Thomson mom here! I love the school and there are a good number of Asian families.

Pluses of Thomson: Amazing principal, great teachers, International Baccalaureate program, which they start in ECE. Strong feeder middle school. (Francis-Stephens). Since it has five ECE classes, it's really really easy to get in, even post lottery, especially for an in-boundary family. You'll be fine!

Minuses: The indoor playgrounds. They are probably safer and cleaner than outdoor ones - our teacher loves that there's no beer cans, no needles, no pedophiles hanging around - but they still turn people off. And the facilities in general are old and not so great. I don't see these as major issues though.

The Thompson waitlist is possible. You will jump to the top of the by being IB. But, if your child is old enough to do preK3 next fall, sign up for myschool and get on the list asap.

Stevens is another preK only program (run by DCPS) that would not be too far from Thomson. Since it doesn't have a boundary and only has two grades, your odds of getting in are good.

Read the my school DC website. There is no guarantee of preK at your inbound school except for certain early action schools. You got food advice here. You can also add other schools to your post lottery list. Appletree (a charter) has preK programs by the L'enfant plaza and waterfront metro stations that still have room for next fall, so you might want to enroll in that for now (through the MSDC site) and then see how you do on the Thomson waitlist.

Is she going to turn 3 after the end September? If so, you would do the lottery by 3/1 next year for preK3 the following year. Definitely include Thompson on your lottery list since you have IB priority and its nearby.

Thompson is a lovely school and there are other young Asian families there. I suggest doing a post-lottery application on My School DC and also calling the school to ask about visiting.

It would be very difficult to get into Seaton for preK-3 post-lottery out of boundary without a sibling already enrolled.

It will be fine. Aside from the playground being indoors rather than outdoors, it's a really nice school. And going anywhere else would be inconvenient. If you really want to look around, I suggest touring Seaton.

The lottery already happened for this fall, but you can still add your name to the end of wait-lists

We are asian, and we move to DC due to closer to work. Our only daughter is going to be 3, and she will go to pre-k 3. Our in boundary school is Thomson Elementary School. How's the school in terms of bullying or teacher quality? Should we do lottery for preK? We are new here, and we have no friends to ask.