Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the plus side, if you only have one child, you only have to commit residency fraud once to get your kid into a JR feeder. No moving in and out of bounds every few years for each kid.

It's not residency fraud....

God, that thread was a week of my life I'm never getting back.

Ha, I know. I was just poking the bear.


OP, I hear you, it IS unfair for us, even if it generally is fair overall. If your decision to stay in the city rides on whether you get into DCI feeder (which I don't think it should, but that's a different conversation), then you are 100% correct that the sibling preference system makes it overwhelmingly less likely that it will work out eventually. Which absolutely sucks when you see everyone else around you not having to make the same crappy decision. That said, give it some time. You may get lucky, or you may realize that you are perfectly happy at Takoma or Whittier for all of elementary and are willing to keep playing the lottery for longer than you think. Seats open up in elementary, particularly if you are willing to commute farther or switch in later grades.

I'm OP and just wanted to clarify that I am not the PP who suggested they might sublet to get in-bound for a desirable school (though I did mentally give that idea a +1... ). TBH, we would be happy with any school that looks (based on test scores and other factors) like it generally serves kids who look like my kid well, not just a DCI feeder... but the only three schools I have been able to identify that do that are schools (1)-(3) on my list. Two of them happen to be DCI feeders. We are not interested in some of the other DCI feeders (e.g., either MV campus) because they do not serve kids who look like my kid as well. We aren't even interested in LAMB for more than a few years because their faculty has diversity issues. Basically, I'm FAR from DCI or bust... I'm "my kids needs to attend a school where they will not be presumed to be low-skilled or less competent than their peers because of racism." It really, really sucks that that's such a tall order in DC in 2024, but it remains the truth nonetheless. [To anyone who wants to try to try to "explain" to me that the huge performance gaps that many schools here are explained by socioeconomic factors... yes, SES plays a huge role, but SES doesn't explain all of it... and I taught for long enough to see how racism works in schools, even when the teachers and administration are extremely well-meaning and concerned about it.]

NP and if that’s what you are looking for I would strongly consider Whittier. It is an amazing school that supports all students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the plus side, if you only have one child, you only have to commit residency fraud once to get your kid into a JR feeder. No moving in and out of bounds every few years for each kid.

It's not residency fraud....

God, that thread was a week of my life I'm never getting back.

Ha, I know. I was just poking the bear.


OP, I hear you, it IS unfair for us, even if it generally is fair overall. If your decision to stay in the city rides on whether you get into DCI feeder (which I don't think it should, but that's a different conversation), then you are 100% correct that the sibling preference system makes it overwhelmingly less likely that it will work out eventually. Which absolutely sucks when you see everyone else around you not having to make the same crappy decision. That said, give it some time. You may get lucky, or you may realize that you are perfectly happy at Takoma or Whittier for all of elementary and are willing to keep playing the lottery for longer than you think. Seats open up in elementary, particularly if you are willing to commute farther or switch in later grades.

I'm OP and just wanted to clarify that I am not the PP who suggested they might sublet to get in-bound for a desirable school (though I did mentally give that idea a +1... ). TBH, we would be happy with any school that looks (based on test scores and other factors) like it generally serves kids who look like my kid well, not just a DCI feeder... but the only three schools I have been able to identify that do that are schools (1)-(3) on my list. Two of them happen to be DCI feeders. We are not interested in some of the other DCI feeders (e.g., either MV campus) because they do not serve kids who look like my kid as well. We aren't even interested in LAMB for more than a few years because their faculty has diversity issues. Basically, I'm FAR from DCI or bust... I'm "my kids needs to attend a school where they will not be presumed to be low-skilled or less competent than their peers because of racism." It really, really sucks that that's such a tall order in DC in 2024, but it remains the truth nonetheless. [To anyone who wants to try to try to "explain" to me that the huge performance gaps that many schools here are explained by socioeconomic factors... yes, SES plays a huge role, but SES doesn't explain all of it... and I taught for long enough to see how racism works in schools, even when the teachers and administration are extremely well-meaning and concerned about it.]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the plus side, if you only have one child, you only have to commit residency fraud once to get your kid into a JR feeder. No moving in and out of bounds every few years for each kid.

