Anonymous wrote:This is really terrible advice for someone moving to DC. For the prices of rent in Ross or cap hill schools, you'd be better off renting in Arlington off the orange line and sending your kids to Arlington schools and having a 10 min commute. Shephard is great but that is a long commute when you could have equally good schools and a breeze commute. Or move in bounds for Hardy and Deal. The advice on here is much better for the ECE crowd that is 7 years from middle school.

Anonymous wrote:With kids that age you shouldn't wait to figure out middle school when you get 5th. Too much disruption to try to move schols after a year or two. I hate to say it but the only way you would have a certain path that is a reasonable school is if you move in bounds for Hardy or Deal. In your case suburbs would be better.

Anonymous wrote:This is really terrible advice for someone moving to DC. For the prices of rent in Ross or cap hill schools, you'd be better off renting in Arlington off the orange line and sending your kids to Arlington schools and having a 10 min commute. Shephard is great but that is a long commute when you could have equally good schools and a breeze commute. Or move in bounds for Hardy and Deal. The advice on here is much better for the ECE crowd that is 7 years from middle school.

Anonymous wrote:If you lottery into an elementary that feeds into Hardy or Deal do you automatically go there for middle or do you have to lottery because you are out of boundary?

Anonymous wrote:The only DCPS feeder HS that most people (certainly on this board) will consider worthwhile is Jackson-Reed HS (fka Wilson, so if you are looking at old threads you know what people are talking about). The two MS that feed to JR are Hardy and Deal. The elementary schools that feed to Hardy and Deal can be found on this feeder chart (which is useful to you general):

People will have varying opinions about those feeder elementaries, but if you are not IB for any of them, much depends on your commute. If you want to try for the TR triangle, you'll have to figure that out on a case by case basis. I should note that many of the elementaries in the JR triangle never have any PK spots for OOB students, and some don't even offer PK3 as an option. It can be hard to lottery into them in the elementary grades as well, though if you really wanted the JR triangle, there are absolutely schools you could lottery into between K and 5th in order to do so.

Outside of the JR triangle, if you stay within DCPS, you would be looking at charter options for HS or MS/HS (the most popular such options are BASIS and Latin, both of which pretty much require you to lottery in for MS in order to attend for HS). Or you could attend a DCPS MS, or a charter that is easier to get into than BASIS or Latin, and then try for an application HS like School Without Walls or Banneker. But those options are a bit of a crapshoot -- if you go that route, you will want to have a Plan B in place (moving IB for JR, moving to the suburbs, private).

Alternatively, there is one charter option that has a route to 12th, though it's a big convoluted at this point. There are a number of language immersion charters that have what's called a feeder preference for DC International, which has a MS and HS. These schools (Mundo Verde, Stokes, DC Bilingual, Yu Ying, LAMB) don't directly feed to DCI -- you still have to apply via lottery. But each school has a certain number of feeder spots for which their students get preference. There is some concern that with the expansion of Mundo Verde and Stokes, DCI simply will not have enough spots, particularly in the French and Spanish tracks. This was considered a bit of a sure thing for a while but in recent years feels like less of one. But of course people choose immersion charters for reasons other than MS/HS feed, so it is still quite difficult to lottery into most of these schools for PK (though now much easier for Mundo Verde in the elementary grades, as well as for Stokes East End campus).

People on here will tell you to just move IB for a JR feeder. Others will tell you to just figure out your best option through elementary and handle MS/HS as you go, since there are charter and application options, and a few okay DCPS MS options. Others will tell you to just move to the suburbs, or figure out a private option. There's no one way. But that's the general lay of the land if you are looking forward to HS.

Anonymous wrote:The only DCPS feeder HS that most people (certainly on this board) will consider worthwhile is Jackson-Reed HS (fka Wilson, so if you are looking at old threads you know what people are talking about). The two MS that feed to JR are Hardy and Deal. The elementary schools that feed to Hardy and Deal can be found on this feeder chart (which is useful to you general):

People will have varying opinions about those feeder elementaries, but if you are not IB for any of them, much depends on your commute. If you want to try for the TR triangle, you'll have to figure that out on a case by case basis. I should note that many of the elementaries in the JR triangle never have any PK spots for OOB students, and some don't even offer PK3 as an option. It can be hard to lottery into them in the elementary grades as well, though if you really wanted the JR triangle, there are absolutely schools you could lottery into between K and 5th in order to do so.

Outside of the JR triangle, if you stay within DCPS, you would be looking at charter options for HS or MS/HS (the most popular such options are BASIS and Latin, both of which pretty much require you to lottery in for MS in order to attend for HS). Or you could attend a DCPS MS, or a charter that is easier to get into than BASIS or Latin, and then try for an application HS like School Without Walls or Banneker. But those options are a bit of a crapshoot -- if you go that route, you will want to have a Plan B in place (moving IB for JR, moving to the suburbs, private).

Alternatively, there is one charter option that has a route to 12th, though it's a big convoluted at this point. There are a number of language immersion charters that have what's called a feeder preference for DC International, which has a MS and HS. These schools (Mundo Verde, Stokes, DC Bilingual, Yu Ying, LAMB) don't directly feed to DCI -- you still have to apply via lottery. But each school has a certain number of feeder spots for which their students get preference. There is some concern that with the expansion of Mundo Verde and Stokes, DCI simply will not have enough spots, particularly in the French and Spanish tracks. This was considered a bit of a sure thing for a while but in recent years feels like less of one. But of course people choose immersion charters for reasons other than MS/HS feed, so it is still quite difficult to lottery into most of these schools for PK (though now much easier for Mundo Verde in the elementary grades, as well as for Stokes East End campus).

People on here will tell you to just move IB for a JR feeder. Others will tell you to just figure out your best option through elementary and handle MS/HS as you go, since there are charter and application options, and a few okay DCPS MS options. Others will tell you to just move to the suburbs, or figure out a private option. There's no one way. But that's the general lay of the land if you are looking forward to HS.