Dallas Public Schools: My Goodness, the Choices!

Saturday morning, the Mister, Tiny and I drove over to Ellis Field house to attend the DISD magnet school fair.

We left kind of stunned. A good stunned, though, because even with our two years of research and question-asking and review seeking, we were still surprised by the sheer volume of choice offered to families who attend Dallas public schools.

In fact, even if your kiddo isn’t even at the point of attending school yet, I recommend you go to next year’s fair, just to start getting the lay of the land and – even more so – to have a tangible way to visualize the myriad of ways your child can learn.

Our original plan had been to just make a beeline for the two schools we were interested in – Dealey and Harry Stone. We did go there, and asked plenty of questions (more on that in a minute), but then we spent another half hour or so milling around. Vanguard schools for STEM and fine arts. International Baccalaureate schools out the wazoo. Law magnets. Engineering magnets. Leadership and communication magnets. You name an interest, and there is a way to address it.

In fact, a teacher at Skyline High wanted me to make sure our readers knew that free transportation is available to all magnet, vanguard and montessori schools. “Make sure they know!” she said.

And it’s only going to grow. A chat with DISD board president Miguel Solis (our conversation will be in a later post) revealed that by 2020, the district plans to have 35 new “schools of choice” available. It’s very likely, in fact, that your neighborhood school could become a vanguard, or a montessori, or a magnet school in the next few years. The idea, Solis said (and again, more later), is to take the competition to get in out of the equation – everyone should feel confident their child is getting a top-notch education, magnet or not. We know these montessori schools teach well – but what if we extended these learning opportunities to more kids, via schools in their own neighborhoods? Mata Montessori is the example the district is pointing to now – and hopes to do more with that model in the future.

So what did we learn that pertains to our current situation? We got a better idea of what the testing process is like. I would be a liar if I said we weren’t a little concerned – if you’ve ever been around a three-and-a-half year old for any length of time, you know it’s like herding greased kittens in an ice storm.  We know he knows all the things they want him to know, but whether or not he will feel like sharing that knowledge at the time of his assessment is a whole ‘nother ball of wax.

So how does it work? Pre-K and Kindergarten selection at Dealey and Harry Stone is broken down like this:

• On-site assessment – 60 points
• Observation – 30 points
• Parental letter of interest – 10 points

The on-site assessment consists of a look at basic skills like color and shape identification, numbers, alphabet, knowledge of personal information, body parts, familiar objects in the environment. The observation part of the interview process will look for how well the child follows directions, works quietly, exhibits self-control, separates from his parents before the interview, and cooperates.

The parental letter of interest needs to include a brief description of the child; a description of his education so far (Mother’s Day Out, preschool, montessori, home schooling); the ages for developmental milestones like walking, toilet training and talking; any areas of concern; and the parents’ expectations from the school.

Children need to have 80 points to be considered. The top 10 percent scorers (I was told at the fair that would be a 99 to 100 percent score) will automatically get into their first choice school. After that, acceptance is broken down by quadrant to satisfy the demographic requirements for the makeup of each school.

So what if we don’t get in? Our current plan is kind of an if, then. If our feeder school, Withers Elementary, has spots open in its pre-K program next year after all the kids who qualify are enrolled, we will pay to go there. We would be just as thrilled if he was able to get his early education there.  If they are filled, we will continue to send him four days a week to the school he is in now, and he will enroll in Withers for kindergarten. If he shows a particular interest in a specific subject further down the line, we can always talk about applying for a vanguard school in that area when he hits second or third grade.

I think you’ll be intrigued in the next few weeks with the stories coming up, including the aforementioned conversation with Solis, a new feature called “10 Questions with a DISD Parent,” and more about what we glean from our visits to a couple of open houses. And, as always, if you have a question about Dallas public schools you’d like to see answered here, let me know!