Reply to Public/Charter School Lottery Experience

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We refused to consider our IB. I think it’s a legitimate and justifiable choice. We did have other nearby safety schools.[/quote]

Please tell me your reasoning for refusing to consider your IB school and what that school was. [/quote]

For me, it was because they were so many better options available. If our child had drawn a bad number, I would have taken the step of considering vs. another year of preschool, but it never came to that.[/quote]

What do you mean when you say drawn a bad number? I've been on this forum for the last two days and I keep seeing people refer to the numbers that they are given as good or bad. I am so confused. I'm starting to feel like I am way in over my head, but I just want whats best for my kid. [/quote]

Go to the MySchool DC website and watch the video on how the lottery works (the direct link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx7-o-ff9y4&feature=youtu.be)

In less than 5 minutes you will be less confused.

But it is really simple. They put all the kids applying for seats in a certain grade (let's say PK3) in an electronic "bucket." They pull one kid at a time out of the bucket: the first kid out has #1, the next has #2, etc. Then they go to kid #1 and look at her ranked list of schools. If there's a spot in her first-choice school, she gets it. If there isn't, she goes on the wait list for that school and they look at her second-choice school. Let's say she gets in to her second choice school. Then they move on to kid #2 and look at his list and put him in the school he ranked highest that has space for him.

It's a bit more complex than that given in-bound and sibling and other preferences and how some dual-language DCPS schools order their preferences differently than most schools, but that is really the gist of it. There is no way to game it. List up to 12 schools you like, in your order of preference, and hope that your kid is one of the first drawn out of the "bucket." Include some schools that tend to have more spaces available and/or where you have preferences (in-bound DCPS for example) if you want the best chance of matching somewhere, but rank it below any schools you'd prefer.[/quote]

Close - but not quite. They don't allocate numbers by grade. Every student in the lottery gets a number - be they applying for Pk3 or 11th.

[/quote]

But you're only "competing" against other students in the same grade, so it's functionally the same as if they held separate lotteries.  [/quote]

No, because of the sibling component. And you can't explain the lottery without taking sibling preference into account, particularly if someone new is trying for Pk3 or Pk4.

People need to watch the video and talk to the staff at MSDC who explain this well. As opposed to the rest of us. [/quote]

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