Reply to 26-27 Lottery data up

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Wow, charter elementary schools really have plummeted in demand.

For SY 19-20, there were 30 PCS with PK3 waitlists in the double digits (including LAMB even though they weren't in the common lottery, just cause, duh, they had huge waitlists back then).

This year? 13. The seven DCI feeders (DCB, MVP, MVC8, YY, LAMB, Stokes EE, Stokes BL), plus ITDS, Apple Tree Lincoln Park, EL Haynes, LEARN, Lee BL, and TR4.

And triple digit waitlists are basically an endangered species - just five and they're all DCI feeders (DCB, LAMB, Stokes BL, MVC8, YY). Back in SY 19-20 that was 14.

I would say overall, this is a great thing. Kids are getting spots they want. Way fewer kids settling for their 10th, 11th, 12th choice because they're shut out of so many options. Way more IB buy in for a wide variety of schools. This is waaaaay beyond what you'd expect with decreasing birth rates. [/quote]

I had a PK3 kid in the years of insane waitlists and honestly the whole thing was pretty dumb. So much hype, so much stress, over a bunch of schools that aren't really that different from each other or from DCPS preschool.

There are fewer kids now, so some schools will have to shrink or close. It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out. But I'm so happy the days of waitlist craziness are behind us.

Using the OSSE enrollment audit spreadsheets from the current year and the 23-24 school year, so a two year comparison, it seems like total enrollment is down by 266 kids in PK3, 303 in PK4. Not a big difference in K and 1st but then 2nd grade is down by 270. 4th through 8th are up several hundred, but 6th is flat. 9 the is down the most, 408 kids. But the other high school grades are up-- 12th is up by 685!

It does seem like most of the preschool and lower elementary losses fell on the charter sector. Both sectors gained in upper elementary but in 6th DCPS gained and the charter sector shrank. The opposite for 9th grade, interestingly. So really a mixed bag, hard to make sense of.

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PP here - yeah, this is interesting. I think a lot of what's happened is that back in the day, every UMC family just felt like they "needed" a HRCS, so no matter where they lived EOTP or what they actually thought of the specific schools, they put YY, DCB, MV, Stokes, ITDS, TR, Cap City, Haynes, CMI, Breakthrough, and then an Apple Tree and their IB as "backups." And a large number ended up at their IB and were disappointed, and all those folks were sitting on all the charter waitlists, making them so long.

But then, over time, hey, what do you know, it turns out our IB is actually not bad, and people in the neighborhood are now talking to people who are happy at their IB, and meanwhile the one neighbor who got into Cap City has got this long commute and what they have doesn't even sound all that much better? And now parents of younger kids are skipping all the HRCS (except for maybe a couple that are close by and/or have something they really like) and just putting their IB at/near the top of their list. Same number of kids (roughly) at the same schools, but they're not also sitting on the charter school waitlists driving the numbers sky high and feeling like they "lost".

Feels like a lot credit here is due to the unified lottery. When you just had to drive around and drop off a million applications, it feel like regular parenting due diligence, and if you got into an HRCS, you were psyched. Once you had to rank them ahead of time, people started actually evaluating them and realized they weren't worth the hype. [/quote]

Totally this. But I do think some DCPS have genuinely improved. Stuart-Hobson in particular, and that's having a predictable effect on its feeders.[/quote]

I think L-T gentrifying drove a lot of the new UMC kids at SH rather than the reverse.[/quote]

I think it's both, but it only happens if the middle school is perceived to be acceptable or on an improving trajectory.[/quote]

Stuart Hobson is objectively bad. [/quote]

Based on increasing enrollment of in-boundary students and the length of their waitlist, it seems that your opinion of Stuart-Hobson is not shared by all. [/quote]

There is one poster who is constantly posting that SH is not good. There was also a poster (maybe it’s the same person?) who claimed they were a tutor for a bunch of SH kids and that it’s not a good school. I think it’s the same person who is also constantly posting that DCPS has low standards. I kind of wish that Jeff forced handles on this particular forum so we could know. Or at least allow you to see post history for this form.[/quote]

+1. It's not about silencing them; it's about acknowledging that it's one repeated poster with a huge chip on their shoulder who apparently hasn't had a kid at SH since the PARCC era.[/quote]

Except not. You are literally calling for the manager because multiple people disagree with you.

Instead of touting your waitlist, which btw doesn’t really speak to school students quality but rather lack of options, why don’t you defend your opinion on Stuart Hobson?

Please defend amplify science. Defend the lack of tracking. Defend the lack of rigor in ELA. Defend the weak math curriculum. What about the lack of extracurriculars?  People on Capitol Hill deserve better than Stuart Hobson and screaming for the moderator to silence me (and many others) because we think kids deserve more is not a good look. 
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NP. I was kind of with you but SH has pretty great extra curriculars. It's actually one of the biggest selling points of the school.

Agree on amplify science and lack of writing, though these are also issues at Deal and Hardy -- it's a DCPS issue. I am still unclear on the state of math at SH. It's clearly gotten better in recent years but it's hard to tell how much. I suspect the next few years will make that more clear, as I do know of several feeder kids with very high math scores who are planning to go. A test for me is if they stay past 6th.[/quote]

I did a pretty through comparison with other schools (dcps and charter) and found that it had major deficits in the math program (lack of rigor and lack of offerings), science (truly bad but yes this is dcps), ELA (very poor), foreign language, and extracurriculars.  I know the theater program was touted for its popularity but that wasn’t important to my kid. Neither were most of the sports offerings. I genuinely found it to be of much worse quality than expected. That’s MY OPINION though and everyone is free to say what they want without attacking other people. [/quote]

What extracurriculars are you looking for that SH doesn't have that other public DC schools do? It's theater program is superb and award winning. It just got named the best middle school debate program in DC for the 3rd or 4th year in a row. [b]It has a wide variety of sports -- certainly wider than the charters being discussed in this thread.[/b] It has a great marching band + orchestra and strings groups. It has a great History Day program. It has an active HOSA group. It has Geoplunge and Mock Trial. It has a choir. It has the 40 book challenge. They're just starting up a branch of Mathcounts (competitive math). It has a ton of lower key student-run clubs too. I understand many of the critiques -- though I don't agree with all of yours fully -- but bad extracurriculars seems extremely off the mark.[/quote]

Above is not accurate in regards to charters. DCI has many more sports than SH.  They have over 40 teams total and are a sport powerhouse, winning a ton of championships in their leagues.

BTW they also have theater, debate, orchestra, geoplunge, robotics, chess, model UN.  These are some just off the top of my head.  Many more I’m forgetting.

[/quote]
Ok but isn’t this whole discussion about what happens to kids from DCI feeders when there isn’t space for them at DCI? DCI can’t be the solution because the whole problem is that however desirable it might be, DCI isn’t guaranteed.

In fact SH being a decent option that is accessible in the lottery probably helps DCI, because it will make it easier for families who truly prefer DCI to stay at DCI-feeders for the 6th grade lottery rather than peeling off for Latin or Basis for 5th. [/quote]

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