It's not residency fraud....

God, that thread was a week of my life I'm never getting back.

Ha, I know. I was just poking the bear.


OP, I hear you, it IS unfair for us, even if it generally is fair overall. If your decision to stay in the city rides on whether you get into DCI feeder (which I don't think it should, but that's a different conversation), then you are 100% correct that the sibling preference system makes it overwhelmingly less likely that it will work out eventually. Which absolutely sucks when you see everyone else around you not having to make the same crappy decision. That said, give it some time. You may get lucky, or you may realize that you are perfectly happy at Takoma or Whittier for all of elementary and are willing to keep playing the lottery for longer than you think. Seats open up in elementary, particularly if you are willing to commute farther or switch in later grades.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not looking forward to the results. It seems like winning the lottery is almost impossible. This is a really frustrating and unfortunate. Quality schools should be a human right.

Most people eventually get into their top choice schools for elementary at least. I know the process seems impossible, but it's just the fairest way to distribute a scarce resource. Should the resource be scarce? I mean, no, but it is so this is what we get.

It DC's lottery really the fairest way to distribute a scarce resource? I don't disagree that a lottery of some form may be the fairest method, but I strongly disagree that DC's lottery, as it is currently run with sibling preferences, is actually fair at all. I know families with a bunch of kids like how it operates, but that doesn't make it fair. There is a very good chance that because of the sibling preference, my kid will not get into any of the elementary schools we would like them to attend, even if we lottery for several years. Unless we get exceptionally lucky, our plan is to move when my kid is in kindergarten to be in-bound for one of the schools we want.

Here's our lottery list:

(1) DC Bilingual
(2) Shepherd ES (OOB)
(3) Yu Ying
(4) LAMB
(5) Dorothy Height ES
(6) Breakthrough Montessori
(7) Military Rd.
(8) Whittier ES
(9) Takoma ES

We are extremely unlikely to get into #1-4 because we don't have sibling preference... #5 and below are all fairly likely through either matching or the waitlist process. If we can't get into #1-3 this year, or #1-2 (+ two schools WOTP that start with PK4) in the following two lotteries, we will move.

Idk if this list offers the best examples to show that sibling preference isn’t fair. For example, there are IB kids who don’t get into Shepherd for PK3. And you will likely get into Height, Military Road, or Takoma. FWIW my child attends one of the schools in your top 4, but it took more than one try at the lottery to get a spot.

The sibling preference is generally less of an issue (re: fairness) with DCPS schools, since the in-bound preference takes up most (or all of the seats)... that obviously raises its own fairness issues, but is not really the point of my post. Looking at DC Bilingual's lottery numbers for last year, they offered 72 PK3 slots. 5 went to children of DCB staff... I have no complaint there. It is a logistical nightmare for a teacher to have to get to their own kid to and from a school that they don't teach at while getting to their own school on time. Then, 36 (exactly half of the total available seats!!) went to siblings. Then, 24 went to equitable access, which I also have much less issue with since it is intended to ameliorate the class stratification of schools like DCB (i.e., it addresses a different fairness issue). Which left 7 (yes, less than 10% of the seats) for kids without a preference... i.e., based on their actual lottery number. If you look at Yu Ying and LAMB, you'll see basically the same phenomena.

And yes, it is highly likely that we will get into schools (5) - (8) on our list, which would be completely fine for a few years... but that still means we will need to move out of our neighborhood, which we love, within a few years... and that just sucks. And would we have a much better shot at being able to stay here if we had multiple kids and, thus, multiple lottery entries every year with a guarantee that all of our kids would essentially get the best number of all of the ones that we drew? Yes, we would.

Anonymous wrote:On the plus side, if you only have one child, you only have to commit residency fraud once to get your kid into a JR feeder. No moving in and out of bounds every few years for each kid.

It's not residency fraud....

God, that thread was a week of my life I'm never getting back.

Anonymous wrote:Weird sibling preference side effect: so many twins at Latin.

Ha! Yes, we know several pairs of twins at both Latins!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone who is at those schools with sibling preference first got in without sibling preference pulling them in.

