OP Here-

As most families in DC do, we applied to many, many charter and public schools. Thankfully, we did end up getting a spot at our first choice. But, no matter what school we would have ended up going to, we would have embraced it and helped the school as much as possible. Why would I take my children to a school but continue on the outside to complain/grumble about the school? Constructive criticism - or better yet, providing feedback and suggestions for improved - is fine. But, what's the point of attending a school that you are not embracing? Perhaps I placed to much emphasis on the "free" care because I couldn't figure out why people would just criticize a school that hundreds of other families would have been so THANKFUL to attend. As I stated before, there's nothing I can do other than vent on DCUM - I certainly can't hand out "sad face" stickers to the grumpy, rude parents. But, I personally don't want other grumpy people at our school - if the reason they are grumpy because they wanted another school.

Finally, as people will be deciding over the next couple of months:
1) PLEASE think hard about the CHARTER school you choose.
2) IF you don't get the school that you really wanted, then PLEASE EMBRACE the school that you do end up going to. Sure, not everyone has time to help their children's school. But, even if you are only in school 5 minutes a day - make those five minutes the best!

I'm not sure how anyone can disagree with these suggestions. But, okay, go ahead and do so.

Anonymous wrote:I think this is only an issue if there is NO parental involvement by any of the parents. Every class needs a few mover and shaker parents who have the energy to make some changes.

I personally am very introverted and am not good at organizing things. I suppose some would consider me to not be very engaged. I support the fundraisers, chat with the teachers every morning, and greet all of my kid's classmates by name. And I work like crazy to make sure that my kid is an asset to the class - manners, behavior, keeping up with the weekly lessons etc. I'm sure that's not enough for some, but that is just too bad.

I read here on a thread once that some families view their kid's time out of school as time for family and church, period, so they just don't want to get involved with a bunch of stuff at school. That's okay with me, too.

OP Here - I think you are a GREAT example of what a parent's involvement in a school should be! I'm not saying that everyone should be (or can be) a SUPER PTA parent. My point is that people should embrace the school that they do end up attending - even if your plan is to only attend one year - embrace the school and help the school be the best that it can be! It really upsets me when a family just takes a spot because they didn't get anything else and then they just complain about it.

Anonymous wrote:I don't think that there are a lot of charter administrators saying stay away of you can't bake cookies and attend school assemblies. Even at private schools there are more active and less active parents. My (Indian) parents stayed completely out of school unless we misbehaved - no daylight between them at the principal/teachers - they just had no frame of reference for bake sales or pep rallies and only cared about report cards or negative letters sent home. It sounds like the PP is trying to guilt trip people into not applying to schools they want to go to so that they have a better chance. Lame!

Okay. But, did your parents walk around the school grumpy and wish they could have taken you to another school???? I don't think so.

Anonymous wrote:OP, when are you going to admit that you are conflating some offhand comment you heard into some kind of problem where none exists? You really think there are huge numbers of parents saying, "Hey, eff you and your parent involvement. This is our last choice charter, and we frankly don't give a fark about this school. Quit asking for our support!"

Mmmhmmm.

OP Here - P.S. I would never look for support at DCUM. Are you serious? At DCUM you need to duck and cover after any and comments made. Are you new here or what?

Anonymous wrote:OP, when are you going to admit that you are conflating some offhand comment you heard into some kind of problem where none exists? You really think there are huge numbers of parents saying, "Hey, eff you and your parent involvement. This is our last choice charter, and we frankly don't give a fark about this school. Quit asking for our support!"

Mmmhmmm.

OP here - It actually wasn't an offhand comment. I just didn't provide all of the details because I'm not sure if the parent reads these posts. What do you think I should write every detail so then when I see such person in such school, the parent can grumble more at me because that's all this parent does. Without giving more details, I can assure you that the parent was/is not happy with the school - although hundreds on the waitlist would have loved to be at our school.

Anonymous wrote:I think charters, especially at the elementary level, would be well advised to introduce a system similar to DCPS's list of priorities (rank 1 through 6). If you get into your priority no. 1 you're crossed of all others. If you get into priority no. 4 you're crossed off no. 5 and 6 but not no. 1, 2, and 3. By the end of the summer, that'll shake out to be a more optimal matching of demand with supply than one that's dictated by when lotteries happen to take place, who gets called when etc. And it would prevent parents holding spots at several to check them out because in the current process there is no need to check them out. Just get on all the lists and figure it out later. In turn, the schools would have to offer serious open houses, the kind that really allows parents to make an informed choice about their rankings.

And to all those on these pages of threads, which I admittedly didn't read in full length, I don't see a reason why one would choose a "least preferred" specialty charter school over, say, an average DCPS option, which are better general springboards into whatever preference you may be trying to lottery into over the years. Forcing a child through an immersion language or some other special gimmick that you have zero interest in is of much lesser value IMHO. Then again, as a DCPS parent, I'm kind of glad that the "lottery hoppers" aren't hopping in my backyard.

Re the ranked lottery I thought the PCSB was working on that.?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did I mention that if the cost of daycare was killing us, I can barely imagine what it was doing to lower income and one income working families. I guess those people are more likely to stay at home, get family help, or have to go on the dole.

DC has childcare vouchers for low income, working families. I have friends who made about $40k and didn't pay a dollar for daycare that averaged $360/week.

i.e. the dole

NP here. I read your rude response to another PP, but, well, you do exactly suggest that people who would apply to SELA do so because they care about providing a quality elementary school education. Since SELA has not opened yet, why would anyone think it will automatically provide a quality education? We may hope it will, but saying that it is already vastly preferable to an atrocious DCPS is doesn't prove your point. So maybe dial back your rudeness and wait, along with the rest of us, for SELA to open before claiming its charter is good or that it will be a good school. Thanks.

Sigh. OK, I’ll try this one more time. The ONLY reason I refer to SELA is that that is the example OP used in the post to which I responded. If you don’t believe me, look at her post at 01/29/2013 15:55. I’m just carrying on her example – I have no opinion on SELA one way or the other. That some parents believe SELA will be a good school is really all they need apply, regardless of how they feel about Hebrew immersion. Whether they’re ultimately right or wrong about the quality of the education is irrelevant to the belief, at application time, that it will be.

In addition, I specifically said in the post that this issue is not specific to SELA. I’ll even quote it here for you:

But if not, well, Hebrew immersion (or Chinese, or Spanish, or Expeditionary Learning, or year-round schedule, or whatever - this isn't specific to SELA) is certainly better than nothing.

As for my rudeness, mea culpa – idiocy irritates me. So I say again, with all the respect that your post deserves – please try and keep up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The idea that it is free care that replaces daycare is ridiculous, just check my bank account. I pay over $500 a month for aftercare and lunch that was previously included, i am paying over $2500 in summer camps, and there are frequent days without school that otherwise would have been covered. Additionally, I donate about $1,000 a year. This is far from the free option for working parents that don't qualify for reduced costs, and when accounting for additional metro costs is actually more than daycare. But, it is an amazing school. So, of course I am doing it anyway, but it is nowhere near free!

But how much are you paying for the actual academic program your child is enrolled in - the actual classroom, teaching program (not before/aftercare)? If you're at DCPS or DCPCS, ZERO, ZILCH, NADA.

That is "free", in case you aren't at a bilingual school.

All the fees you are paying (many of which would be free if you were low income enough to qualify), would still be the same but how much more would you be paying at private school/full time daycare? A TON more. That is the point. You are getting the classroom instruction for free, and that is a gift horse you may not want to look in the mouth.

So your point is that we are going for the academics, which are available for free? True. But, my point is that to take advantage of that and still keep a working schedule similar to that that I had with daycare, we must shell out the same amount (maybe 10% less, although that is eaten by transportation costs, and don't even talk about the opportunity costs of the time it takes to transport)as we did when the child was in daycare. Thus, it is not a money saving venture as implied in this thread.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The idea that it is free care that replaces daycare is ridiculous, just check my bank account. I pay over $500 a month for aftercare and lunch that was previously included, i am paying over $2500 in summer camps, and there are frequent days without school that otherwise would have been covered. Additionally, I donate about $1,000 a year. This is far from the free option for working parents that don't qualify for reduced costs, and when accounting for additional metro costs is actually more than daycare. But, it is an amazing school. So, of course I am doing it anyway, but it is nowhere near free!

But how much are you paying for the actual academic program your child is enrolled in - the actual classroom, teaching program (not before/aftercare)? If you're at DCPS or DCPCS, ZERO, ZILCH, NADA.

That is "free", in case you aren't at a bilingual school.

All the fees you are paying (many of which would be free if you were low income enough to qualify), would still be the same but how much more would you be paying at private school/full time daycare? A TON more. That is the point. You are getting the classroom instruction for free, and that is a gift horse you may not want to look in the mouth.

Um, no. DCPS preschool is not "free". I am paying for it with my taxes, regardless of whether I enroll my child or not.

I think charters, especially at the elementary level, would be well advised to introduce a system similar to DCPS's list of priorities (rank 1 through 6). If you get into your priority no. 1 you're crossed of all others. If you get into priority no. 4 you're crossed off no. 5 and 6 but not no. 1, 2, and 3. By the end of the summer, that'll shake out to be a more optimal matching of demand with supply than one that's dictated by when lotteries happen to take place, who gets called when etc. And it would prevent parents holding spots at several to check them out because in the current process there is no need to check them out. Just get on all the lists and figure it out later. In turn, the schools would have to offer serious open houses, the kind that really allows parents to make an informed choice about their rankings.

And to all those on these pages of threads, which I admittedly didn't read in full length, I don't see a reason why one would choose a "least preferred" specialty charter school over, say, an average DCPS option, which are better general springboards into whatever preference you may be trying to lottery into over the years. Forcing a child through an immersion language or some other special gimmick that you have zero interest in is of much lesser value IMHO. Then again, as a DCPS parent, I'm kind of glad that the "lottery hoppers" aren't hopping in my backyard.

Anonymous wrote:The idea that it is free care that replaces daycare is ridiculous, just check my bank account. I pay over $500 a month for aftercare and lunch that was previously included, i am paying over $2500 in summer camps, and there are frequent days without school that otherwise would have been covered. Additionally, I donate about $1,000 a year. This is far from the free option for working parents that don't qualify for reduced costs, and when accounting for additional metro costs is actually more than daycare. But, it is an amazing school. So, of course I am doing it anyway, but it is nowhere near free!

But how much are you paying for the actual academic program your child is enrolled in - the actual classroom, teaching program (not before/aftercare)? If you're at DCPS or DCPCS, ZERO, ZILCH, NADA.

That is "free", in case you aren't at a bilingual school.

All the fees you are paying (many of which would be free if you were low income enough to qualify), would still be the same but how much more would you be paying at private school/full time daycare? A TON more. That is the point. You are getting the classroom instruction for free, and that is a gift horse you may not want to look in the mouth.

The idea that it is free care that replaces daycare is ridiculous, just check my bank account. I pay over $500 a month for aftercare and lunch that was previously included, i am paying over $2500 in summer camps, and there are frequent days without school that otherwise would have been covered. Additionally, I donate about $1,000 a year. This is far from the free option for working parents that don't qualify for reduced costs, and when accounting for additional metro costs is actually more than daycare. But, it is an amazing school. So, of course I am doing it anyway, but it is nowhere near free!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your child is of age to enter the lottery or enroll why would you cnsider a person to take a spot just for free childcare?

The EotP DCPS schools start offering free childcare for 3 y.o. People who can afford private pre-school have been known to take these spots, only to move on at the earliest opportunity. This leads to bad feelings.

If you can afford taking a cab, is it an ethical obligation to avoid the metro during rush hour?

This.
There is no income threshold precluding me from enrolling DC in and EotP DCPS program at age 3. So we did, at an OOB school that is decent for early childhood. The next year we got into a better charter option, took it and ran. Until there is an income requirement as part of the lottery, we all take our chances this way. I'm not sure it's right, but just because I could afford private PS, that does not mean I have to when I live in a city that offers it for "free."

The lottery system is so broken - not only to parents end up with a choice that doesn't meet their wants but is better than the neighborhood school, but parents are trucking kids all over the city when often a great charter is right next door.

As for the original topic - why would I spend $1600 a month when my kid can attend a great program for free if it's at a good school? As I stated - the system has a few glitches...