Schools in Cambridge, MA
October 16, 2018 6:23 AM Subscribe
We may be moving to Cambridge, MA (yay!) But we would have missed the kindergarten lottery, so I'm a bit worried. Snowflakes inside.
I was just recently offered a job in Cambridge, MA. I love Cambridge and have lived there before, so this is very exciting for us. The job actually would not officially start until summer of 2019, which is when we would actually move.
We have two kids, ages 2 and 4. My understand is that I should be entering my 4 year old into the kindergarten lottery for 2019, and my 2 year old into the pre-K lottery.
But, of course, we don't actually live there yet, and it seems you actually have to live there to enter the lottery. (Am I right? Since you have to submit with all kinds of proof of address, I assume this is the case.)
So I'm assuming we wouldn't get a spot in pre-K. (True, right, as it is a lottery for limited spaces?) As for the kindergarten, a friend of mine said that if I wait to register in the summer, I may be left with the dregs, whatever that means -- just the most undesirable schools, I suppose.
Does anyone have any experience of whether this is true, and whether there really are undesirable schools? Do wait lists move? My understanding is that there are schools some Cambridge parents really LOVE but that they all are pretty good. She wasn't so sure that was true.
Also, we don't know where in Cambridge we'll be living yet. We're pretty set on living in Cambridge itself -- we very much like the surrounding areas but only really love Cambridge. We'll definitely be renting and private is not an option.
Anyway, any thoughts on this from Cambridge parents (or ideas of where to look) would be useful. I know there are some parent groups on Facebook, but I'm not on Facebook. I will certainly call and ask the main office, but I want to call armed with some info and good questions first.
Anonymous because I haven't actually accepted the job yet and definitely have not told my current employer I am even looking . . .
Any advice gratefully accepted -- thank you!
I was just recently offered a job in Cambridge, MA. I love Cambridge and have lived there before, so this is very exciting for us. The job actually would not officially start until summer of 2019, which is when we would actually move.
We have two kids, ages 2 and 4. My understand is that I should be entering my 4 year old into the kindergarten lottery for 2019, and my 2 year old into the pre-K lottery.
But, of course, we don't actually live there yet, and it seems you actually have to live there to enter the lottery. (Am I right? Since you have to submit with all kinds of proof of address, I assume this is the case.)
So I'm assuming we wouldn't get a spot in pre-K. (True, right, as it is a lottery for limited spaces?) As for the kindergarten, a friend of mine said that if I wait to register in the summer, I may be left with the dregs, whatever that means -- just the most undesirable schools, I suppose.
Does anyone have any experience of whether this is true, and whether there really are undesirable schools? Do wait lists move? My understanding is that there are schools some Cambridge parents really LOVE but that they all are pretty good. She wasn't so sure that was true.
Also, we don't know where in Cambridge we'll be living yet. We're pretty set on living in Cambridge itself -- we very much like the surrounding areas but only really love Cambridge. We'll definitely be renting and private is not an option.
Anyway, any thoughts on this from Cambridge parents (or ideas of where to look) would be useful. I know there are some parent groups on Facebook, but I'm not on Facebook. I will certainly call and ask the main office, but I want to call armed with some info and good questions first.
Anonymous because I haven't actually accepted the job yet and definitely have not told my current employer I am even looking . . .
Any advice gratefully accepted -- thank you!
We have an 8yo in the Cambridge public schools, and have chosen to buy a house in Cambridge rather than moving to a local suburb, which means our younger two will also go through the same school system. (Probably a different elementary school due to age differences and a new location, even though we love our son's school.)
Our opinion is that the variation between individual teachers is substantially larger than the variation between schools, and so it's not worth getting too worried about the school choices. The real differences among schools will be: (a) start time (this makes a huge difference to what your day is like as a family!), (b) whether you walk there or send kids on a bus, and (c) whether it's a bilingual program. Yes, there are things that make each school unique and that may draw you to one over another, but there really aren't "dregs" because the lottery system (for all the anxiety it causes!) really has avoided de facto segregation by class. There still are demographic differences across schools but they seem to reflect things more like "there's finally a critical mass of black teachers & leadership so the school attracts black families" or "a successful Spanish immersion school will indeed depend on having enough Hispanic kids" rather than the demographics of the neighborhood. There are involved and committed parents at all of the schools.
