Stoddert Reduces Pre-K to Make Room for Kindergarten

Stoddert Elementary will have just one pre-K class next fall so the in-demand Glover Park school can fit three kindergarten classes.

Principal Patricia Pride told Patch the decision was made to cut a pre-K class—there have generally been two pre-K classes of about 18 students—to make room for a fourth kindergarten class. Pride did not respond to additional inquiries about how that decision was made, when it was made or whether parents were notified in advance.

Pride explained that for the past three years the kindergarten classes have been "overloaded," holding an average of 27 per class, when the ideal number is 20 or fewer students.

"I know this does not feel like a positive to those on the wait list, however we have to support the required grade levels of Kindergarten [through] 5th grade first," Pride wrote.

She also urged any in-boundary family interested in enrolling a child in kindergarten to file paper work early so that school can plan accordingly.

The school is projected to have 411 students enrolled next school year without any out of boundary slots, according to Pride. 

Pride said historically the school has been able to support one pre-K class made up entirely of in-boundary children with siblings in the school. Though, according to data on the DCPS lottery website, . There are a total of 60 in-boundary children on the waitlist.

"It is an unfortunate side effect of having such a wonderful school and set of teachers," Pride wrote.

In an article on Patch from this weekend, local parents are already expressing disappointment with the decision to reduce the number of pre-K slots.

"As one of the in-bound parents on the waitlist at Stoddert, I'm disappointed. I assume everyone is. It's an unfortunate circumstance that our school has the longest in-bound waitlist of all the local elementary schools in the area along with the smallest pre-k size," wrote one commenter.

Another commenter said DCPS "dropped the ball" with the decision.

"The wait list demonstrates a need for three pre-K classes, not a reduction to one," a commenter remarked.

"Please know we understand the community disappointment, however as Stoddert ES continues to grow and flourish some hard decisions have to be made to sustain that level of excellence in the classrooms," Pride added in her note.

And some parents see the surge in demand at the elementary schoool level as a good sign for the neighborhood's middle school, Hardy.

"This is GREAT news for the parents of Key, Hyde-Allison, Mann and Stoddert," wrote a commenter. "If each 5th grade class from these 4 schools filled the seats at Hardy, we would truly have a 'Neighborhood School' in our neighborhood."

Hardy Middle School, which until recently required applications for it arts-focused programming, has slots to accept out-of-boundary students at the middle school level, in part because some in-boundary parents choose not to enroll their children at the middle school located in Burleith. In lottery results released last week Hardy accepted 70 students from out of boundary for the 6th grade class.

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Editor's Note: This article has been updated to correct a reporting error. The original article stated that Stoddert was adding a third kindergarten class. Stoddert already has three classes and is adding a fourth. We regret the error.