Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of us don't make much distinction between charter and public schools. They're all just schools.

Well, it does change the vibe of the neighborhood when lots of neighbors go to school together -- the kids can walk to each others houses for playdates, etc.

The kids in our area all go to different schools. No one cares. They all play together.

This. Big mistake if you prioritize poor neighborhood schools over better schools. You will realize this sooner than later in upper elementary and upper. Kids don’t choose friends based on where they live. It’s not an issue when they can also take metro and get around by themselves. My DS started going on metro by himself to school in 6th.

No one is doing that. Most of the schools on the list the PP posted above with very high IB participation rates are the best schools in the city (Janney, Mann, etc).

The DCPS schools that are not that great don't have very high IB participation, so kids don't get that "walk to and from school with friends and go freely from house to house" thing.

There are schools where the IB participation rate is somewhat low but the school percent of students IB is high, so you still get the "walk to and from school with friends and go freely from house to house" thing. Schools with the highest percent of students IB:

- Murch 88%
- Janney 88%
- Lafayette 88%
- Stoddert 85%
- Maury 83%
- Thomas 82%
- Van Ness 81%
- Walker-Jones 81%
- Key 78%
- Bancroft 76%
- Eaton 76%
- Mann 75%
- Shepherd 75%
- Langley 75%

I am surprised Maury isn’t on that list. I would have guessed its participation is much higher than those upper NW schools because very few in bounds for Maury go to private, and very few go to other DCPS. I would guess maybe Brent is the same way too (although probably not right now because of the swing space).

Actually, now that I think about it, could the calculation for Maury be skewed because of people departing for Latin and Basis in 5th, a dynamic that upper NW doesn’t have? I would bet Maury 4th grade and down is over 75%, easily.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of us don't make much distinction between charter and public schools. They're all just schools.

Well, it does change the vibe of the neighborhood when lots of neighbors go to school together -- the kids can walk to each others houses for playdates, etc.

The kids in our area all go to different schools. No one cares. They all play together.

This. Big mistake if you prioritize poor neighborhood schools over better schools. You will realize this sooner than later in upper elementary and upper. Kids don’t choose friends based on where they live. It’s not an issue when they can also take metro and get around by themselves. My DS started going on metro by himself to school in 6th.

No one is doing that. Most of the schools on the list the PP posted above with very high IB participation rates are the best schools in the city (Janney, Mann, etc).

The DCPS schools that are not that great don't have very high IB participation, so kids don't get that "walk to and from school with friends and go freely from house to house" thing.

A lot of assumptions right here. There aren't even that many children in Ward 3. Have you been to Ward 4? There are kids and schools everywhere. There are lots of places where unrelated schools are across the street from one another. I can think of one area where there's three schools that abut each other. A lot of parent don't care if a school is DCPS or charter, and the kids don't seem super concerned either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of us don't make much distinction between charter and public schools. They're all just schools.

Well, it does change the vibe of the neighborhood when lots of neighbors go to school together -- the kids can walk to each others houses for playdates, etc.

The kids in our area all go to different schools. No one cares. They all play together.

This. Big mistake if you prioritize poor neighborhood schools over better schools. You will realize this sooner than later in upper elementary and upper. Kids don’t choose friends based on where they live. It’s not an issue when they can also take metro and get around by themselves. My DS started going on metro by himself to school in 6th.

No one is doing that. Most of the schools on the list the PP posted above with very high IB participation rates are the best schools in the city (Janney, Mann, etc).

The DCPS schools that are not that great don't have very high IB participation, so kids don't get that "walk to and from school with friends and go freely from house to house" thing.

Ward 4 here. Of the five families on our block with elementary aged kids, three are at DCI feeders, two are in private (though one was at a charter before moving to the Lab School. Other family is Catholic and at Catholic), and one is at an OOB Deal feeder.

