Reply to City Center: How soon to make the jump for feeders?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I know others have posted this question before...but here goes...Have child in early elementary school. We live in center city and are having a great experience so far at our in-boundary, a well-run, Title I DCPS which gets praise on DCUM (when it is mentioned here, which is rare). School has iffy test scores and a high-poverty population, but strong leadership and teaching staff. For my child's year, it will feed John Francis Education Campus Middle, which I toured for elementary and really liked, though I wonder how the transition with the new middle opening will work.

My question: You only get so many chances in the lottery, especially with an only child. Should we lottery as often as possible to get into a Ward 3 school or H-A so that we can get into a better feeder pattern, even knowing that it would mean a long, annoying commute for many years, for not neccesarily a better elementary and middle experience?

[b]Are those Ward 3 elementary schools and H-A - and Hardy and Deal - so much better than the city center title I's/Francis middle that making the transfer is worth it for its own sake? [/b]The test scores would say yes, though it's hard to separate out how much of that is just demographics.

Our other option: Stay at our Title I through 5, then do Francis, and cross our fingers for an application high school while saving for private as a back-up. Obviously, we can take that plan year by year. If our school - or later on, Francis - stops working for our kid, we will lottery. But wondering how proactive we should be when all is currently well, but we know that we can't stay in this pyrimad forever - the high school is a no-go.

I'm inclined to stick where we are, but curious for your thoughts. 
[/quote]

Hardy and Deal are much better than Francis. I did a ton of research before making our middle school choice, and it's incredible how different these schools are -- what classes are offered, how the classes are taught, how much screentime the students have, etc, is very very different. Seems like you have been to Francis -- Go to an open house at Hardy. The kids are actually learning more, and in more engaging classrooms.

Elementary --H-A is almost certainly offering more than your current elementary, but it's really debatable how much it matters at the elementary stage. Kids can catch up very quickly once they move to a challenging middle school. So I don't know if elementary needs to be optimized.[/quote]

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