I think this data will be more revealing next year and beyond. It is hard to really understand the change in IB school applications because this is the first year with the new boundaries, so IB populations around certain schools changed a lot (some boudnaries got a lot bigger, some a lot smaller), so comparing it to last year applications isn't really apples to apples at each school. But still great to see that overall more and more people want to stay in DC and go to DCPS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For SY 13-14 Janney left a lot more IB families off the wait list. I think they added a new PK class this year (SY 14-15) and are doing the same for next year (SY 15-16) which results in more IB families getting in. It also results in taking up more class space for PK, which is not required. Stoddert isn't adding additional PK, so they are leaving lots more families out for that year.

As a Janney parent, I think that Janney should reconsider offering so many PK4 spots. Give that room to K or 1st grade classes, and reduce the class size in those grades.

They should also stop letting in OOB kids (I'm not referring to disadvantaged kids, I'm talking about affluent kids who live just outside of the boundaries).

Maybe you know anecdotally of a few, but if this were happening in large numbers, Janney's IB percentage would reflect it, which it does not.

Anonymous wrote:For SY 13-14 Janney left a lot more IB families off the wait list. I think they added a new PK class this year (SY 14-15) and are doing the same for next year (SY 15-16) which results in more IB families getting in. It also results in taking up more class space for PK, which is not required. Stoddert isn't adding additional PK, so they are leaving lots more families out for that year.

As a Janney parent, I think that Janney should reconsider offering so many PK4 spots. Give that room to K or 1st grade classes, and reduce the class size in those grades.

They should also stop letting in OOB kids (I'm not referring to disadvantaged kids, I'm talking about affluent kids who live just outside of the boundaries).

Anonymous wrote:Stoddert actually cut a pre-K4 per the article - so that would explain the more limited capacity - while families with kids staying in the neighborhood has grown dramatically.

Yes, the number of neighborhood children looking to attend Stoddert has grown in recent years but may have peaked and is now starting to level off (see below). Plus, a few blocks were cut from Stoddert's northern border (comprised of apartment buildings) during the boundary process and rerouted to Eaton and that should take effect this fall, if I'm not mistaken (for families who are not already enrolled at Stoddert--they are grandfathered). And once Hyde-Addison has been renovated (a year or two from now), the Burleith neighborhood is slated to move from Stoddert to Hyde-Addison. So I suspect we'll see decreasing PreK numbers at Stoddert in the next three years.

SY 2015-16: There were 60 IB families who lotteried for a PreK spot this year.
SY 2014-15: There were 70 IB families who lotteried for a PreK spot.
SY 2013-14: There were 79 IB families who lotteried for a PreK spot.
SY 2012-13: There were 55 IB families who lotteried for a PreK spot.
SY 2011-12: There were 59 IB families who lotteried for a PreK spot.
SY 2010-11: There were 40 IB families who lotteried for a PreK spot.

Stoddert actually cut a pre-K4 per the article - so that would explain the more limited capacity - while families with kids staying in the neighborhood has grown dramatically.

For SY 13-14 Janney left a lot more IB families off the wait list. I think they added a new PK class this year (SY 14-15) and are doing the same for next year (SY 15-16) which results in more IB families getting in. It also results in taking up more class space for PK, which is not required. Stoddert isn't adding additional PK, so they are leaving lots more families out for that year.

As a Janney parent, I think that Janney should reconsider offering so many PK4 spots. Give that room to K or 1st grade classes, and reduce the class size in those grades.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's surprising to me that more that a third DCPS elementariness don't have spots for all in-bounds PS3 & PS4 students who want to attend. That's higher than I expected!

It's free childcare. I'm not surprised that is appealing to many residents, when faced with the alternative.

Last year, there were a lot of schools that did not have waitlists at all, much less waitlists with IB students. This year, there are. How do you explain that, if people just want free childcare?

Frankly, I am having a hard time seeing the point of round 2 many people. We live in mid-city and there are waitlists already. Getting tacked onto the end of a waitlist of 80+ kids seems like a fool's errand to me.

I wouldnt want to be IB without sibling for Brent or Stoddert!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's surprising to me that more that a third DCPS elementariness don't have spots for all in-bounds PS3 & PS4 students who want to attend. That's higher than I expected!

It's free childcare. I'm not surprised that is appealing to many residents, when faced with the alternative.

I don't think that is the take-away, because almost all schools in DC offer PK3. The small minority of those that do not, are all WOTP. If everyone wanted the free daycare, then all schools in DC would be over-subscribed. But most are not. I think this is a story about the gentrification of certain neighborhoods, the schools in which are now over-subscribed in a way that only WOTP schools were formerly. I think this is pretty clear based on the non-WOTP schools that have had WL for all of the past three years (in the link above). Bancroft, Brent, Powell, Ross, etc etc etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's surprising to me that more that a third DCPS elementaries don't have spots for all in-bounds PS3 & PS4 students who want to attend. That's higher than I expected!

It's free childcare. I'm not surprised that is appealing to many residents, when faced with the alternative.

Oh, I'm not surprised that it's popular! I just had the (incorrect) impression that it was only a few WOTP schools that didn't have enough spots. Lots more than that!

Anonymous wrote:It's surprising to me that more that a third DCPS elementariness don't have spots for all in-bounds PS3 & PS4 students who want to attend. That's higher than I expected!

It's free childcare. I'm not surprised that is appealing to many residents, when faced with the alternative.

It's surprising to me that more that a third DCPS elementariness don't have spots for all in-bounds PS3 & PS4 students who want to attend. That's higher than I expected!

These numbers are crazy!

This is very interesting. The Brent and Stoddert numbers, geez.

http://districtmeasured.com/2015/04/21/is-your-neighborhood-elementary-school-a-sure-bet/

Most amazing: 68.3% of Stoddert IB families wound up on the waitlist this year, while exactly 100% of the IB with sibling kids got in to pk4.