Reply to Oyster vs. Ross

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]PP, you must be pretty lonely. Less than 40% of the 650+ kids are IB. No IB students are having their K-8 seats stolen.

PK is solely at the discretion of the principal and not a guarantee even for IB Spanish dominant Hispanics. Nobody took my kid's PK spot, because it wasn't "her" spot to begin with.

Bilingual education and living bilingually can be complicated. But if you keep an open mind and try not to get caught up in the telenovela boundaries, Oyster can be a great place. Not perfect, but mostly friendly and diverse.[/quote]

PP, you must be confused and misinformed.  I am an IB Oyster parent who participated in Oyster’s boundary working group earlier this year.  Thus, I’m fairly knowledgeable about Oyster’s demographics and how the lottery works.  So please allow me to educate you on a few basic facts about the school you claim your child attends.

The ED IB percentage at Oyster is 50% or higher in the lower grades (roughly K through 3rd/4th).  The lower overall IB numbers are due solely to the high numbers of OOB kids in the upper grades.  Quite a few of these OOB kids started IB, but later moved OOB (with permission to stay granted by the principal) because their parents usually want more condo/house for their money.  Other families leave because acquiring Spanish remains a terrible struggle for their child.  Finally, other kids move onto to Deal or private school (and they want to get an early start when it’s easier to get into privates).

PK is not, and hasn’t been in recent years (if ever) at the “discretion of the principal.”  Where did you hear that lie?  DCPS has and will continue to run a lottery for ALL of Oyster’s PK slots.  The principal has absolutely NOTHING to do with who is selected in the initial lottery.  The only discretion she has concerns the wait list.  However, she is supposed to offer spots based on how the wait list is ordered by DCPS.

Off-hand, I can think of at least 4 or 5 families who gained admission to Oyster via the SD lottery, however, no Spanish is spoken in their home.  Those children learned whatever Spanish they acquired from a nanny or preschool.  I also know several native Spanish speaking families (born and raised in Latin America or Spain), where both parents speak Spanish at home, who were ultimately unsuccessful in the SD lottery.  These are well-educated native speakers whose children attended a bilingual preschool along with my ED child.  They have so much more culturally and linguistically to offer the Oyster community than the people who were admitted by falsely claiming SD.  So yes, those families indeed had their kid’s seat stolen.  
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