Reply to In which NW DC neighborhoods do most (75%+) of ES-aged kids attend their in-bound public ES?

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Reply to "In which NW DC neighborhoods do most (75%+) of ES-aged kids attend their in-bound public ES?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think a lot of us don't make much distinction between charter and public schools. They're all just schools. [/quote]

I live in the H Street area where there are many people who think this but don't realize their neighbors don't agree.

The degree to which people agree with this depends on (1) where they wound up in the lottery, especially in ECE when a lot of those early family bonds are formed, (2) how strong or weak their IB is, (3) how easily their kid makes friends which can depend on their kid's personality, athletic ability and other factors, and (4) the resources the family has for forging bonds with other families, which might include room to host other kids frequently, money to enroll their kid in activities where they make friends, or time to invest in making these bonds.

I have neighbors who think like you and are like "it's all good, the kids all play together!" regarding the mix of DCPS and charter families in the neighborhood. I also know families who feel that so many neighbors choosing charters or choosing to go OOB for school majorly detracts from their kids' social experience, especially in elementary grades.

I am in the middle. We have a poor IB school and had a bad experience there for ECE with my oldest, but then got into a great DCPS OOB for both kids when older was in 1st and youngest was in PK3 (one of the inherent advantages in the lottery of having multiple kids close in age). We've been really happy with our school community since then and are lucky that the DCPS we wound up at is walking distance so we get all the advantages of a great IB without having to be able to afford to live IB for it. But I also recall how lonely those first three years were with our oldest, how frustrating it was to listen to neighbors say stuff like "oh it's all good" when they'd talk about their great experience with a school they lotteried into elsewhere while privately we were struggling with our IB and desperately lotterying every year for a better situation but getting locked out.

Also, we are now years on from any of this (oldest is in MS at this point), and I will also say that as kids get older, they do NOT play with neighbor kids who go to other schools, unless they become friends through an activity. And kids cut down on activities as they get older to, it's not like with the little kids where everyone is doing soccer and ballet and the same nearby summer camps, etc. We have families who live within a block or two of us, with same age kids, and our kids never play together, even though back when they were much younger, we did regular playdates and playground meetups and our kids went to each other's birthday parties and all of it. Because they don't know each other at anymore, they have their own friends through school and activities, and their standards for what a "friend" is is much higher. Again, because we got lucky relatively early on with the lottery, this has worked out fine for my kids who have plenty of nearby friends through school. But for a family who gets stuck at their IB through 2nd or 3rd? It's brutal and there is resentment and I don't really blame them because that easily could have been us if we hadn't gotten lottery spots at a nearby school when we did.[/quote]

We live on the Hill. Older kid went to IB then went to a charter at 5th, younger went OOB to a different Hill school starting in 2nd grade, when lottery luck finally came our way. Younger kid is now in the same charter as older kid. Older kid is still friends with IB kids even though they all go to different schools. Younger kid is still friends with IB and OOB kids, even though all those friends also go to different schools. [/quote]

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