In Shaw (an historically gentrified blog)

Charter Schools

I caught a ride with a neighbor/friend back home after running into her and her kids. We got onto the topic of Pre-K schools and a day-care co-opy thing at Kennedy Playground. Apparently, if you are going to raise kids in this city you gotta get plugged into the tribe of parents that live in your area. I was vaguely aware of some program at the Kennedy Rec center that some of the little (2-5 yrs)kids were involved in. Involvement requires one parent with a flexible schedule to volunteer and the great thing is the city (thank you city) provides a teacher or staff person.
Well someone will be graduating from the Rec Center co-op to 4 Pre-K, and so we started talking about schools. Yu Ying was mentioned and I said I knew a kid at Yu Ying, and mentioned how happy the parents of said kid seemed to be with the program. However, my ride's concern was how would the language be re-enforced and wondered if Spanish would be a more useful language. So I mentioned another school that another kid (I know a few in the under 5 crowd) but wasn't sure if the school had an actual Spanish language program. So I said I'd check with a parent that I figured would know.
Well I checked and I got a whole list of recommended charter schools and one out of boundary DCPS school. I do not have that list in front of me, but I do remember the name of the DCPS school, John Tyler, or as I found Tyler Elementary. They have a Spanish language program. For out of boundary DCPS there is only one lottery, good luck with that. Oh, and Oyster has a great program but you'd have a better chance at the mega millions lotto than that lottery.
I'll take everyone's word for it that the lottery system is frazzling and you hold your breath until your kid is in one of the schools of your choosing. As far as I know, the parents I know, who do the lottery, do manage to get their munchkins into a satisfactory school.

Labels: schools

posted by Mari @ 25.1.10