I disagree with PP, because of this statement "the sides measuring 3000 feet". But I am not sure. I may give DCPS a call today since I have a personal interest in this it would be good to know. I will update with anything I find out.

Anonymous wrote:from dcps website:

*DC Municipal Regulations B 2106.3 defines “reasonable walking distance” to be a theoretical square oriented north-south with the school in the center and the sides measuring 3000 feet for elementary schools and education campuses and 5000 feet for middle Schools.

So, it sounds like 1500 ft to me. If it is a square instead of a circle, then it actually wouldn't reach across FL Ave. Trinidad wouldn't get clipped and neither would the immediate Stanton Park area.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HE doesn't put anyone in, the DCPS main computer does! If you rank other schools before SWS and get into one, SWS and any other school lower on the list gets dropped off. This is not how it used to be -- each school was dealt with as a separate entity instead of your list as a whole being considered.

Last year, if you put in for 6 schools, you could have gotten into your first choice and still had waitlist spots on the second through sixth choice. This year, if you put in for 6 schools, and get chosen at your third pick, you would still get waitlist spots in numbers one and two, but not in numbers 4-6 at all.

They did this to stop the major shuffling that would happen when everyone had 6 slot still potentially held open close the beginning of the school year. The assumption this year is that you rank the schools in the true order in which you would accept a slot, so you would not care if your "lesser" picks get dropped. Of course you could have six waitlist spots if you don't get into any school straightout.

The principal was emphasizing that, if SWS is your first pick, make it your first lottery pick. How is this misleading?

Read what 17:38 said:

"this year, they're only going to admit kids whose parents put SWS as their top DCPS choice[i] for PreS3"

Unless this poster is misquoting the principal, which s/he may very well be, this is NOT how the lottery works. Yes, I get that IF YOU GET IN to a higher ranked choice, then the other schools are taken off your list. However, if I rank SWS #2 and get in, but get waitlisted at my #1 choice, then the principal CAN NOT deny admission to my child.

So if the principal did indeed say "they are only admitting kids whose parents put SWS as their top choice"... he is being misleading at best.

If you don't understand the lottery, you might have found it confusing. But what he said is what I have read on DCUM and elsewhere. Put your true first choice first. Don't try to game the system. He didnt' say anything about admitting only kids whose parents put SWS first. That is completely fabricated.

from dcps website:

*DC Municipal Regulations B 2106.3 defines “reasonable walking distance” to be a theoretical square oriented north-south with the school in the center and the sides measuring 3000 feet for elementary schools and education campuses and 5000 feet for middle Schools.

I am pretty sure that walking distance is actually 3,000 feet in each direction. Can anyone confirm?

I was wondering what it meant when people asked if a person had "walking distance preference" to a certain school since I hadn't seen this defined before. If walking distance preference really is 1500 ft in each direction, then it would be a fairly high SES area of the Hill (with lots of families with babies right now) and overlap with the current IB areas of both Maury and Peabody, and also some kids now districted into Miner and LT. It would go one or two blocks across FL Ave in one direction, but would really be centered on the NE side of the Hill proper. So, while it would impact the LT catchment, it would actually cover kids IB to quite a few school and still not include all LT kids. This might make it easier to sell to DCPS because it would not completely disrupt IB populations at just one school and kids IB to Maury and Peabody might very well not choose SWS over their IB choice.

The changes to the lottery mean that schools will have 'true' wait lists for the first time. In order to have an 'impressive' waitlist, schools now need to be ranked 1st or 2nd or at some spot before a child gets accepted somewhere (that is if a child gets in at their fourth-preferred school, the child will only count on the wait lists of the first three preferred schools and not count on the wait lists for the 4th and 5th). So schools like Payne, Miner, JO Wilson, Ludlow-Taylor, etc will likely see their waitlists shrink considerably. Also - DCPS will likely find that a far lower percentage of people are getting into their first and second choices.

By telling people to rank SWS first, the principal was effectively trying to make sure that his school can boast of a long wait list. You don't have to rank SWS first in order to be considered for a spot - you do have to rank it higher though than a sure thing school (that is if your 'safety' school is ranked 5th, then you need to rank SWS 1-4). Like other posters have said elsewhere, the new lottery method means that people really need to be sure about their preferences and then rank the schools accordingly. As long as you do that, you will be fine.

Anonymous wrote:*sorry, I meant 17:08, not 17:38.

I was there and he DID NOT say this and, because of the central computer system, he CAN NOT DO THIS, besides! It's a shame he muddled the message, but 17:08's claim is the type of thing which creates bad blood and suspicion, yet again, about SWS and is completely unfair in this case.