Anonymous wrote:Check out your safeties, especially your in-bounds neighborhood school.

+1

use it to meet principals, PTO leaders, anyone else associated to your inbound or safeties. That is one thing I found helpful. However, of course it will only be strong school boosters who show up to rep the school, but I enjoyed the direct contact with a few of those folks even when I did not list the school.

Also learned about some new ones I had not heard much about. I also liked the pix some have of the campuses and inside of buildings (in case I wasn't going to visit).

You can also ask about the chance of getting in. You can specifically ask, how many non-sibling slots did you wind up having last year? At charters this is not public info.

Check out your safeties, especially your in-bounds neighborhood school.

If you use twitter, a lot of people will be following #edfest19 in the run up to Saturday and during the event. @MySchoolDC will often reply to direct tweets or questions. @UnsuckDCSchools mentioned they created lists of schools and PTAs you can subscribe to rather than following a bunch of individual accounts.

Good luck!

Skip it. Why go??

Anonymous wrote:I found it useful to narrow down open house priorities. It's important to know who you are talking to, BTW, b/c some schools send principals while others have staff and others have parents or a mix of the above. The staff and parent insights generally don't come through at open houses.

Exactly this - came here to say that I enjoyed talking to teachers that are usually not available at open houses.

I found it useful to narrow down open house priorities. It's important to know who you are talking to, BTW, b/c some schools send principals while others have staff and others have parents or a mix of the above. The staff and parent insights generally don't come through at open houses.

Agree that Ed Fest is only helpful if you can't make it to most open houses. Otherwise, it's much better to skip Ed Fest and go to the open houses of the schools you're interested in. If you do go to Ed Fest, bring a few children as possible and definitely no strollers.