This happens in Capital Hill too - and it sucks for the school and the parents that are committed long-term.

The churn (choice) in DC has its upsides but it also has its downsides which I don't think all get fully discussed.

Don't most jklm do private preschool?

6:05 I am confused. No one on this thread has argued for a right to preschool.

Op, I am confused. Are you asserting that the unprepared K kids result from IB students who don't get into ECE at their neighborhood schools? If they applied- they would beat out the OB kids, right? So the problem is that folks IB for your school don't want ECE. Your beef is not with OOB folks- but with your IB population.
And enrollment holes in K is all over the district, save for a few places.
As for the poster who wants a RIGHT for preschool- that is more entitled then the low SES 'welfare queens' people rail against. The government does not owe you free kiddo care. And if it's really an issue- take your snowflake to NE where I teach. PS3 spots left open each year..

Upper NW families "lotterying" into lower NW schools is only going to intensify as these schools drop PK classrooms to try to mitigate their overcrowding problems. In principle, you could remove their rights to enter the lottery elsewhere, but I doubt the city has any political appetite for that.

Totally agree, although would argue that it isn't about the "underpreparedness" (in fact many of the kids that come in after pK do very well, in my experience) but rather this is symptomatic of the feeling in the city as a whole that "the grass is always greener", which leads to a lot of churning and a lack of commitment. One of the ways schools improve is through committed parents who are planning to stay for many years (and thus have reasons to invest in the school) and the lottery and feeling that "oh, any year my kid might get into X school and we will move" doesn't help the schools that are trying to improve.

Okay, soapbox over.

love how the lottery brings neighborhoods together..

Only thing to do is to attract more of an IB population for these schools so that JKLM people can't get in OOB.

I feel your pain, lower NW schools. We are at Hearst and until the last few years the same thing happened to us. A good portion of the pre-k class was Janney, Murch, Stoddert kids who didn't get in. Meanwhile, families from other neighborhoods who were desperate to commit to the school community for the long-term could not get a spot.

Not much you can do about it.

Anonymous wrote:Fully 1/4 of my kid's prek3 class is zoned for Oyster. I don't know how I will explain why so many classmates aren't there when K rolls around.

Good point. Explain them how some politicians like to play God, and why preK should be a right in EVERY school. Why exclude Oyster or others.

Fully 1/4 of my kid's prek3 class is zoned for Oyster. I don't know how I will explain why so many classmates aren't there when K rolls around.

It's also that people who go to their inbounds school for PK3 or PK4 eventually get into another school--whether WOTP, charter, or just another EOTP better-performing DCPS--and that makes it hard to make progress in the upper grades.

Anonymous wrote:We know our schools are conveniently located (on your drive to work).

We know your JKLM is hard to get into for ECE.

But will you please avoid disrupting our schools with massive enrollment holes at K and not set up your kids at our schools for just a year or two. 'Cause we're the ones ending up with hoards of underprepared kindergartners.

"Hoards of underprepared kindergartners"...you are very funny, did you know that?

So true!!!!!

We know our schools are conveniently located (on your drive to work).

We know your JKLM is hard to get into for ECE.

But will you please avoid disrupting our schools with massive enrollment holes at K and not set up your kids at our schools for just a year or two. 'Cause we're the ones ending up with hoards of underprepared kindergartners.