Anonymous wrote:Interesting to see that Young's numbers are as "low" as they are. I thought the Two Rivers name would pump their list up longer.

I think its location ended up discouraging people from ranking it. We ranked it but in the middle of our list, whereas the Main Two Rivers campus was at the top for us, simply because it is less convenient to access than both Main and other schools that we ranked above Young. I have friends who chose not to list it at all, even though they listed Main Two Rivers, because of the location -- either the convenience factor and/or they didn't feel comfortable with the surrounding neighborhood. Ultimately, even putting aside the neighborhood, it is so far east that it really isn't an attractive location commute-wise for anyone who isn't in Capitol Hill/Kingman/Carver/NoMa or immediately on the other side of the river.

I think the unknowns of the new campus -- what will the facility be like? will the program really be as good as Main? Will the culture of Main effectively transfer over? -- also worked against it this year. I suspect more people will be willing to deal with the commute in a few years after Young proves itself to be on par with Main.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am really surprised at some of the middle school waiting lists, given how dire I see the middle school situation (I live on Capitol Hill). Basis only has 15 on the WL for 5th and DCI Chinese only has 12? This seems really odd to me give Yu Ying's massive wait list.
Makes it seem like the lottery is mostly for pk3 and pk4,because if you are still playing after that, especially in middle school,you have a lot less competition. Wonder if that will change by the time my kids get to middle school.

You'd have to be pretty brave to start your kid in chinese at grade 6 without having been in chinese immersion previously. I think with YY, unless you speak it at home, you're not going to be interested entering K or 1st onward. Similar for other languages.

What a typical ignorant American way of looking at things. So all or northing.

My cousin speaks 3 languages fluently and "knows" another 3 enough to get by comfortably. She learned a knew language every 3 years at school.

Your advice is "don't even bother with language exposure if you aren't going to learn it in immersion" and you don't speak it at home?

Yeah. Stick with that....

Not the PP, but isn't the DCI Chinese an immersion program? So, yes, I think I would be nervous to stick my 6th grader into an immersion program without previously having a large amount of language training in the targeted language (particularly with a language as challenging as Mandarin); the kid would have such a hard time adjusting and could fall behind in the subjects in the meantime.

I thought DCI was not an immersion?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am really surprised at some of the middle school waiting lists, given how dire I see the middle school situation (I live on Capitol Hill). Basis only has 15 on the WL for 5th and DCI Chinese only has 12? This seems really odd to me give Yu Ying's massive wait list.
Makes it seem like the lottery is mostly for pk3 and pk4,because if you are still playing after that, especially in middle school,you have a lot less competition. Wonder if that will change by the time my kids get to middle school.

You'd have to be pretty brave to start your kid in chinese at grade 6 without having been in chinese immersion previously. I think with YY, unless you speak it at home, you're not going to be interested entering K or 1st onward. Similar for other languages.

What a typical ignorant American way of looking at things. So all or northing.

My cousin speaks 3 languages fluently and "knows" another 3 enough to get by comfortably. She learned a knew language every 3 years at school.

Your advice is "don't even bother with language exposure if you aren't going to learn it in immersion" and you don't speak it at home?

Yeah. Stick with that....

Not the PP, but isn't the DCI Chinese an immersion program? So, yes, I think I would be nervous to stick my 6th grader into an immersion program without previously having a large amount of language training in the targeted language (particularly with a language as challenging as Mandarin); the kid would have such a hard time adjusting and could fall behind in the subjects in the meantime.

There are language tracks. Kids coming from YY or another Chinese immersion school will continue with foreign language study at the level they are at. But per their charter they have to accommodate new foreign language learners as well. And kids who have studied Chinese at YY can also pick an additional language (e.g. Spanish) as an elective).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am really surprised at some of the middle school waiting lists, given how dire I see the middle school situation (I live on Capitol Hill). Basis only has 15 on the WL for 5th and DCI Chinese only has 12? This seems really odd to me give Yu Ying's massive wait list.
Makes it seem like the lottery is mostly for pk3 and pk4,because if you are still playing after that, especially in middle school,you have a lot less competition. Wonder if that will change by the time my kids get to middle school.

You'd have to be pretty brave to start your kid in chinese at grade 6 without having been in chinese immersion previously. I think with YY, unless you speak it at home, you're not going to be interested entering K or 1st onward. Similar for other languages.

What a typical ignorant American way of looking at things. So all or northing.

My cousin speaks 3 languages fluently and "knows" another 3 enough to get by comfortably. She learned a knew language every 3 years at school.

Your advice is "don't even bother with language exposure if you aren't going to learn it in immersion" and you don't speak it at home?

Yeah. Stick with that....

Not the PP, but isn't the DCI Chinese an immersion program? So, yes, I think I would be nervous to stick my 6th grader into an immersion program without previously having a large amount of language training in the targeted language (particularly with a language as challenging as Mandarin); the kid would have such a hard time adjusting and could fall behind in the subjects in the meantime.

Anonymous wrote:How do you guys figure the tiers? Is this by test score, or something... less tangible?

Why does Capitol Hill Montessori have more on the WL?

http://www.dcpcsb.org/charter-board-releases-2014-performance-management-framework-pmf-results

Anonymous wrote:How do you guys figure the tiers? Is this by test score, or something... less tangible?

Why does Capitol Hill Montessori have more on the WL?

Annually the DC Public Charter School board ranks most charter schools -- the levels are called Tier 1, Tier 2 or Tier 3. Check their website for what these mean and on the DCPSB profile pages each school's ranking is listed. New schools usually get a grace period before rankings and ECE-only schools have not been ranked.