Look at where kids at Deal did fifth and that plus Oyster Adams is your answer. Too many rich kids and OOB kids at Hardy feeders, Hill elementaries don’t have sufficient middle school buy in yet to get to “most”, and all other schools get engaged families moving into charters as early as possible (either KIPP style or DCI feeder style depending on the demographics).

Schools in Ward 3 near the metros have upper middle class families that can afford to buy in-bounds for JR, but can’t afford private like in the Palisades.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of us don't make much distinction between charter and public schools. They're all just schools.

Well, it does change the vibe of the neighborhood when lots of neighbors go to school together -- the kids can walk to each others houses for playdates, etc.

The kids in our area all go to different schools. No one cares. They all play together.

This. Big mistake if you prioritize poor neighborhood schools over better schools. You will realize this sooner than later in upper elementary and upper. Kids don’t choose friends based on where they live. It’s not an issue when they can also take metro and get around by themselves. My DS started going on metro by himself to school in 6th.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of us don't make much distinction between charter and public schools. They're all just schools.

Well, it does change the vibe of the neighborhood when lots of neighbors go to school together -- the kids can walk to each others houses for playdates, etc.

The kids in our area all go to different schools. No one cares. They all play together.

We don't have direct data on private school students, but the % of public school students going to their IB school is a good starting point for a lower bound on this. These are the only elementary schools with an IB participation rate over 75%:

- Janney 93% (631 out of 681)
- Mann 91% (299 out of 330)
- Lafayette 90% (809 out of 897)
- Murch 87% (580 out of 664)
- Key 85% (263 out of 310)
- Oyster-Adams 82% (318 out of 389)
- Hyde-Addison 81% (161 out of 198)
- Stoddert 81% (361 out of 446)
- Hearst 78% (249 out of 320)
- Eaton 77% (330 out of 426)
- Ross 76% (116 out of 153)
- Bancroft 75% (628 out of 838)

You can also see how the number of public school students living in the boundary has changed over time. From SY19-20 to SY24-25: Bancroft +17%, Eaton +2%, Hyde-Addison +17%, Janney -11%, Hearst +8%, Lafayette -2%, Key -16%, Mann -7%, Murch +14%, Oyster-Adams+1%, Ross -8%, Stoddert +5%.

Something else you could do to get a better sense of the total number of students (not just public school students) in a given area is to roughly align the 2025 number of children aged 3-10 in the neighborhood clusters here: https://edscape.dc.gov/page/pop-and-students-youth-pop-forecasts-nhood to each of the above school boundaries.

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of us don't make much distinction between charter and public schools. They're all just schools.

Well, it does change the vibe of the neighborhood when lots of neighbors go to school together -- the kids can walk to each others houses for playdates, etc.

I think a lot of us don't make much distinction between charter and public schools. They're all just schools.

Anonymous wrote:For some of the upper NW schools like Lafayette, Murch, Janney, the lower grades are high and students start pealing off.

I think across the board, it is still close to 75% - but there will be families that decide they need something else for their kid so that by the time they get to 5th grade, classmates are now at .... NCS, Holton, Blessed Sacrament, Lab, Siena, Latin and BASIS

If you had the data, I think Murch retains more IB kids (versus privates) than Janney and Lafayette do, but that’s because of all the apartments inbounds for Murch. So maybe not what OP is really looking for.

Shepherd is pretty close to that number.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of the 17 ES-age kids on our street, 10 go to the IB public, one goes to a public charter, and 6 go private.

Of the 20 on my block - 0 go to in-bound public, 15 to charter and 5 private. Ward 7.

Another stalker.

Anonymous wrote:Upper Caucasia is not a new reference, though it is funny. https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/233552/upper-caucasia/

Yep. Love it. Especially because using it gets its residents all worked up!

Anonymous wrote:Of the 17 ES-age kids on our street, 10 go to the IB public, one goes to a public charter, and 6 go private.

Of the 20 on my block - 0 go to in-bound public, 15 to charter and 5 private. Ward 7.