Right, but for the siblings who get in through sibling preference, they didn't get in because of their own lottery results, they got in because of a sibling's results... which isn't fair, especially if it's happening the same year and it pulls a sibling ahead of kids who have higher lottery numbers in the other grade. In addition, it is possible for a family to live IB and get the first kid in without ever doing the lottery, move OOB, and then get all of the rest of their kids into that school through the sibling preference. So I'm still not seeing anything here indicating that the sibling preference in the lottery is fair. It is convenient for those families, for sure... and in some cases possibly a logistical necessity... but not *fair* as a lottery preference.

If you're still having a hard time with this concept, think of how this would work if the DC Lottery (the one for $$) worked this way. What if whenever someone won an amount of money in the lottery, it also gave their family members holding lottery tickets an equal amount of money/ticketholder and decreased the chances that anyone else would win. Would that be *fair* because the family won with one ticket? Now, what if those extra winners used up more than half of the available lottery winnings every year?

Sibling preference is a good for the whole city, because it reduces traffic. It also strengthens that family 's relationship to that school, and that makes the school community stronger.

I know the only child families feel slighted by this but it is a good policy. Sounds like you have really young kids -- Have faith in the process, keep playing, your child may end up getting lucky in year. Don't feel you need to move before K.

I'm not saying there aren't some benefits to it... I am saying that it isn't *fair*, which is a valid critique of the sibling preference and of the DC school lottery. Yes, there are obviously reasons for DC to have made this policy choice, but that still doesn't make it fair.

How do you feel about the fairness of school boundaries?

I don't. They aren't fair, but they are the system everywhere I have ever seen (in the US) and I don't think they are going anywhere, so I don't waste my energy having feelings about their existence. Lol. In some places though, where charters are decent and each charter conducts its own lottery, charters are a partial solution to the unfairness of school boundaries. Here, charters have no boundaries, but they still have the same crappy sibling preference issue.

Well, something like 75% of DC students don’t attend their IB school, so what is the purpose other than to benefit W3.

Weird sibling preference side effect: so many twins at Latin.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not looking forward to the results. It seems like winning the lottery is almost impossible. This is a really frustrating and unfortunate. Quality schools should be a human right.

Most people eventually get into their top choice schools for elementary at least. I know the process seems impossible, but it's just the fairest way to distribute a scarce resource. Should the resource be scarce? I mean, no, but it is so this is what we get.

It DC's lottery really the fairest way to distribute a scarce resource? I don't disagree that a lottery of some form may be the fairest method, but I strongly disagree that DC's lottery, as it is currently run with sibling preferences, is actually fair at all. I know families with a bunch of kids like how it operates, but that doesn't make it fair. There is a very good chance that because of the sibling preference, my kid will not get into any of the elementary schools we would like them to attend, even if we lottery for several years. Unless we get exceptionally lucky, our plan is to move when my kid is in kindergarten to be in-bound for one of the schools we want.

Here's our lottery list:

(1) DC Bilingual
(2) Shepherd ES (OOB)
(3) Yu Ying
(4) LAMB
(5) Dorothy Height ES
(6) Breakthrough Montessori
(7) Military Rd.
(8) Whittier ES
(9) Takoma ES

We are extremely unlikely to get into #1-4 because we don't have sibling preference... #5 and below are all fairly likely through either matching or the waitlist process. If we can't get into #1-3 this year, or #1-2 (+ two schools WOTP that start with PK4) in the following two lotteries, we will move.

Idk if this list offers the best examples to show that sibling preference isn’t fair. For example, there are IB kids who don’t get into Shepherd for PK3. And you will likely get into Height, Military Road, or Takoma. FWIW my child attends one of the schools in your top 4, but it took more than one try at the lottery to get a spot.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone who is at those schools with sibling preference first got in without sibling preference pulling them in.

Right, but for the siblings who get in through sibling preference, they didn't get in because of their own lottery results, they got in because of a sibling's results... which isn't fair, especially if it's happening the same year and it pulls a sibling ahead of kids who have higher lottery numbers in the other grade. In addition, it is possible for a family to live IB and get the first kid in without ever doing the lottery, move OOB, and then get all of the rest of their kids into that school through the sibling preference. So I'm still not seeing anything here indicating that the sibling preference in the lottery is fair. It is convenient for those families, for sure... and in some cases possibly a logistical necessity... but not *fair* as a lottery preference.

