Please help me understand DC schools--Woodley Park, Adams Morgan, & Capitol Hill areas

[Anonymous]

My husband and I are thinking of buying a house in the District. We are considering either Capitol Hill or the area between Adams Morgan and Woodley Park (need to be close to roads that make the commute out to Tysons Corner easier for me--395 or Rock Creek Park).

Can anyone tell me if there are any good preschools and public elementary schools in these areas? I want to research the schools, but I am so confused by all of the school names that people have mentioned. In one post people mentioned Horace Mann, Janney, Lafayette, and Murch. How do I find out which areas these schools cover?

My DS is 15 months, but I want to think long-term (pre-school and elementary) since I would like to be there for a while if we buy.

Really appreciate any help you can give. And if your advice is to look at private schools instead, that's okay too.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

You can get an approximate sense of the boundaries here: http://www.k12.dc.us/dcps/OFM/ofmes.html

None of the schools you mention lies within the area where you're thinking of buying--they're all in upper NW.

[Anonymous]

I lived in nw dc and commuted to tysons for many years. the best place i think is AU park, spring valley area. Anything close to River rd or macarthur which is about the best way to get to the beltway and to tysons. The beltway is a mess but hard to avoid. The school are Janney, Mann, Stoddert (?) maybe. Get out a good ADC map - they show the schools on the map and their location. Then go to the website mentioned above and check the schools out. In my commuting knowledge, none of the neighborhoods you mentioned are great for commuting to tysons. good luck!

[Anonymous]

It does sound to me like the PP mentions neighborhoods with a more convenient commute to Tysons. BUT... the areas you mention make it sound like you're looking for a more walkable, urban neighborhood. When you say, "the area between Adams Morgan and Woodley Park," I'm guessing you mean "Kalorama Triangle," where I live. It's an historic district made up of the part of Adams Morgan that lies west of 18th St. Most of the blocks here are zoned for Oyster, which is also one of DC's strongest schools. We have very strong enrollment from the surrounding (affluent) Woodley Park and Kal. Triangle neighborhoods attracted by the bilingual program and (hopefully) a more effective principal on the way.

FWIW, I was initially interested in the Hill when I came to town a few years ago, but did not like the Capitol Hill Cluster schools as much.

[Anonymous]

I should add that on the Adams Morgan side of Conn. Ave, on-street parking is a bear in the evenings. When my husband was stuck commuting to Tyson's, the situation was most inconvenient. The Woodley Park side is less dense, so there's less demand for on-street spots.

[Anonymous]

Woodley Park is can still be hard to park, but many of the rowhouses have of street parking and is indeed does not have quite the density of Adams Morgan/Kalorama Triangle.

I also agree with the other posters who have suggested the MacArthur and River corridors have access to Virginia via 495 (as opposed to Rock Creek/66).

[Anonymous]

You can always look at the private schools, but there are no guarantees your child will get in where you want! A solid public school district helps immensely!

[Anonymous]

Woodley Park, parts of Kalorama and Adams Mill Rd in Adams Morgan use Oyster School, which is a full immersion bilingual school. There have been some changes this year (It goes from prek - 8th grade now, with 2 campuses - prek-3 in Woodley, 4-8 in Adams Morgan). It's a fabulous school, but is bilingual, so it's not for everyone. The neighborhoods are WONDERFUL. We live in Woodley and spend lots of time in Adams Morgan. The families are great, friendly and down to Earth. We love it here and have decided to stick around to use Oyster.

Cap Hill - The schools are Peabody and Watkins? I belive 1 school is Montessori, the other Reggio Emilio method. I've heard less than stellar things about the schools, but they get a ton of support from Hill parents and are worth a look. But - I wouldn't live there if I were commuting to Tyson's!!

