Reply to Please don't just take a spot at a charter school because you want free care.

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Reply to "Please don't just take a spot at a charter school because you want free care."

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]NP here - the "free care" gripe that I would have is that the charters don't have as much funding as DCPS schools do toward freebies.  If people want to get more freebies from their schools, they should either be lobbying their politicians to get the mismanagement sorted out at DCPS schools, or if not to shift more funding over to charters so that they CAN offer them.  Otherwise, it's boosters who are often shouldering a lot of that burden for the extras.  Money for a lot of this stuff doesn't just fall out of the trees, and people should be aware and considerate of that.

Secondly, the other gripe I would have is that [b]some parents just seem to apply to whatever charter they can get, as opposed to parents who are specifically interested in just one charter, for example for language or other specialized offerings.  If you aren't interested in the specialized offerings, then please don't clog the process unnecessarily for those who are.[/quote][/b]

Yup, we sure did!  I applied to every charter that was a reasonable distance from our home, and a few that were farther away.  I also played the DCPS lottery, putting down our mediocre IB school as our first choice.  We got into our IB school, and wait-listed at EVERY charter we applied to.  The week before school started, we got a call from a highly regarded language immersion school, and accepted the spot immediately.  Since then, we have gotten behind this school's language and are doing are best to be engaged parents and support our child's education.  But I would have just as easily gotten behind a different langauge or "specialized offering" if our kid had been accepted at a different school.  My alternative to "clogging the process" was to enroll my kid in a school that would MAYBE been ok until MAYBE 3rd grade...then what?  Can't afford private school.  While I empathize with the families who may have loved a spot at our kids' school because of an affinity for special attributes of the curriculum, they do not deserve a spot any more than any other child in this PUBLIC charter school.  Becoming involved in the new language and culture of my child's school has enriched not only his educational experience, but our whole family as well.[/quote]

OP Here - Yes, then you are a great example of what families SHOULD be doing!  I hope others will follow your example and support [/quote]

If you indeed get behind the mission of the charter that you ended up, then great.

But DO NOT for example apply to a school like Yu Ying, and when you get in, complain about the fact that they have a big emphasis on Chinese.  If you get into a charter that has a specialized focus, DO NOT then proceed to gripe and complain about said specialized focus.  If the lottery get into a school that expects students to take x number of AP courses or some other expectation, accept that, rather than complaining, fighting, trying to change the school, and disparaging the school for it.  You won't get any sympathy from anyone if you do, you are only going to piss off the people who WERE looking for that specialized focus, who'd just as soon have you hit the road and go to some other school that meets your needs more appropriately.  Or, better yet, if you think a school's specialized focus is not aligned with your needs, do everyone else a favor and don't apply to it in the first place.[/quote]

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