How do you guys figure the tiers? Is this by test score, or something... less tangible?

Why does Capitol Hill Montessori have more on the WL?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am really surprised at some of the middle school waiting lists, given how dire I see the middle school situation (I live on Capitol Hill). Basis only has 15 on the WL for 5th and DCI Chinese only has 12? This seems really odd to me give Yu Ying's massive wait list.
Makes it seem like the lottery is mostly for pk3 and pk4,because if you are still playing after that, especially in middle school,you have a lot less competition. Wonder if that will change by the time my kids get to middle school.

You'd have to be pretty brave to start your kid in chinese at grade 6 without having been in chinese immersion previously. I think with YY, unless you speak it at home, you're not going to be interested entering K or 1st onward. Similar for other languages.

What a typical ignorant American way of looking at things. So all or northing.

My cousin speaks 3 languages fluently and "knows" another 3 enough to get by comfortably. She learned a knew language every 3 years at school.

Your advice is "don't even bother with language exposure if you aren't going to learn it in immersion" and you don't speak it at home?

Yeah. Stick with that....

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

dcmom wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree. DCPS provides much more useful information. From charters, I would like to know the total # of available spaces per grade and how many went to siblings, staff, those with other preference (e.g., Amos students at DC Bilingual), and no preference.

DCPS is one LEA with a centralized office. DCPCSB Has to gather much of that info from individual schools.

They can easily get what they want from MSDC.

I don't think MSDC has the number of spaces available per grade at each school.

They can say how many spaces were filled in the lottery, and how many came from IB/OOB/other preferences.

Someone should call DCPCSB and ask them to release this, additional data. That said, the only preferences at play for charters would be staff/sibling and a few that have feeder preferences (e.g. KIPP and DCI). No IB/OOB.

Anonymous wrote:

dcmom wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree. DCPS provides much more useful information. From charters, I would like to know the total # of available spaces per grade and how many went to siblings, staff, those with other preference (e.g., Amos students at DC Bilingual), and no preference.

DCPS is one LEA with a centralized office. DCPCSB Has to gather much of that info from individual schools.

They can easily get what they want from MSDC.

I don't think MSDC has the number of spaces available per grade at each school.

They can say how many spaces were filled in the lottery, and how many came from IB/OOB/other preferences.

Anonymous wrote:I am really surprised at some of the middle school waiting lists, given how dire I see the middle school situation (I live on Capitol Hill). Basis only has 15 on the WL for 5th and DCI Chinese only has 12? This seems really odd to me give Yu Ying's massive wait list.
Makes it seem like the lottery is mostly for pk3 and pk4,because if you are still playing after that, especially in middle school,you have a lot less competition. Wonder if that will change by the time my kids get to middle school.

Well apparently it is only dire in the world of DCUM. I am loving this.

BTW, this is really off topic and Jeff might make me start a new thread, but I have a question. I heard on the radio this morning that students from Banneker and McKinley Sr. High are now allowed to take 2 college classes per semester at Howard University and receive college credit. This option is also available at SWW for GWU. The report said that more DCPS high schools and local colleges will be included in the future. I heard no mention of DCPCS having access to college credits. Did I miss that part, or will the charter high school graduates also be afforded this opportunity?

Anonymous wrote:I am really surprised at some of the middle school waiting lists, given how dire I see the middle school situation (I live on Capitol Hill). Basis only has 15 on the WL for 5th and DCI Chinese only has 12? This seems really odd to me give Yu Ying's massive wait list.
Makes it seem like the lottery is mostly for pk3 and pk4,because if you are still playing after that, especially in middle school,you have a lot less competition. Wonder if that will change by the time my kids get to middle school.

A few thoughts re this year's middle school situation from a MS parent. Expect things will change dramatically in unpredictable ways in next 5 years.

Last year DCI was not in the common lottery and this year it was -- and they had about 185 kids with guaranteed feeder rights to attend who would lose their feeder rights if they ranked any other middle schools higher than DCI. It isn't quite like an IB preference where you could rank Latin or Basis or Hardy higher and see what happens (not saying anyone would want to...but it wasn't an option). Those 180 families (presuming most exercised their rights to DCI) took a lot of pressure/imagined demand off of all MS wait lists.

Washington Global opens fall 2015 as does Brookland Middle. No wait lists for either but presumably someone applied and was matched and may or may not be showing up on the wait lists of the others.

Anonymous wrote:I am really surprised at some of the middle school waiting lists, given how dire I see the middle school situation (I live on Capitol Hill). Basis only has 15 on the WL for 5th and DCI Chinese only has 12? This seems really odd to me give Yu Ying's massive wait list.
Makes it seem like the lottery is mostly for pk3 and pk4,because if you are still playing after that, especially in middle school,you have a lot less competition. Wonder if that will change by the time my kids get to middle school.

You'd have to be pretty brave to start your kid in chinese at grade 6 without having been in chinese immersion previously. I think with YY, unless you speak it at home, you're not going to be interested entering K or 1st onward. Similar for other languages.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the DC Bilingual pull is strong. Why is it not included as a typical top tier?

Probably because it's tier 2?

It was Tier 1 last year. Same with Stokes. I think it is bc of the high percentage of FARMS. DCUM don't like FARMS.

Probably both FARMS and the 2014 Tier 2 rankings. Both Stokes and DC Bilingual were Tier 1 in 2013 but went to Tier 2 in 2014. Obviously numbers don't tell the whole story.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the DC Bilingual pull is strong. Why is it not included as a typical top tier?

Probably because it's tier 2?

It was Tier 1 last year. Same with Stokes. I think it is bc of the high percentage of FARMS. DCUM don't like FARMS.