Reply to thomson vs HD Cooke

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Looked at Thomson 5 ish years ago and firstly was not impressed by what I saw in 2 of the PK classrooms, but second couldn’t stomach sending my kid to a school with an enclosed level of a parking garage for their recess area. [/quote]

Yikes! i wonder if it's still the same. Cooke's playground is nothing to write home about, but it's outside at least. [/quote]

Thomson is downtown on a property with no green space. They do the best they can but if you care about outdoor space that might point you more to Cooke. [/quote]

OP- thanks for the update. We absolutely need some kind of outdoor space as we don't have it in our condo.  This is for first grade, so he would be there through elementary, unless we won another better lottery another year.  
He is also waitlisted #11 at Breakthrough Montessori and #8 at Marie Reed (OOB - so that seems unlikely) Per the data from last year, he may be able to make it ay Breakthrough. This would be much more of a commute, but it sounds like the school is pretty great.[/quote]

I don't think Breakthrough is so much better than Cooke to justify an extra commute. The time you save getting your kid to and from Breakthrough each day is time he can be on the playground. 
As a note, Thomson's play area is outdoors-ish. It has a roof and some fencing around it so balls don't roll onto the ground because it's elevated. One thing to find out if you can talk with current families is whether that means kids actually go out more in bad weather than they do at Cooke. At some DCPS schools, if the playground is wet or it's below like 55 degrees they don't take kids out. Thomson's play area might not be as nice but it might be nicer than weeks of indoor recess.[/quote]
Where do you get your information? Policy is if it’s below 32 degrees they don’t go out. Mykids only missed recess for downpours this year since it never even got that cold during the day. [/quote]

Are you at Cooke? Because at a lot of schools (especially Title I) the kids definitely don't go out if it's in the high 30s, 40s, or maybe even 50s or if the playground is at all wet. Some of it is concern about kids not having adequate outdoor gear. Some is being worried about parents getting upset that their kids' clothes/shoes/hair etc. got messed up outside. Some is the adults not wanting to go outside in imperfect weather. Some is cultural norms about whether is is healthy to play outside in cold weather. There are tons of threads on DCUM about that. So if the not-very-nice space at Thomson allows the kids to get out more than at Cooke, that's worth factoring in. [/quote]

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