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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I mean you can play this game forever in DC.

We are at a Title 1 DCPS (middle class white family) and we often have to have a discussion about whether we will participate in a program because we know it is designed for the many at risk kids at our school and we don't want to take opportunities away from other kids. On the other hand, it's our school and we want to be part of the community. And we don't want our kid to feel separate and apart.

Example: the school has heavily subsidized after care. It's ridiculously inexpensive. Is it wrong for us to use it even though we can afford to pay more? In the end we do use it because what is the alternative? For our kid to to go to some more expensive aftercare program somewhere else so that we don't feel guilty using a subsidized service? How would that look to the kids? It makes no sense. So we get a benefit we didn't earn and don't technically need, but it's really the most sensible outcome.

And then during the lottery each year we always feel a bit confused. Does it make more sense to stay and invest in our IB school (which we like!), or to acknowledge that this school is designed to serve the needs of a community we don't really belong to and lottery into a charter or OOB DCPS where the family community is more similar to us (whiter, more middle or upper middle class). I honestly don't know the answer. So far we've stayed out of loyalty to the school and because our kid is happy. Maybe we'll last until middle. It's really hard to know what the right thing to do it, especially when of course it's a crapshoot whether we even get into another school anyway.

Public school in DC is not for the faint of heart. Unless you live in a small number of school boundaries, you will at some point have to struggle with the question of whether to make a choice that serves your community or that serves your child, and then also to question what it even means to do right by your kid. There is no "set it and forget it" mode for most DC public school parents. You will have to wrestle with these questions. [/quote]

Yeah, the above is us. With our first kid, it was clear the kid would do well anywhere. The second clearly needs more out of school. Will our choices be the same for both in a choice-heavy environment? Who knows.[/quote]

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