Eleven D.C. charter schools plan on giving admissions preference to students who are homeless, in the foster system, or receiving certain benefits starting in the 2022 school year, part of an effort to expand access to some high-performing schools where student demographics have generally diverged from the racial and socioeconomic makeup of the city’s kids.

The schools — Breakthrough Montessori, D.C. Bilingual, D.C. Wildflower, Digital Pioneers Academy, E.L. Haynes, Inspired Teaching, Sojourner Truth Montessori, The Children’s Guild D.C., Two Rivers, Washington Latin, and Washington Yu Ying — will be allowed to add what’s known as an at-risk preference as part of the city’s unified school lottery system, which students use to apply for admission to any public charter or traditional public school.

At-risk students are defined as those who are homeless, in the city’s foster care system, receiving benefits like TANF and SNAP, or high school students who are a year above the expected age for the grade they’re in.

While the admissions lottery is premised on the idea of giving students access to an array of school options — instead of tying them solely to the public school they are zoned for based on where they live — critics have more recently argued that leaving at-risk students to compete on the same playing field as other students for seats at sought-after schools limits access to educational options they could stand to benefit from.

Some D.C. officials have in the past floated the idea of tweaking the lottery to help at-risk kids; in 2017 Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed letting charters give preference to kids based on proximity. But it wasn’t until late 2020 that the D.C. Council passed a bill allowing charters to add an at-risk preference. (Most schools currently only offer admissions preference for siblings of enrolled students and children of school staff.) It did so largely at the behest of a number of high-performing charter schools, where high demand and long waitlists had led to a decreasing number of at-risk students.

In its application to the D.C. Public Charter School Board to be able to add the new preference, administrators at Two Rivers Public Charter School — which has two campuses in wards 5 and 6 — said that the school’s popularity means its student body doesn’t reflect the city at large.

“When visitors walk into each Two Rivers building, they see diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, economics, and special education status. However, currently 22% of the network’s students fit the definition of at-risk while District-wide, the number is 47%,” said the school in its application. “There is a clear gap at Two Rivers in the number of at-risk students it serves compared to what it would be serving if everyone had equal access to the lottery.”

“An at-risk preference would be a strong lever in helping Two Rivers fill seats with students who are at-risk. It would help these students skip historically long waitlists and shatter the perception that applying to Two Rivers is a fool’s errand because it is too tough to get into,” it added.

Administrators at D.C. Bilingual — which enrolls 450 kids in PK3 to fifth grade, and had more than 300 kids on the PK3 waitlist in 2020 — made a similar point in a message to parents last month about adding an at-risk preference.

“Research shows us that students perform better academically in racially and socio-economically integrated schools. We see this every day at D.C. Bilingual,” said Daniela Anello, the school’s director. “We are doing all we can under the current system to recruit students who would benefit most from our program, but it is not enough. This new opportunity to offer an at-risk preference to families via the My School DC lottery process will allow us to prioritize families who face crisis and instability due to long standing economic injustice and racism.”

Anello added that she wanted to add an at-risk preference in time for an expansion of the school’s campus to be completed next year. Washington Latin, a high-performing middle and high school in Ward 4 with a long waitlist, has similarly said it wants to open a second campus, and would focus on admitting at-risk students. According to the school’s application to the charter school board this summer, only 6.3% of middle schoolers and 16.2% of high schoolers in the school last year were considered at-risk.

“Over the last decade, Washington Latin has become less socioeconomically diverse, as well as
harder to get into,” said the school. “Our primary reason for pursuing an at-risk preference is to adjust our student population to be more aligned with city demographics, to be closer to what we were in the recent past and to better reflect our mission.”

In an analysis published last year, the D.C. Policy Center determined that a new at-risk preference would likely accomplish those goals. “Implementing a priority for at-risk applicants in D.C.’s common lottery has the potential to shift demographics at some schools and increase access to these schools for at-risk students,” wrote the group.

But what remains to be seen at many of the schools is how they implement the at-risk preference. Past research by the city has found that at-risk students’ lottery outcomes would improve the most if the at-risk preference were prioritized above other types of preferences, such as preference for siblings. In a message to parents, Washington Yu Ying said it would keep the existing preferences for siblings and kids of staff in place, while setting aside seats for at-risk students.

“We plan to reserve a certain number of spots for at-risk students entering grades PreK 3 – 2,” the school wrote. “However, this will not change our current sibling or staff preference policies. We believe there will be enough spots each year for families who qualify for a preference.”

While the at-risk preference will only be used by 11 charter schools, other charters are still able to apply to implement one. The preference does not apply to D.C. Public Schools, though DCPS did open a stand-alone early education center last year that set aside seats for at-risk students.