Anonymous
Post 01/10/2025 16:14     Subject: DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Creative Minds is too far for you and it wouldn't be worth it. They don't have good scores relative to their demographics, and they're planning to move locations in the next 5 years or so. And they experienced a big drop in enrollment this year.

Suggest you look into Seaton and Thomson.


Any insight on why they experienced a big drop in enrollment?


Please just search their name on here and you will see
Anonymous
Post 01/10/2025 14:29     Subject: DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:With the lottery now open, I just wanted to see where some people are considering placing their children for the 25/26 school year. Anyone have any insight on Apple Tree: Waterfront, Lee Montessori, Global Citizens, Creative Minds, Maury, and Inspired Teaching?


Have you looked into Stokes East End?


Yes, I’ve looked into it, but I didn’t like that their test scores are lower than the Brookland Campus.


You seem very focused on test scores. I could go through the various reasons they're important and unimportant, but... you're not going to be happy at VN long term. VN's test scores are bad. They're bad overall and they're bad for demographics. They're bad for achievement and they're bad for growth. Check out the recent DC Report Card for Van Ness: https://schoolreportcard.dc.gov/lea/1/school/331/report. Van Ness is in the bottom 1/3rd of schools in the city.

Now, Van Ness' ECE scores are fine. You'll have a totally fine experience there for ECE. Some people might be fine with VN throughout ES. I don't think you will be if you're looking up test scores and willing to commute halfway across the city for better ones.
Anonymous
Post 01/10/2025 13:11     Subject: DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:With the lottery now open, I just wanted to see where some people are considering placing their children for the 25/26 school year. Anyone have any insight on Apple Tree: Waterfront, Lee Montessori, Global Citizens, Creative Minds, Maury, and Inspired Teaching?


Have you looked into Stokes East End?


Yes, I’ve looked into it, but I didn’t like that their test scores are lower than the Brookland Campus.
Anonymous
Post 01/10/2025 12:57     Subject: DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC
Anonymous wrote:With the lottery now open, I just wanted to see where some people are considering placing their children for the 25/26 school year. Anyone have any insight on Apple Tree: Waterfront, Lee Montessori, Global Citizens, Creative Minds, Maury, and Inspired Teaching?


Have you looked into Stokes East End?
Anonymous
Post 01/10/2025 11:21     Subject: DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC
Anonymous wrote:Agree with that but OP should also be careful to not list schools ahead of their IB that they do not clearly prefer to the IB because “winning” a long commute for preK with no right to switch to the IB until K could get old pretty quickly.


Ah, I see. It's still not a guarantee but it is easier to get into Van Ness for PK4, especially as an IB student. 12 more seats in PK4 vs PK3.
Anonymous
Post 01/10/2025 11:11     Subject: DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC
Agree with that but OP should also be careful to not list schools ahead of their IB that they do not clearly prefer to the IB because “winning” a long commute for preK with no right to switch to the IB until K could get old pretty quickly.
Anonymous
Post 01/10/2025 11:10     Subject: DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The PPs are all right, but I’d emphasize that PK3 being all lottery means you do have to be strategic. You’re probably not getting into any of those if you don’t have a high enough lottery number to get a PK3 seat without sibling preference at Van Ness, especially SWS and definitely not Maury. And Van Ness is great, especially for early grades and then you’d already have a community if you end up not being able to lottery for a better feeder pattern for a couple years. I’d put Van Ness first. Then Appletrees are your safeties and I’d add Amidon Bowen close to you in SW to the list, also a good school specially in the early elementary years though they also tend to not have many or any OOB seats for PK. Depends on the year and it’s been steadily becoming more popular. I personally wouldn’t waste a choice on Brent due to the swing space but like a PP said that might be one of the few “better” schools that you have a chance at, and if you don’t mind it then you’d have a nice renovated, higher performing school til middle school or whenever you give up and move to upper NW or out of DC like most others.


Unless OP has more than legitimate 12 options, there is no reason to be strategic. Just list them 1-12 in true order of preference. Take a flyer on Maury if that spot would otherwise not be used.


The point is that Van Ness can't be the "safety" as over the years there have pretty consistently been more IB students than PK3 spots. And if her number isn't good enough to get into Van Ness IB, it's almost definitely not good enough to get into highly sought after charters or Capitol Hill elementaries OOB. So at least a couple of spots at the bottom of her list need to be set aside for true safeties, which are hard to come by in and around Capitol Hill. Probably AppleTree Waterfront and AppleTree SW.
Anonymous
Post 01/10/2025 10:52     Subject: DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC
Anonymous wrote:The PPs are all right, but I’d emphasize that PK3 being all lottery means you do have to be strategic. You’re probably not getting into any of those if you don’t have a high enough lottery number to get a PK3 seat without sibling preference at Van Ness, especially SWS and definitely not Maury. And Van Ness is great, especially for early grades and then you’d already have a community if you end up not being able to lottery for a better feeder pattern for a couple years. I’d put Van Ness first. Then Appletrees are your safeties and I’d add Amidon Bowen close to you in SW to the list, also a good school specially in the early elementary years though they also tend to not have many or any OOB seats for PK. Depends on the year and it’s been steadily becoming more popular. I personally wouldn’t waste a choice on Brent due to the swing space but like a PP said that might be one of the few “better” schools that you have a chance at, and if you don’t mind it then you’d have a nice renovated, higher performing school til middle school or whenever you give up and move to upper NW or out of DC like most others.


