Reply to Is it important to have kids stay at your school through 5th grade?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The DME cross sector task force looked at this issue and the data found that the overwhelming majority of children leaving DC schools at all grades are leaving the city altogether.

I think there's a lot of movement at a few schools that get a lot of attention here, but the data simply do not support the 'mass exodus' narrative.

It probably feels like a mass exodus though if you are at one of those schools.

[/quote] Is there data on this somewhere?[/quote]

Here is the DCPS data from 2015: http://wamu.org/story/16/03/02/5th_grade_dropoff/

Brent, Ross, and CHM@L each lost most of their 4th graders.

The following schools lost between a quarter and a half:

Browne EC
Key ES
Thomson ES
Stoddert ES
Wheatley EC
Malcolm X ES @ Green
Maury ES
Whittier EC
Randle Highlands ES
C.W. Harris ES
Houston ES
LaSalle-Backus EC
Tyler ES
Plummer ES
Watkins ES
School Without Walls @ Francis-Stevens
Hyde-Addison ES
Walker-Jones EC
Leckie ES
Powell ES
Garfield ES
Savoy ES
Aiton ES
Raymond EC

And that is just between 4th and 5th grade. Some of those schools will back fill or have new kids move into the area. Some do a combined 4th and 5th grade, or just have fewer 5th grade classes.

One solution to this is to end the OOB feed so people aren't switching elementary schools for the chance to get into better middle schools. Another is to restrict charters so they can't start in 5th--make them start in either PK3, 3rd, 6th, or 9th. [/quote]

You can't solve this unless everyone agrees it is a problem.

Choice is deeply embedded into the schools in DC. Before charters that choice was exercised within DCPS schools by seeking OOB slots or a seat at an application high school. Now the charter system has added more choice.

If you are zoned for a bad DCPS school -- which most of us are -- you will fight tooth and nail against anything that would take choices away.

The cross sector task force looked at this over several months, and in the end decided it was not significant enough an issue to warrant the kinds of 'solutions' you mention. They did recommend some changes to allow and incentivize charters to take students mid-year, and to create additional choice options for students in hardship cases. [/quote]

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