Reply to 26-27 Lottery data up

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Real reason lottery numbers are down... familes have had to move out of the district.  Between the federal layoffs, housing voucher program terminations, and immigration (ICE) removals... lower lottery numbers could be reflective of an exodus of families out of the district.[/quote]

I don’t think any of those are it. It’s declining birth rates for the preK set, more families going to their IB for elementary, more movement to private schools for middle/HS. But who knows. Maybe someone can suss it out from the available data. [/quote]

I think it’s too early to say based on the lottery data alone. If the issue is people leaving DC, we would expect enrollment decline more or less across all grades. This seems to be more concentrated in PreK, but that’s also where we would see declines if PreK families are leaving DC.

Schools may not realize they should/could have opened more lottery seats spots than normal to backfill for later grades that they expect to fill with re-enrollment (though I know of at least one charter ED who said in a public board meeting that they are offering back fill spots in the first round of the lottery for the first time because they expect more families to leave DC). If so, we would then probably expect to see faster waitlist movement than usual across most grades. But I think we probably have to wait for the audited enrollment data next fall to really tell.

That said, WaPO had a piece a couple of weeks ago arguing that it’s mostly related to ICE fears using data about seeing more drops in Spanish programs than others https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2026/04/12/dc-school-enrollment-applications-lottery/

I didn’t really find it all that convincing, though; several of the schools they mention mostly appeal to English speaking families who want their children to learn Spanish, not heritage speakers. [/quote]

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