Reply to Why is SWS so white?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Why is SWS so white?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]So I can maybe guess at the answer to this question but I am hoping someone else can explain it to me.

SWS is a citywide school with no in-boundary preference. It's a popular school and always has a long waitlist and admits few kids off the waitlist (last year it made one waitlist offer). So admission to SWS should be pretty egalitarian -- you do the lottery, and if you get lucky, you get a spot.

So why is SWS 60% white? It's one of the whitest schools in the city. Brent Elementary is about as white, but Brent is a boundary school in a very white neighborhood, so that is more easily explained.

But shouldn't SWS be more reflective of city demographics? What's going on?

My guess is that it's partly due to how sibling preference operates in a school with very small class sizes. If even a third of SWS's PK class is getting sibling preference, that will heavily reinforce demographics from prior years. I also wonder if the low percentages of non-white kids is self-perpetuating, because it might make the school less appealing to parents of black and Latino kids, especially when there are so many schools in DC with much larger POC populations, many of them excellent schools.

But still: how did this happen in the first place? I just don't understand how a citywide school in DC gets to 60% white kids in the first place. I know Capitol Hill is increasingly very white, but SWS is currently in a flex space in Hill East which is much less white. And most other Capital Hill schools, except Brent, still have less than 50% white student populations. And other citywide schools and charters in the area (CHML, TR, Apple Tree) all have populations that are much more reflective of the city's overall population.

What's going on?[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics