Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no way PK3 classrooms go away, from any of these schools. Some budget decisions will have to be made but nobody is taking that political poison pill.

It just doesn’t make sense for schools with high numbers of affluent PK students to have PK3 anymore. PK 3 was originally implemented to serve economically disadvantaged children. Affluent children do not benefit from PK3 and it should therefore be eliminated from schools that may no longer offer Head Start. Head Start was doing DCPS a favor by allowing them to continue to serve schools with low percetanges of Head Start eligible. It makes no sense for a school with 25 Head Start eligible kids out of 110 PK kids to receive Head Start support.

PK3 was not "originally implemented to serve economically disadvantaged children." If this were so, it would only be open to these kids, and DCPS would save a lot of money. PK3 helps all children and working parents. In fact, DC goes further and guarantees PK3 to everyone, regardless of income, they just don't guarantee it at the neighborhood school.

The backlash on DCUM against middle and upper income parents attending PK3 is almost comical. It wasn't long ago that DC was begging middle income parents to attend public schools. PK3 brought these families into DCPS more than any other policy or demographic change, and many of those families choose to stay into K and beyond. PK3 has been a massive win for everyone, of all income levels. It's one of those rare policies that all sides approve. After years of steeply declining enrollment, there's a huge population boom at certain schools. The reason you see PK3 at some schools and not others is solely based on available space. At the most popular schools, there just isn't room. DCPS will address this, but it falls into the "good problem to have" category.

Anonymous wrote:I won’t name the school but our charter had 10 families leave my child’s grade level that I noticed this far on the first day of school. I’m a little sad and disheartened but understand some people leave for work reasons, family reason and other personal reasons. I get it, it’s hard OP, even with DC’s changing demographics. This area is just highly transient.

Same at our charter, but honestly, it doesn't really rattle my DS.

His most stable group of friends are in our neighborhood (all go to different schools). He has close friends at school, and while we connect with them on some weekends and for the occasional sleepover, it's his neighborhood friends who he really wants to spend his free time with...Not sure if it's anything that I should feel sad about, but it is what it is and what he's growing up with.

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Anonymous wrote:Do you even know how DCPS calculates Title I status for schools? DCPS uses CEP to determine Title I status. Every school except Ludlow Taylor and Van Ness is above 90% for CEP. Ludlow is at 40% and Van Ness is at 35.5%.

Neither VN nor LT are T1 anymore.

Ludlow Taylor is still Title I for this current school year. Van Ness was able to qualify to be a Title I targeted assistance school this year.

https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/publication/attachments/List%20of%20Title%20I%20Public%20Schools%20SY%2019-20.pdf

I didn't realize a school could lose its community eligibility provision eligibility and still be Title I. I had (obviously mistakenly) thought those were the same thing. Can someone explain how a school qualifies for T1 then? Is it just a slightly higher threshhold of the same thing or is it a different metric entirely?

There are two kinds of Title I programs: Schoolwide and Targeted Assistance.

A school is eligible to become a Title I Schoolwide Program if 40% or more of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Eligible schools are permitted to use Title I, Part A funds in combination with state and local resources and other federal education program funds to upgrade the entire educational program of the school to raise the academic achievement of all students.

A school is eligible to become a Title I Targeted Assistance Program if between 35-40% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch. The term “targeted assistance” means that the services are provided to a select group of children—those identified as failing, or most at risk of failing, rather than for overall school improvement.

https://dcps.dc.gov/TitleI

Got it, thanks. So per the poster above, L-T is currently at 40% and VN is currently at 35.5%, so it's incredibly likely L-T is about to lose T1 status (and become a targeted assistance program) and VN is about to lose T1 targeted status?

At this point, LT will probably not even qualify for targeted assistance for SY 2020-2021. LT will probably only have a CEP rate of 33-35%. Van Ness probably won’t qualify for targeted assistance next year.

L-T hit the 40% exactly this year and I have to wonder if they intentionally didn't move the WL all summer until right after the determination was made knowing they were exactly on the bubble. (Notoriously, kids that accept late spots off of the WL tend to be higher SES b/c they are more likely to have the flexibility required and, in some cases, ability to forego aftercare.) FWIW, the extra 3 kids in my kid's class are all non-FARMS, so given how small L-T is, that might put them at 39% right there... Anyway, I might be conspiracy minded, but the Principal did a huge push for FARMS-eligible families to fill out the paper work/even chasing families over the summer (i.e., in time for the determination date)... as they should, but it suggests they were hyper-aware of the percentage they were at.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no way PK3 classrooms go away, from any of these schools. Some budget decisions will have to be made but nobody is taking that political poison pill.

It just doesn’t make sense for schools with high numbers of affluent PK students to have PK3 anymore. PK 3 was originally implemented to serve economically disadvantaged children. Affluent children do not benefit from PK3 and it should therefore be eliminated from schools that may no longer offer Head Start. Head Start was doing DCPS a favor by allowing them to continue to serve schools with low percetanges of Head Start eligible. It makes no sense for a school with 25 Head Start eligible kids out of 110 PK kids to receive Head Start support.

You’re nuts. Affluent kids don’t benefit from PK3? Bullshit. It’s extremely popular and beneficial to having women in the workforce. They will never get rid of existing programs they will just fund them without head start.

+1.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no way PK3 classrooms go away, from any of these schools. Some budget decisions will have to be made but nobody is taking that political poison pill.

It just doesn’t make sense for schools with high numbers of affluent PK students to have PK3 anymore. PK 3 was originally implemented to serve economically disadvantaged children. Affluent children do not benefit from PK3 and it should therefore be eliminated from schools that may no longer offer Head Start. Head Start was doing DCPS a favor by allowing them to continue to serve schools with low percetanges of Head Start eligible. It makes no sense for a school with 25 Head Start eligible kids out of 110 PK kids to receive Head Start support.

You’re nuts. Affluent kids don’t benefit from PK3? Bullshit. It’s extremely popular and beneficial to having women in the workforce. They will never get rid of existing programs they will just fund them without head start.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no way PK3 classrooms go away, from any of these schools. Some budget decisions will have to be made but nobody is taking that political poison pill.

It just doesn’t make sense for schools with high numbers of affluent PK students to have PK3 anymore. PK 3 was originally implemented to serve economically disadvantaged children. Affluent children do not benefit from PK3 and it should therefore be eliminated from schools that may no longer offer Head Start. Head Start was doing DCPS a favor by allowing them to continue to serve schools with low percetanges of Head Start eligible. It makes no sense for a school with 25 Head Start eligible kids out of 110 PK kids to receive Head Start support.

I didn’t say DC would battle to keep Head Start support to sustain PK3. I said District government will keep PK3 regardless of Head Start funding. There may not be pressure to add it WOTP (though if kids are commuting across town for seats I certainly wouldn’t say there’s no demand for it), but taking away a resource would be extremely unpopular and counter to all the current efforts to expand programming available from birth.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no way PK3 classrooms go away, from any of these schools. Some budget decisions will have to be made but nobody is taking that political poison pill.

It just doesn’t make sense for schools with high numbers of affluent PK students to have PK3 anymore. PK 3 was originally implemented to serve economically disadvantaged children. Affluent children do not benefit from PK3 and it should therefore be eliminated from schools that may no longer offer Head Start. Head Start was doing DCPS a favor by allowing them to continue to serve schools with low percetanges of Head Start eligible. It makes no sense for a school with 25 Head Start eligible kids out of 110 PK kids to receive Head Start support.

+1 remember, west of the park, upper NW elementaries don’t have PS3 and some barely have PK (ie Stoddert has one PreK class and has an inboundary demand that could fill 4)

DCPS might try to save Head Start at Bancroft. There are many Head Start eligible children residing in Columbia Heights and Parkview who would be eligible, but just aren’t enrolled at the school. Bancroft could easily have a Head Start eligibility percentage of 45-50% if the school did more outreach and followed up with those families.

Anonymous wrote:There is no way PK3 classrooms go away, from any of these schools. Some budget decisions will have to be made but nobody is taking that political poison pill.

It just doesn’t make sense for schools with high numbers of affluent PK students to have PK3 anymore. PK 3 was originally implemented to serve economically disadvantaged children. Affluent children do not benefit from PK3 and it should therefore be eliminated from schools that may no longer offer Head Start. Head Start was doing DCPS a favor by allowing them to continue to serve schools with low percetanges of Head Start eligible. It makes no sense for a school with 25 Head Start eligible kids out of 110 PK kids to receive Head Start support.

There is no way PK3 classrooms go away, from any of these schools. Some budget decisions will have to be made but nobody is taking that political poison pill.

The DCPS schools that will have Head Start removed will probably eliminate their PK3 classes. If DCPS chooses to only have Head Start at schools with a 50% or more Head Start eligibility rate, only about 35-40 of the current 60 Title I elementary schools would be provided with services and any type of Central Office ECE support. Sure, the ECE teachers from schools that had their programs cut would still be able to attend the district wide PD sessions offered three times a year. However, none of the those schools would receive the intensive coaching they current receive. And given the current budget situation at DCPS, I highly doubt that they will make up the difference. Schools like Bancroft, Garrison, Marie Reed, Miner, Seaton, Tyler, Payne, JO Wilson will have to figure out how to support their own ECE programs without any Central Office support. I can already see the ECE teachers at Miner, JO Wilson, Tyler, Payne, and Marie Reed struggling when this happens. The ECE teachers at SWW at Francis Stevens still haven’t recovered since they lost their Title I status two years ago. The CLASS scores for their ECE teachers were quite bad. Oh well, now the ECE Division can focus on serving PK students and teachers with the greatest need.

I won’t name the school but our charter had 10 families leave my child’s grade level that I noticed this far on the first day of school. I’m a little sad and disheartened but understand some people leave for work reasons, family reason and other personal reasons. I get it, it’s hard OP, even with DC’s changing demographics. This area is just highly transient.

Anonymous wrote:DCPS is trying to keep many of its current Title I schools west of Georgia Ave NW Title I. Bancroft, Marie Reed, HD Cooke, Garrison and Seaton probably have 2-3 years remaining as Title I schools. The same applies to Payne, Tyler, JO Wilson, Langley, Miner, Bunker Hill, Burroughs, and Amidon Bowen.

Langley will hang on for a while. It has a lot of self-contained SPED classrooms that are largely low income. Yes the PK3 is gentrifying, but K and up is a different story. The Langley building is huge and they need a ton of OOB kids to even partially fill it.

Anonymous wrote:So are FARM percentages publicized anywhere for CEP schools in DCPS?

No. You can find them in the educational statistics database the Dept of Ed publishes but they are usually 2-3 years behind. And some schools seem to publish the CEP 100% and others have a more specific percentage.

DC has gone to tracking at-risk not FARMS. But the Trump Admin is trying to eliminate CE, and make it harder to qualify for FARMS too. So it is a moving target.

DCPS is trying to keep many of its current Title I schools west of Georgia Ave NW Title I. Bancroft, Marie Reed, HD Cooke, Garrison and Seaton probably have 2-3 years remaining as Title I schools. The same applies to Payne, Tyler, JO Wilson, Langley, Miner, Bunker Hill, Burroughs, and Amidon Bowen.