Reply to Overcrowding and lack of space in Ward 3 Schools

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's also important to acknowledge that a big part of the overcrowding problem in upper NW schools is that families bail on their inboundary schools and usually do it without reasonable notice. So upper middle class families will leave after 2nd, 3rd or 4th grade in order to claim a private school spot. That's fine. Do what's best for your child, right? But it leaves the DCPS holding the bag and a target enrollment number that the principal is obliged to try and reach. So he/she goes to the waitlist to fill up those classrooms that are now unexpectedly small in order to meet enrollment targets and justify the teacher salary.  Making some sort of blanket statement that OOB practices should be halted is naive and doesn't take reality in to account. Rather than trying to eliminate OOB or middle and high school feeder rights (which I genuinely think are nonstarters), I think a better step would be to implement a "no new OOB students" policy for grades 3rd through 5th at upper NW "desirable" schools and have downtown give those schools a little break in not forcing them to fill those grades to capacity (because doing so grows the Deal and Wilson overcrowding problems as they inherit those kids). You can't blame OOB families for wanting to get their children into a feeder pattern that is attractive. [/quote]

Not sure I understand your OOB views.

I think understand your point about principals wanting to meet enrollment targets, and then admitting OOB students from a waitlist when existing students (IB or OOB) leave unexpectedly.  I suppose I don't have a problem with your suggestion in that situation of DCPS just cutting them some slack and allowing them to miss enrollment targets.  But I also don't see much problem in letting them pull other students (presumably mostly OOB) from the waitlist in that situation.  So for example (totally made-up numbers), if Deal is expecting 400 students in its 7th grade class, but 50 students leave for private or MoCo over the summer, what's the problem with adding 50 replacement students from the waitlist?  The resulting class will still be only 400, so it won't change the total number of students in the feeder pipeline for that grade.

My suggestion would be to order access priority like this: [b]IB, OOB feeder, OOB non-feeder.[/b]  So when Deal is arranging its 6th grade class, the IB students get first priority for spots.  If there are any open spots after the IB students are slotted, then they go by lottery to OOB students at Deal's elementary feeders.  Then if there are any spots left after that, they go to OOB students who are not at Deal's elementary feeders.  If students drop out of the Deal pool over the summer, then DCPS fills those spots in the same priority order: IB waitlist, OOB feeder waitlist, OOB non-feeder waitlist.  It's not really "eliminating" OOB feeder rights entirely, but rather just saying their OOB feeder rights are subject to capacity limitations.

FWIW, I agree with you that we can't fault any parents for trying to get the best situation for their kids.  [/quote]

Yes, yes, yes.  That's the way it worked before Rhee.  The new Chancellor should return the order access priority arrangement to its logical, pre 2010 state.  Will he?  Doubt it unless political heads roll over the issue first.  [/quote]

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