If you're still having a hard time with this concept, think of how this would work if the DC Lottery (the one for $$) worked this way. What if whenever someone won an amount of money in the lottery, it also gave their family members holding lottery tickets an equal amount of money/ticketholder and decreased the chances that anyone else would win. Would that be *fair* because the family won with one ticket? Now, what if those extra winners used up more than half of the available lottery winnings every year?

Sibling preference is a good for the whole city, because it reduces traffic. It also strengthens that family 's relationship to that school, and that makes the school community stronger.

I know the only child families feel slighted by this but it is a good policy. Sounds like you have really young kids -- Have faith in the process, keep playing, your child may end up getting lucky in year. Don't feel you need to move before K.

I'm not saying there aren't some benefits to it... I am saying that it isn't *fair*, which is a valid critique of the sibling preference and of the DC school lottery. Yes, there are obviously reasons for DC to have made this policy choice, but that still doesn't make it fair.

How do you feel about the fairness of school boundaries?

I don't. They aren't fair, but they are the system everywhere I have ever seen (in the US) and I don't think they are going anywhere, so I don't waste my energy having feelings about their existence. Lol. In some places though, where charters are decent and each charter conducts its own lottery, charters are a partial solution to the unfairness of school boundaries. Here, charters have no boundaries, but they still have the same crappy sibling preference issue.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone who is at those schools with sibling preference first got in without sibling preference pulling them in.

Right, but for the siblings who get in through sibling preference, they didn't get in because of their own lottery results, they got in because of a sibling's results... which isn't fair, especially if it's happening the same year and it pulls a sibling ahead of kids who have higher lottery numbers in the other grade. In addition, it is possible for a family to live IB and get the first kid in without ever doing the lottery, move OOB, and then get all of the rest of their kids into that school through the sibling preference. So I'm still not seeing anything here indicating that the sibling preference in the lottery is fair. It is convenient for those families, for sure... and in some cases possibly a logistical necessity... but not *fair* as a lottery preference.

If you're still having a hard time with this concept, think of how this would work if the DC Lottery (the one for $$) worked this way. What if whenever someone won an amount of money in the lottery, it also gave their family members holding lottery tickets an equal amount of money/ticketholder and decreased the chances that anyone else would win. Would that be *fair* because the family won with one ticket? Now, what if those extra winners used up more than half of the available lottery winnings every year?

Sibling preference is a good for the whole city, because it reduces traffic. It also strengthens that family 's relationship to that school, and that makes the school community stronger.

I know the only child families feel slighted by this but it is a good policy. Sounds like you have really young kids -- Have faith in the process, keep playing, your child may end up getting lucky in year. Don't feel you need to move before K.

I'm not saying there aren't some benefits to it... I am saying that it isn't *fair*, which is a valid critique of the sibling preference and of the DC school lottery. Yes, there are obviously reasons for DC to have made this policy choice, but that still doesn't make it fair.

How do you feel about the fairness of school boundaries?

On the plus side, if you only have one child, you only have to commit residency fraud once to get your kid into a JR feeder. No moving in and out of bounds every few years for each kid.

IB gets preference over sibling status.

Anonymous wrote:I have given the sibling preference a lot of thought. My view is that it is necessary in situations where a school is citywide (ie SWS, CHML) in order to reduce traffic and create efficiencies. It is not fair for PK lotteries for IB neighborhood schools. Each kid who is IB should have an equal shot regardless of sibling status.

So you want to create another incentive for families to forgo their neighborhood school and opt for a citywide or charter where they do get a sibling guarantee? This would be far worse than the status quo.

Anonymous wrote:I have given the sibling preference a lot of thought. My view is that it is necessary in situations where a school is citywide (ie SWS, CHML) in order to reduce traffic and create efficiencies. It is not fair for PK lotteries for IB neighborhood schools. Each kid who is IB should have an equal shot regardless of sibling status.

I agree with this completely. And I think it's a political nonstarter because the most negative effects would be felt by high resource families who live IB for in-demand DCPS schools.