Unless OP has more than legitimate 12 options, there is no reason to be strategic. Just list them 1-12 in true order of preference. Take a flyer on Maury if that spot would otherwise not be used.
Anonymous
Post 01/09/2025 18:18     Subject: DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC
Anonymous wrote:I disagree a little bit with prior posters. If there are any schools that you'd absolutely want over VN for ES if you could get into them, I'd rank them over ES now, because actually PK3 is the easiest time to get into some charters/non-IB DCPSes. The overwhelming odds are that you wouldn't get into Brent (all the swing space spices things up a bit if you could live with the commute for 2 years, because that would be a fabulously easy commute for K+), Maury, or LT for PK3 from OOB, but there is truly no harm to listing them if you don't have 12 options you'd prefer.

I think VN would be a good PK option, but I wouldn't be happy there long term based on what I know about the school.



What do you know about the school? Is it the test scores? My goal is consistency. I would love for my child to stay at a school until middle school.
Anonymous
Post 01/09/2025 18:10     Subject: DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC
Sorry, the above should say: "If there are any schools that you'd absolutely want over VN for ES if you could get into them, I'd rank them over *VN* now, because actually PK3 is the easiest time to get into some charters/non-IB DCPSes."
Anonymous
Post 01/09/2025 18:09     Subject: DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC
I disagree a little bit with prior posters. If there are any schools that you'd absolutely want over VN for ES if you could get into them, I'd rank them over ES now, because actually PK3 is the easiest time to get into some charters/non-IB DCPSes. The overwhelming odds are that you wouldn't get into Brent (all the swing space spices things up a bit if you could live with the commute for 2 years, because that would be a fabulously easy commute for K+), Maury, or LT for PK3 from OOB, but there is truly no harm to listing them if you don't have 12 options you'd prefer.

I think VN would be a good PK option, but I wouldn't be happy there long term based on what I know about the school.
Anonymous
Post 01/09/2025 15:46     Subject: Re:DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC
Here you go:

https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/district-of-columbia
Anonymous
Post 01/09/2025 14:55     Subject: DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:New poster here whose kids both did prek3-5 at Van Ness as our IB school. 100% agree with what everyone else said. Being walking distance for preschool (and up) for all those years was amazing.


Another Van Ness parent whose child attended from PK3-5 here. It's truly been a wonderful experience with caring and knowledgeable staff and a great community.


Any thoughts on why the math scores are SO bad? It's the one thing that really gives me pause with respect to upper elementary. I know some of it is driven by demographics but even by subgroups the scores are well below district averages.


Probably some of the better math students leave after 4th to attend Latin or BASIS. That's normal for schools in the area, it has to do with wanting a better middle and high school option, and it should t reflect negatively on Van Ness.

You can see the test scores on the OSSE website and check if 5th grade is lower than 3rd and 4th.

But also, it's easier to get into other schools for elementary. It's hard for preschool. So you will probably be able to go somewhere with better math scores later. It's just hard to get into a high scoring school for PK3.
Anonymous
Post 01/09/2025 14:51     Subject: DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:New poster here whose kids both did prek3-5 at Van Ness as our IB school. 100% agree with what everyone else said. Being walking distance for preschool (and up) for all those years was amazing.


Another Van Ness parent whose child attended from PK3-5 here. It's truly been a wonderful experience with caring and knowledgeable staff and a great community.


Any thoughts on why the math scores are SO bad? It's the one thing that really gives me pause with respect to upper elementary. I know some of it is driven by demographics but even by subgroups the scores are well below district averages.
Anonymous
Post 01/09/2025 14:33     Subject: DC School Lottery 25/26 & Best Schools in DC
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I took another look at your initial list. inspired teaching, lee east end, and global citizens east end are worth ranking. cmi is not (too far). you will not get maury for ece. appletree is a solid backup ensuring you match somewhere but it is ece only.


I’m going to look into those schools. Does anyone have feedback on Inspired Teaching, Lee Montessori: East End, and Global Citizens? It seems as though Creative Mind might not be as good as I thought.


Inspired Teaching is a good school but I'm not sure it's better enough to justify the commute. If you think you might want to move nearer to it, then fine. But you'll need a very good lottery number to get in for PK3.

Lee EE is good, but it's a new startup so still some growing pains. It's really a question of whether you think Montessori fits your child. Really research that. Do you like the idea, for example, of your child being a Kindergartener in a class with some other Kindergarteners but mostly PK3 and PK4s? Because that's what you get at a Montessori school.