Eleven charter schools in D.C. plan to offer admissions preference to students who are homeless, receive assistance, in foster care or who are a year older for their grade.
The At-Risk Preference Approval and Monitoring Policy was created by DC Public Charter School Board to give at-risk students and their families greater access to the schools they want to attend.
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- Breakthrough Montessori PCS
- DC Bilingual PCS
- DC Wildflower
- Digital Pioneers Academy PCS
- E.L. Haynes PCS
- Inspired Teaching Demonstration PCS
- Sojourner Truth Montessori PCS
- The Children鈥檚 Guild DC PCS
- Two Rivers PCS
- Washington Latin PCS
- Washington Yu Ying PCS
The D.C. Council “Expanding Equitable Access to Great Schools Act of 2020” last year, to expand equitable access to public charter schools to at-risk students. Those charter schools are some of the most sought-after schools in the District.
During a public hearing in July 2020, before the law was passed, Chelsea Coffin, the director of the Education Initiative of D.C. Policy Center, on the report the center published on at-risk priority and its implications on access and diversity in schools.
The report explored three scenarios for at-risk priorities for prekindergarten 鈥� a preference before siblings, a preference after siblings and reserving seats for at-risk applicants.
Improving school diversity and access
In her testimony, she said the report found that match rates for at-risk students can jump to as high as 71% if there’s a preference before siblings, 42% for after siblings, and 19% if a school reserves 30% of seats to at-risk applicants.
With the current lottery system, only 4% of at-risk students match to a school choice.
The report, she said, also found that at-risk priority has the potential to increase socioeconomic diversity at schools that have a low percentage of at-risk students. The D.C. Policy Center said socioeconomic diversity is “extremely low at 35 schools with less than 20% of students who are at risk.”
Forty-seven percent of students in D.C. are identified as at-risk, .
During a hearing in July 2020 before a council committee, that with the public health and economic crisis, “we can expect to see more students meeting the criteria of the at-risk designation.”
Coffin concluded by saying that a priority for at-risk students in the lottery is a “way to improve access to some schools for some students furthest from opportunity.”
In her testimony before the council in July 2020, Alyssa Noth, a former policy analyst at DC Fiscal Policy Institute, and current director for intergovernmental affairs at DCPS., said the expanding access to the Great Schools Act is a ““
