Not to be picky, but for the remainder of this thread, can we refer to the school by its new name, Shirley Chisholm ES (fka Tyler)

We went through a swing space period at a school on the Hill. To be honest, if you aren't committed to the school and have a better option, I wouldn't go through it. While it's fine overall, it really does ruin a sense of community in not being able to see school staff and parents (because some don't take the bus and will opt to drive) everyday. The buses are convenient, but requires parent volunteers to stay with kids until parents show up (there's always someone who is late, etc). The bus duty is not staffed and it requires a lot of parent help. We were lucky to have very kind parents step up for this duty.

I’m in a different school but out swing space experience has had many challenges. A lot of the logistics is in the principals, the strength of your principal makes a difference.

Kids have to be to school earlier and get home later. It’s challenging for any during school performances parents need to attend, or after school activities for parents or kids. It’s all doable and the kids don’t seem to mind, but I wouldn’t do it if you’re not committed to the school long term.

I’m not staying (different elementary but my kid will be about the same age when our renovations start and the current proposed swing space 40 minutes away). I don’t feel comfortable having my 5/6/7yo that far from me during the school day and she gets violently car sick so I’m not sure the bus will be an option for us. That being said we were planning to move out of DC for other reasons before middle school so we’re not playing the lottery, just planning to move a bit sooner.

Figure out how much you really care about immersion. You have a lot of good nearby non-immersion elementary schools. Watkins for example is only a couple blocks from Tyler, starts in 1st grade, and feeds to Stuart Hobson. Payne and Van Ness are also nice. Brent will also be in swing space.

I think a PP gave sound advice on maximizing lottery options, but careful what you wish for. You might end up being really torn forced to decide between leaving a school you like a lot for some unknown.

As for the temporary relocation, will the move be 2025-2026 or the following year? (If it’s the Northeast swing space, JO Wilson is slated to occupy it from 1/2025-8/2026.) if the latter, maybe that makes the thought of a bus commute easier to consider for a 2nd grader. I’ve heard that the trailers - referred to as “cottages” by DCPS - are not all that bad.

Anonymous wrote:We stayed through renovations for our school. The single most important thing for our kid was being near their friends.

Also going to note that if your kid is well integrated into their school, it is not as easy as you think to just switch them in older elementary schools.

OP’s kid will be in first grade. I would not based this decision based on friends.

Anonymous wrote:Being in a swing space isn’t that big a deal.

I would lottery out of Tyler for different reasons.

Care to expand on this?

Can someone who has been through the swing space process on the Hill share what that was like? Not OP, but we have the same concerns and I'm trying to figure out how painful the swing space period will be. My understanding is that DCPS will offer transportation between the school site and the swing space, but that actually raises more questions than it answer for me because while this might save us parents some commute time (versus commuting to the swing space) it increases our kids commute time and means we have to be at the school earlier. Plus I have some wariness about putting a small child on a bus in DC traffic twice a day for two years -- I might stress less about an older kid but in our case it would be a 5/6/7 year old and that's young.

Anyway, I know several schools have been through this recently (Maury, SWS, CHMS) and would love to hear from those families!

Anonymous wrote:Here is how I would approach.

1. First, decide how important immersion is to you. Put it next to the following factors: school fit, commute, MS feed. Rank them. Use this ranking to guide decisions.

2. Do the lottery. It's not binding -- you can turn down any lottery match or waitlist offer and stay at Tyler. Craft your lottery list based on the ranking from #1. I'd literally create a spreadsheet that lists Tyler, the neighborhood schools you'd consider, and the immersion schools you'd consider, and given them a score for each metric which is than weighted according to your rankings of those metrics. Generate a "preferred school" ranking and use that to rank your lottery choices.

3. See what happens in the lottery. If there is a school that has a higher ranking than Tyler that gives you an offer, take it. If not, stay at Tyler.

4. If you stay at Tyler, repeat this process next year before the swing space move.

Then, no matter what happens, you will have maximized your options and made choices based on the most objective measure of what the best school for your kid is given the metrics.

This is largely about making a choice you can live with, not making the "best choice" as that will vary from family to family and it's impossible for me to know whether my priorities match yours.

Oh, I meant to add -- I would include schools on your list that might get a lower "preferred school" ranking according to your weighted rankings than Tyler. The reason why is that things can shift with school renovation projects and you may receive info between now and when you are offered a spot at a school that could change those rankings. You could get more info about the swing space, the renovation timing, or the quality of the schools you are listing in the lottery. Making your list a little longer does not hurt and will maximize options later. That would be my focus: maximizing options while creating a rubric for decision making based on preferences and values.

Being in a swing space isn’t that big a deal.

I would lottery out of Tyler for different reasons.

Here is how I would approach.

1. First, decide how important immersion is to you. Put it next to the following factors: school fit, commute, MS feed. Rank them. Use this ranking to guide decisions.

2. Do the lottery. It's not binding -- you can turn down any lottery match or waitlist offer and stay at Tyler. Craft your lottery list based on the ranking from #1. I'd literally create a spreadsheet that lists Tyler, the neighborhood schools you'd consider, and the immersion schools you'd consider, and given them a score for each metric which is than weighted according to your rankings of those metrics. Generate a "preferred school" ranking and use that to rank your lottery choices.

3. See what happens in the lottery. If there is a school that has a higher ranking than Tyler that gives you an offer, take it. If not, stay at Tyler.

4. If you stay at Tyler, repeat this process next year before the swing space move.

Then, no matter what happens, you will have maximized your options and made choices based on the most objective measure of what the best school for your kid is given the metrics.

This is largely about making a choice you can live with, not making the "best choice" as that will vary from family to family and it's impossible for me to know whether my priorities match yours.

Honestly, move now to an area with a good school system.
-Cap Hill resident that wishes they had moved earlier

We stayed through renovations for our school. The single most important thing for our kid was being near their friends.

Also going to note that if your kid is well integrated into their school, it is not as easy as you think to just switch them in older elementary schools.

We are at Tyler, which is slated to undergo renovations starting the 25-26 school year and last for two years. Our child will be entering first grade that year, and the two proposed swing spaces (as of now) are...not great. One is a 25-minute drive (each way) and the other is only a 10-minute drive but I believe it would be trailer classrooms. We are generally happy at Tyler, but some of that happiness is due to the very easy walkable commute. The other thing to note is that Tyler is immersion, so it's not quite a "one to one" if we were to try to lottery in to another neighborhood school. Without the upcoming renovations, I think we would have planned to stay there through 4th or 5th, but since we are in lottery season it's gotten me thinking about if/when we may want to switch schools earlier.

I think we have a few options and would love to hear others' input!

1. Stay where we are and stick it out through the renovations. We like Tyler a lot, and as I understand it schools tend to be on the upswing post-renovation. Those two years will suck, but two out of seven ain't bad.
2. Try to lottery into another neighborhood school, but one that is not immersion. This keeps short commute but loses the language immersion (and keeps us in the "what do we do for middle school" situation).
3. Try to lottery into another immersion school in the city. This loses short commute but depending on the school could land us a better feeder pattern (and we would likely move if we did get into a better immersion school).

Are there other options I'm not thinking of, or ones above that seem better/worse? I realize these are all decent options, which is probably why I'm having trouble choosing a path.

Thanks!