The schools in West Cambridge tend to fill up sooner, in my understanding, largely because there are more families for whom those will be proximity schools, relative to the number of slots. This is not necessarily an indicator of quality, just of where more demand is!
posted by cogitron at 7:03 AM on October 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
Our opinion is that the variation between individual teachers is substantially larger than the variation between schools, and so it's not worth getting too worried about the school choices. The real differences among schools will be: (a) start time (this makes a huge difference to what your day is like as a family!), (b) whether you walk there or send kids on a bus, and (c) whether it's a bilingual program. Yes, there are things that make each school unique and that may draw you to one over another, but there really aren't "dregs" because the lottery system (for all the anxiety it causes!) really has avoided de facto segregation by class. There still are demographic differences across schools but they seem to reflect things more like "there's finally a critical mass of black teachers & leadership so the school attracts black families" or "a successful Spanish immersion school will indeed depend on having enough Hispanic kids" rather than the demographics of the neighborhood. There are involved and committed parents at all of the schools.
The schools in West Cambridge tend to fill up sooner, in my understanding, largely because there are more families for whom those will be proximity schools, relative to the number of slots. This is not necessarily an indicator of quality, just of where more demand is!
posted by cogitron at 7:03 AM on October 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
The Cambridge enrollment process is super weird and confusing, and you’re not guaranteed one of your top choices no matter what, but the good news is that there are basically no bad schools. There’s a bit of an imbalance because more families live in the north and west where there are fewer schools and everyone wants to get into their proximity school. I’ve talked to some parents who didn’t get into their top choices and they ended up really liking where they ended up.
My kid will be entering CPS next year, so please drop me a memail if you end up moving here and have questions down
the line!
posted by Metroid Baby at 9:18 AM on October 16, 2018
My kid will be entering CPS next year, so please drop me a memail if you end up moving here and have questions down
the line!
posted by Metroid Baby at 9:18 AM on October 16, 2018
I live in Cambridge and I love the school district! Feel free to memail me if you want to chat more. I can probably answer a bunch of your questions. My son came in as a first-grader and we toured six of the nine schools -- they honestly were all awesome in different ways. I would get your registration in as soon as you have a permanent address. There are wait lists and they do move!
posted by woodvine at 10:28 AM on October 16, 2018
posted by woodvine at 10:28 AM on October 16, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
Cambridge is one of the best school districts, I think. There isn't really a dud elementary school to be had. Odds of getting into Tobin are slim (Montessori and all; they mostly only enroll into children's house--but it can't hurt to get on the wait list). Wait lists do move, especially as people move in and out of the city or transfer to different neighborhood schools. Each school has a "thing"--one of Spanish immersion and one Mandarin immersion; those fill quickly, I think.
Fletcher-Maynard has longer days and it's heavily academic focused, and I've heard a lot of the Families of Privilege send their kids there, and talk about their European jaunts, so I don't think it's for us but might work for others.
Graham & Parks has a progressive education philosophy, project-based and such. It was my second choice, and my son goes to after-school there and really likes the kids. I don't know much about the others but the people who go there all seem happy.
The lottery is.. weird. There's a proximity multiplier for neighborhood schools (the immersions and Tobin are not considered "neighborhood"; they give equal footing to kids all over the city) but you can sign your kid up for any of the schools. I'm still pretty sure my son got into Tobin by being the token white kid; CPS does try to balance each school demographically for each neighborhood, or city-wide for the non-proximity schools.
It would be worth a phone call to the enrollment office with some of the poster's other questions, like getting on the list before they've moved into the city--like, can they even do that, or do they have to establish residency before doing anything else.
posted by zizzle at 6:53 AM on October 16, 2018