Reply to Hypothetical consequences of a lottery change

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Hypothetical consequences of a lottery change"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP had good intentions. rich families WOTP take spots at these schools just to get up and leave when K starts.

Maybe they would leave these spots for parents who want to go to these schools -- and stay there -- if the rich parents were forced to stay (meaning they wouldnt take the spot).[/quote]

Yes you do see that, but IMO experience, these families do not become active in the PTO or make efforts to change anything at the school. They know they are leaving after PK and only care about the experience in the PK classroom, and don't really involve themselves in anything else at the school.

The parents OP is talking about are generally actually invested in the school and want to stay, get involved in the PTO because they care, and then leave if it is just not working out.

You can judge or get mad at these parents, but I think it's misplaced anger. You are upset because they are leaving YOUR school. You feel hurt and perhaps a little insecure about having stayed. That's understandable.

But you need to remember that families are making decisions for individual kids. We fully intended to stay at our Title I school through 5th. We agonized over leaving but out kid had some needs that just could not be met at the school. We finally pulled the trigger when we got a spot at another neighborhood school that seemed like a better fit for 3rd.

On our last day of 2nd, I was thanking/saying goodbye to her 2nd grade teacher, and she told me that she was glad to hear we were moving and that she thought the new school would be a better fit for our daughter. She'd been a wonderful teacher who had expressed concern throughout the year about our child's social experience and whether she was enjoying school. I was so grateful to her for all her efforts and it was also really valuable to hear someone who knew our kid well validate our decision. It was not a referendum on her or the school at all. It was something we did for our kid because she was struggling.

Try to remember that the next time you hear about a family leaving your school and your instinct is to assume they've done it for shallow, classist reasons. You really don't know.[/quote]

My experience with that has been mixed. Some families do invest even though they plan to leave, because they enjoy participating or their kid does. And some will give discreetly but substantially or will provide things for the kids through their employer (matching gifts, law firm tix for the auction, a tour of their workplace which might be something neat). Some families don't invest yet stay a while, too. Our school had many families who were shut out of their IB preschool, so it's not like they were telling everyone they would stay and then suddenly leaving.

OP, you have to understand the way this works for your school budget. There are simply not enough people who commit to staying to fill up PK3 and PK4s. So you can have empty seats, and not get paid as much in the city budget, and struggle to fill up your K classes because you don't have a good PK4 class moving up. You can be a small school and lose a lot of efficiencies of scale. Or you can have these people even though it's annoying, and you get what they're willing to give, which for some is nothing but for some is significant. So when I was recruiting, I did try harder for people I thought would stay, but every kid gets you at least $10K from the city just for a having butt in a seat. It's worth it.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics