Reply to Continue at current school after moving out of boundary?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Okay, well, DCPS is getting rid of principal discretion in favor of clear-cut policies that level the playing field and reduce the opportunity for old-style DC cronyism. Most new residents to DC find this to be a good thing. OP ([b]whose story I can't even get straight - IB at Powell but also zoned for Deal?[/b]) would like EOTP schools to continue to allow principals to add and retain children at will based on their ability to be an asset to the school. Got it.[/quote]

There are parts of the Powell zone (and West) that are zoned for Deal, including Crestwood and parts of 16th St Heights.[/quote]

This is the real OP (kinda funny how many people have taken up my position) and I'll just say I'm not zoned for Deal but am at an EOTP school I actually like. We would actually be going to MacFarland Middle School if we stayed there.  I see what people are saying overall, but I just don't see why there can't be flexibility rather than a one-size fits the city rule. [b]I think the school we're at would be lucky to keep us and I just want the certainty of keeping my kid at that school even if we move to a house that's nearby but outside the boundary.[/b] The boundaries are big in some ways, but definitely not when you're on the hunt for a house that's the right fit.  Staying in my school boundary severely limits our options even though the difference in distance to the school is often only 5 minutes or less.[/quote]

Lots of people have limited options--far more limited than yours.  The flexibility you are asking for might help you, but it could disadvantage them. If the principal has discretion and gets to pick your kid versus the learning disabled kid whose mom got evicted and is now at DC General, why should they be allowed to pick yours? Policy should not be made based on whether the school "would be lucky to keep" your kid.  What if the teacher or principal disagrees and would be happy to be rid of him? What if your current kid is great and you have a second who is a jerk--should the principal be able to keep only one?

If you think there should be a lottery preference for kids who are currently enrolled in the school but would like to move out of bounds, I could see that.  Depending on where you move, you might even already get proximity preference. But you're asking for the ability to keep your kid and younger sibs IB for the next decade or more when you may not be part of the neighborhood at all.  You're asking for the school to forced to be more crowded than it might want to be.  You're asking for a policy that is very rare in the US as a whole--where else can you move out of boundary and keep your kid in his old feeder pattern through 12th grade?  If you got what you wanted, what's to stop me getting 5 other families with 4 year olds I know, renting a place like this https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/apa/5202420477.html so we can enroll in K, then moving back to our crappy school zones with the next 13 years of education all secured? Then if the principal had discretion, how should they decide which 6-year-olds get to stay with their friends and get a good education and which ones have to go pound sand?

DCPS should make policies to maximize the quality of peoples' IB schools and the fair distribution of OOB seats--not to make your house-hunting experience simpler. 
[/quote]

This would be hysterical if it weren't so...hysterical.  Is your child sitting in a class with 35 other kids, or what?

Overcrowding is a problem for maybe 10 schools out of something like 150 in the District, and OOB availability has been pretty severely limited in those.  Wait lists are longest at PK3 & 4, when [i]no one[/i] is guaranteed a seat.  The demand goes way down for K and diminishes for each successive grade.  There are no hoards of unwashed masses struggling to get into your first grader's class, and it's even less likely for 2nd through 5th grades.  Moreover, the new rules have discontinued automatic feeder rights for OOB students.

But let's coddle your fantasy and say there are 10-15 "cheaters" per grade for each elementary feeding Deal (plus Brent/Maury and whatever other school is special on the Hill).  So much easier to make your move out/kick out rule a solid one for those schools than to penalize the 100+ other DCPS that are struggling to build and maintain enrollment.  You can read it 100 times over in the DC Public Schools threads:  most higher SES families are gone like the wind by 2nd or 3rd grade. Where do you think they're going?

As long as the "crappy" neighborhood schools fail to retain a cohort that makes middle school options outside of Deal a viable choice, then you'll just have to keep hyperventilating about class sizes at your high demand schools and the cheating cheaters who want to fill them.  Meanwhile, families who are fine with what you call crappy are forced to enter the lottery just because they want to move house - just to satisfy [i]your [/i]situation, which affects a small fraction of the DCPS student population.

By the way, students who are homeless are considered "at risk" and get priority consideration over people with addresses.  Continuity is vital to these kids and they would not be kicked out, nor denied a seat for living somewhere OOB.  But you wouldn't know that. [/quote]

Actually the PP hit the nail on the head. I really want to hug her for her response. It's hysterical that OP thinks a principal should keep discretion to grant her kid exceptions because she'd be lucky to keep her is laughable. [/quote]

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