able to address--things like childhood poverty and low parental literacy are much greater issues but outside of her control).
That is a really good point about the feeder rights. I had not thought about that and wished I had put it in my feedback to the DME. Did you provide such feedback?