Reply to SWS - as an IB School? L-T prospects?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think that the issue isn't really one of feeling like something has been lost - whether that is a school or seats at PS or PK or K, etc.  What the people from this neighborhood are saying is that they would like proximity preference going forward.  Since this has never been a school before, the rules for attendance are up in the air and are, for the time being, negotiable.  It doesn't really matter what happened in the past or what the school used to be or who used to have preference at it.  That was all at a different location and with a different set of facts.  Now that the school has found a permanent location, people are saying that they want that new location to operate like other city public schools.  If if gets and IB area, great.  If not, give the regular proximity preference that comes after OOB with sibling preference.

I think people are getting hung up on the history of this program because the name hasn't changed instead of realizing that it is actually something entirely new.  A new school in any neighborhood is going to be something that people in the neighborhood want to go to and that they are, justifiably, going to feel like they should have a right to attend before people from farther away.  I know that if a new DCPS school opened in my neighborhood I would want to have the opportunity to send my kid there, not that I necessarily would because the city offers other options.  Its the same reason that people have been advocating for proximity (or neighborhood?) preference at charter schools.  When there is a great school right by your house, you want to be able to send your kid there.  With charters, it has been a city-wide policy choice not to give preference to neighbors at charter schools.  With DCPS, there has always been a city-wide policy choice to give local preference at public schools.  I can understand why these neighbors think that they should have preference at this NEW school because it is a public school and not a charter.[/quote]

It's only a benefit to a few hill families who don't want to support their IB schools to give proximity preference.  As previously stated, that's an undue benefit for a tiny few and an undue burden to the vast majority.

There's a very good reason DCPS and everyone else in the city is glad it's going to be a city-wide school with no neighborhood preference.  You can't support the schools you have, you certainly don't need an advantage at any more.[/quote]

How is it an undue burden on the vast majority of DC residents?  Don't they all have IB schools to go to as well? [/quote]

No.  Some of them don't, because their IB schools have been closed.  And since SWS is city-wide, they deserve exactly the preference that the neighbors do.  In fact, perhaps they deserve more - I'd be willing to lobby for giving preference to any family whose IB school was closed.[/quote]

This is not true.  All students whose old DCPS IB school was closed have an IB preference at a new DCPS school. There is no student in DC without an IB preference at a current school.  Everyone who chooses to send their child to SWS is choosing not to support their IB school.  If a family that lives near SWS chooses to send their child there, they are doing exactly the same thing that every other family of a student at SWS is doing.  I am not sure why you want to turn your nose up at this choice when it is done by someone who lives IB to L-T, but not  also turn your nose up at the lady from Brookland who is sending her kid to SWS.  That lady is not supporting her IB school either (not that I think she should have to, but you clearly think that there is some sort of moral superiority to going to an IB school.)[/quote]

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