Tenleytown is the nabe near River Rd - Janney is one of the best schools in the city and it's a nice area, with a great park/community center, but more suburban. The houses are a tad more affordable in Tenley than in Woodley/Kalorama/Adams Morgan.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Au contraire, pp, the southern part of Capitol Hill has excellent access to 395, which OP mentioned she/he was looking for. It's one of the best parts of the city for getting in and out via freeway on 395 and 295. Plus you're right next to downtown via the orange and blue lines. On a whim, I can get to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 20 minutes via metro and hang out for an hour if I suddenly have a free moment.

Schools are also doable but it depends on the family. There are a fair number of middle class families over here who have their kids in public school. My kid went out-of-boundaries to elementary and middle school in Ward 2, which some families choose to do. But, regardless of location, it takes a fair bit of careful monitoring and being an actively engaged parent to ensure a good DCPS education. If you want to never have to worry about the schools (and to worry less about street crime), you will want to buy elsewhere. (That is, if you are risk aversive as opposed to risk aware, as the social scientists would say.) But if you want to live in a village-like atmosphere, with excellent access to the freeways and downtown, check this place out.

[Anonymous]

I could be mis-remembering here, but, how does easy proximity to 395 S make getting to Tysons easier? Wouldn't you need to go ALL the way down 395, do the mixing bowl, and circle back north on the Beltway?

[Anonymous]

OP here. Wow. This is such great information. I'm going to have to re-read this post a few times to digest it all. To the PP, I would take 395 to 110 to 66 to get to Tysons. Most of my colleagues do it in about 30-40 minutes max. I currently live in Arlington, and with daycare drop off, it already takes me about that long to get to work anyway. I wanted to stay close to 395 or Rock Creek to have easier access to 66. I want to avoid 495 at all cost and I am not so keen on the G-town area (mostly because it seems too expensive, at least the areas that we would want to live in). Another poster was correct in noting that we want to be in the more walkable and urban parts of DC. I love Arlington, but right now I really want to be in the city. I just feel more comfortable in the city, and am not ready for the suburbs just yet. I see us moving back to Arlington in about 10 years when the kids are a bit older and moving into middle school.

For the poster who did out of bounds, do you pay a tuition to send your child to another DC public school? Is it akin to private school tuition?

Also, thanks for the mention of Oyster. I will do some research on that school. I have seen the recent press about the firing of the principal. Elementary school is another 3-4 years away for me, but we need to take all of this into account now.

Is the zip code for Kalorama Triangle 20008?

Thanks again for such great information! And thanks to the poster who provided the link. I'll take a look at that now.

[Anonymous]

Kalorama Triangle is 20009. Hope we'll see you in the neighborhood and at Oyster!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

For the poster who did out of bounds, do you pay a tuition to send your child to another DC public school? Is it akin to private school tuition?

We originally lived in-boundary but were renting. When we bought a house in a much cheaper section of town, we were allowed to stay in the school and there was no problem with dd going on to the middle school (I worried about that a lot but it turned out it was not an issue). You don't pay tuition to go out-of-boundary (unless you're coming into a magnet school from VA or MD) but it isn't that easy to get in out-of-boundary in the most popular schools because there aren't many spots and you have to go through the lottery (which BTW was set up because Oyster was so popular people were lining up overnight to get spots). So there is a certain amount of stress around this process for people. The schools my daughter attended (Hyde and Hardy) went to a magnet program within the early grades which allowed them to bypass the lottery and have kids apply for spots. So you might look into those schools if you go that route. They're both in Georgetown but they work okay from Capitol Hill and there's usually some kind of car pool.

But if i were starting out on the hill I would look into schools over here. I hear good things about Peabody, Brent, Maury. There's a Spanish immersion program at Tyler that just started. Again it's all about parental involvement and it's a bit of a gamble. It's not everyone's cup of tea, so to speak!

[Anonymous]

Capital Hill to Tysons with daycare drop off isn't 45 minutes. It is longer.

[Anonymous]

If it's longer, then it shouldn't be by much. My daycare is right off of the Balston exit. And my husband may take drop offs, so I'm not worried about the commute. I just want to LOVE where I live, and right now, I don't.