Reply to How does a 'safety" school turn into a highly regarded one?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]They won't propose PK3 because people like some of the PPs above will reject any solution that would allow for it...except MAYBE for doing massive and expensive renovations to the schools to make them bigger (but then they'll fight about swing space, renovation timelines, and the loss of playing fields).

The WOTP schools need to figure out what they want. If it's PK3, smaller boundaries would help. Ending OOB feeder rights would help (because fewer people would care about getting into Deal/Hardy feeders if it didn't guarantee them  the right to go to those schools). Taking kids out of the smaller middle schools (F-S, Adams) and sending them to other middle schools (Shaw, MacFarland) would help. So would openness to a longer commute.

But the problem is that there aren't as many families with 0-2 year olds (the ones who care about PK3) as there are families with 3-12 year olds (the ones who care about elementary and middle school) and the parents of younger kids aren't as well organized--after all, most of them don't have kids at WOTP schools so they don't have much do to with the PTAs. So the folks who'd be willing to compromise in order to get PK3 in Ward 3 are always going to be outnumbered and outmaneuvered by the people who will fight tooth and nail to keep their kids in schools bound for Wilson.[/quote]

The Ward 3 families who get truly angsty over free pk3 and, not coincidentally, trek across the park for their OOB free pk3 are overwhelmingly the apartment-dwelling families along Connecticut and Wisconsin avenues.   The DCPS and PCS attendance maps linked upthread demonstrate this very clearly.

By definition, apartment renters are a more transient population of parents, as are most 1-bedroom condo owners.  They're unlikely to get and hold the attention of OSSE on the "no walkable free ps3? not fair!!!" issue.   They'll just be moving, anyway.

Meanwhile, although all rational people enjoy more money than less money in hand, the more-entrenched SFH owners in Ward 3 appear to be less interested in getting that free preschool.   Don't take my word for it -- again, look that the attendance maps and compare to an overlay of housing types in the Ward.   The "dots" showing attendance at Appletree and other ECEs line up very neatly with the big apartment buildings along the avenues.[/quote]

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