CSD Pre-K Lottery Monday
Decatur Metro | February 27, 2010 | 11:18 amFrom the CSD website…
The City Schools of Decatur’s College Heights Pre-K Lottery will be held at the Central Office at Westchester (758 Scott Boulevard, Decatur 30030) on Monday, March 1, 2010 at 12:00 pm. Families may choose to be present for the lottery drawing or they may contact Felicia Gibson (404-370-4480) after 2:00 pm on Monday for lottery results.
Thanks to Jenny for the heads up!
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This is the first I’ve heard about this–I didn’t get any emails at all (from CSD or from CHECLC). Does this mean there’s a lottery for CSD families too, or is this just for the open spaces left after all CSD families got a spot? (PLEASE tell me it’s the latter!)
Wow – my child is too young, but I really want her to get a pre-k spot at CHELC when the time comes. it worries me when someone as plugged in as you doesn’t hear about the lottery!
My kid is too young too, but I vaguely remember getting a postcard from CSD about this.
Now that you mention it, I think I remember getting a postcard.
I just called and was told that the lottery IS for residents.
So, does anyone know what happens if you were not part of this process, but live in the city and may be interested in a spot? Is it just too late? I may not have been paying close enough attention, and if so, my own fault, but I hope it’s not just plain too late.
Thanks “s,” now I’m having a minor panic attack.
DecaturKJ, yes, you are too late. The registration deadline was in February. There will be a waiting list, so you can get on that, but you’ll just have to see how far down you are!
Thanks for clarifying– happily, our situation is not dire, as we have daycare arrangements in place for now that can go through pre-K, but I am curious about what happens later in the year if we have to change them.
Does anyone know if this is because they’re eliminating the 3 classes (the 2 Frazier Center classes at the High School and the one at Oakhurst)? I thought that they would be relocating the classes, but maybe they couldn’t find a location?? I’m just confused because I’d heard that as of mid-February the registration was lower than usual. I’d love to know what’s going on!
Only four children were wait listed.
When my daughter, who is now 16, was entering pre-K, Westchester had a lottery. She got in. I think everyone who wanted to get in, gets in. There are always people who “get” in and then drop out, or opt to do something else. So, try not to panic.
This is what CSD does instead of doing first-come, first-served, which results in parents camping out to get spots. This seems fairer.
My understanding is that the Frasier Center classes will stay at the high school but the class at Oakhurst (which was added last year) may be cut. We haven’t gotten an official word about anything yet except the deadline(s) for registration and we are in the 0-3 program here at the high school. I’m not sure where these rumors are coming from but even the staff doesn’t know anything definite yet.
I agree about the rumors. The Frasier Center one is new to me. The Oakhurst classroom was never promised beyond this current year. At the PreK to K class a few weeks ago, they were predicting that the Kindergarten class at Oakhurst to be pretty large. So they will most likely need the PreK room for that.
The CHELC PreK registrations were low this year which is why they did a lottery this year. They haven’t needed to do one for the last 5-6 years.I am not sure how many spots were up for the lottery. We were on the waitlist for a few days when we moved here last August. There is a lot of last minute shifting. So to those that are on it, don’t lose faith. We have been nothing but happy with the PreK program this year.
The Pre-K at Oakurst was a one-year deal to accommodate some renovations at the high school. It is not permanent. It is very unlikely that it will be back next year b/c Oakhurst is so crowded.
Could someone please fully explain what this is all about?! We enrolled our daughter for pre-K last week or the week before: are we OK? Who is not OK?
So happy to not have a preKer.
This is kind of par for the course with CSD communications. Better than the Masons but certainly not on a par with City of Decatur which views communicating proactively with its citizens as one of its core functions as opposed to something it has to do. Usually, when one asks about where something was announced, CSD has a perfectly logical answer, it’s just not one you could have thought of ahead of time! It’s hard to pay attention to every potential source of info all of the time, especially if one isn’t in the school system yet. But I doubt many public school systems are much better. Private schools HAVE to communicate better if they want to keep the tuition flowing.
Agree that a lottery is better than first come, first serve camping out overnight which is both unfair to folks who have something else critical going on plus just plain a silly way to conduct business in the digital age. Also agree that spots may open up from the waiting list, even after school opens. One year that we were at CHELC, in just a single class, a couple of kids couldn’t cut preK yet–it’s more structured than your average half-day preschool–and one child went back to their previous preschool/preK experience because the parents decided they preferred it.
Everybody hold your horses! I don’t even have any kids and still was aware of this lottery coming up, because there was an item about it RIGHT HERE ON THIS BLOG within recent memory! There was even conversation about why it was being held at Westchester instead of at College Heights. Somebody confirm, and reassure me I’m not hallucinating.
No, there was plenty of advertising about registration, and the recent convo here was about that. But regarding a lottery, there was no communication from CSD. Since in recent years there has not been a lottery, I was surprised to come here today and find that there was.
Doesn’t seem to matter, since somebody here said there were only 4 on the waiting list. What a relief that we got our spot!
How do you go about getting enrolled in daycare (0-3) at College Heights? We aren’t too far away from having kiddos and live about a block and a half from there. We’re curious if it’s hard to get in as it is with other daycare centers ITP or if it’s fairly easy if you’re a Decatur resident. Also, how does it compare with other daycare centers in the area?
You have to cal the school and get on the 0-3 waiting list. If you haven’t gotten on already, there is a very good chance you won’t get in. Daycares around Decatur are booked, so you probably need to get on as many lists as you can.
Trying to get clarification on all this. Stay tuned.
Thank you for your questions and comments. As CSD Pre-K families began registration parents were informed of the process. Each year, we need to tell Bright From the Start (lottery-funded Pre-K) what process we will use if we have more families than slots allow. We have selected lotteries for over a decade but rarely has been used. This year, 184 families registered students for the 180 slots. At noon today, we selected four names that were then immediately added to a wait list for Pre-K at any of the 9 Pre-K classes for next year. Each summer, attrition takes place on the list: moving, transferring, families that applied at multiple Pre-Ks, any number of issues.
CSD had 120 slots until three years ago when we were selected to receive two additional Pre-Ks based on the results of the other six. Last year when CSD noticed that the resident need for Pre-K rose, we requested another (in a year when other districts were denied) and were granted. Thus, we have 180 slots.These 9 Pre-K classrooms will be placed in a CSD facility: sites TBD. 6 will be located at CH ECLC but the other three have not been placed. The competitive $3M Career Academy Grant that CSD recently received allows for a much-needed renovation of the high school programs, which includes an Early Childhood Education component. The birth-age 4 rooms at DHS have served as the laboratory environment for this program of study for several years. We hope to continue this excellent learning opportunity: for the DHS students, for the 0-4 teachers, and for the young learners!
Families who registered Pre-Kers were told that classroom sites would be announced May 1. We will abide by that commitment. As always, further questions can be directed to the CH ECLC Principal: Suzanne Kennedy, [email protected] .
Thomas at Westchester
I see the desire to provide as much pre-K as possible, but there is a bit of a tone here that it’s some sort of right. Pre-K is not required like K-12, and the K-12 programs should not suffer (i.e. trailers at the K-3 schools) to accommodate everyone who would like a pre-K slot. I think that K-3 parents will be pretty irritated if their kids are in trailers again in order to provide space for an optional pre-K slot. Having been in such a situation this year, I can tell you that it is far from ideal. There will be more room after Glennwood opens up as a K-3, but all the preschool parents need to understand that there are space limitations that we are all dealing with and that there are other pre-K options out there if you don’t get into College Heights.