Reply to 3/29 Lottery Results

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am not looking forward to the results. It seems like winning the lottery is almost impossible. This is a really frustrating and unfortunate. Quality schools should be a human right. 
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Most people eventually get into their top choice schools for elementary at least.  I know the process seems impossible, but it's just the fairest way to distribute a scarce resource.  Should the resource be scarce?  I mean, no, but it is so this is what we get.[/quote]

It DC's lottery really the fairest way to distribute a scarce resource? I don't disagree that a lottery [i]of some form[/i] may be the fairest method, but I strongly disagree that DC's lottery, as it is currently run with sibling preferences, is actually fair at all. I know families with a bunch of kids like how it operates, but that doesn't make it fair. There is a very good chance that because of the sibling preference, my kid will not get into any of the elementary schools we would like them to attend, even if we lottery for several years. Unless we get exceptionally lucky, our plan is to move when my kid is in kindergarten to be in-bound for one of the schools we want.

Here's our lottery list:

(1) DC Bilingual
(2) Shepherd ES (OOB)
(3) Yu Ying
(4) LAMB
(5) Dorothy Height ES
(6) Breakthrough Montessori
(7) Military Rd.
(8) Whittier ES
(9) Takoma ES

We are extremely unlikely to get into #1-4 because we don't have sibling preference... #5 and below are all fairly likely through either matching or the waitlist process. If we can't get into #1-3 this year, or #1-2 (+ two schools WOTP that start with PK4) in the following two lotteries, we will move.

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Idk if this list offers the best examples to  show that sibling preference isn’t fair. For example, there are IB kids who don’t get into Shepherd for PK3. And you will likely get into Height, Military Road, or Takoma. FWIW my child attends one of the schools in your top 4, but it took more than one try at the lottery to get a spot. [/quote]

The sibling preference is generally less of an issue (re: fairness) with DCPS schools, since the in-bound preference takes up most (or all of the seats)... that obviously raises its own fairness issues, but is not really the point of my post. Looking at DC Bilingual's lottery numbers for last year, they offered 72 PK3 slots. 5 went to children of DCB staff... I have no complaint there. It is a logistical nightmare for a teacher to have to get to their own kid to and from a school that they don't teach at while getting to their own school on time. Then, 36 (exactly half of the total available seats!!) went to siblings. Then, 24 went to equitable access, which I also have much less issue with since it is intended to ameliorate the class stratification of schools like DCB (i.e., it addresses a different fairness issue). Which left 7 (yes, less than 10% of the seats) for kids without a preference... i.e., based on their [i]actual[/i] lottery number. If you look at Yu Ying and LAMB, you'll see basically the same phenomena.

And yes, it is highly likely that we will get into schools (5) - (8) on our list, which would be completely fine for a few years... but that still means we will need to move out of our neighborhood, which we love, within a few years... and that just sucks. And would we have a much better shot at being able to stay here if we had multiple kids and, thus, multiple lottery entries every year with a guarantee that all of our kids would essentially get the best number of all of the ones that we drew? Yes, we would.

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DCPS teachers don't get to send their kids to where they teach and somehow they make it work. I go to work without my child as most other adults.  How easy is it to get a job at the school of choice and then quit?[/quote]

Charter schools have the authority to create these preferences, part of our system of choice. If it is a school that families want to go to, it is an incentive to attract good staff. The convenience of working where your child attends is significant, DCPS teachers I know would like to but because of housing prices they live in PG county or elsewhere so they cannot send their kids to school where they work.[/quote]

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