Real estate/school district selection advice I've heard as a new parent - how true is it?

[ntek87ntek]

My wife and I had our first child last July and are trying to figure out what our real estate buying strategy will look like as our daughter grows up. How are folks here in a similar situation approaching buying real estate and picking a school district? Has anyone else gotten advice like what I'll list below? Given how expensive home buying is, we all need to start planning and saving for this NOW, and this topic has taken up a lot of my mental headspace recently.

Our particular budget/goals: $750k-$800k. We have no interest in sending our kid to private school. We're people of color and don't want to be in a district where our kid is the only one who looks like her in the classroom. Our kid is too young for us to know if she will have special needs. We're perfectly fine if she ends up going to an average public university or trade school rather than getting in the high achievement elite college admissions rat race.

Advice I've heard: How true is it?

Don't buy into a district with "good schools:" Over the course of a child's 18 years in school, school district boundaries can change, the characteristics of student bodies can change, and the quality of teachers and administrators can change as they turn over. It therefore makes zero sense for families with small children to buy a "forever home" on the basis of the school district's reputation.

Quality of elementary schools and middle schools matters less than quality of high school: The idea here is that you can buy a more affordable home in a district with mediocre elementary/middle schools, save up money, and then move to a district with a better high school. At the elementary/middle school level, parental involvement matters much more as long as the kid's school is clean and safe. But with high school, things like extra curriculars and AP/IB classes make a big difference in college admissions or preparing for future vocational career paths.

School rankings are not a useful metric: There's a lot of media reporting about how sites like GreatSchools measure how wealthy the parents are in a school district rather than how effective a school district is in educating children. How true is that for the DMV area? Are there more reliable metrics we should be looking at? Or is it true that the quality of a school district is so idiosyncratic that broad assessments make no sense at all:

1. An academically talented kid could succeed in any school / a kid with mediocre academic abilities would struggle even at the best school
2. One bad teacher/one bullying problem/one bad set of friends can erase any benefits of going to a "good" school
3. Outcomes for kids with special needs depend much more on quality individualized support than how well-funded or "good" a school is.

[Anonymous]

1- I don't think actively avoiding houses zoned for "good" schools is a good strategy, but I think it's fine to weight the district (e.g., FCPS, MCPS) much more than the apparent quality of an individual school. I don't know that there are truly "bad" schools in either district.

2- Depends what you mean by "quality". Some elementary/middle schools are way over capacity and have kids in trailers. Some will be under construction for 2-3 years while your child is attending. Some are in locations that would be hard to walk to.

3- Greatschools seems to measure affluence and a mix of diversity factors. I doubt it is even correlated with anything that actually matters to a student's education. Measuring the value-added contribution of a school or a teacher is incredibly difficult, and there are not reliable metrics available.

[Anonymous]

Visit schools in areas you are interested in. I agree that Great Schools scores are a proxy for SES. Most public schools in Fairfax county (where I live) are very good. I wouldn’t stress about getting into an 8-10 rated school.

We’ve been here for 15 years. No redistricting issues so far. One thing we didn’t count on was having 2 kids who need additional resources for learning disabilities, one of them significant. Fairfax county has been good at supporting them with IEPs, but we still may be looking at alternatives for at one child.

Buy a house in a neighborhood you can afford and like. School needs may very well change.

[Anonymous]

You're just justifying not being able to afford a top tier school district. Your comment about private schools is also ignorant. There is no 100% white school and plenty are diverse enough.

What you are really doing is convincing yourself going to a middling to lower ranking public school is perfectly good. And yep, it is perfectly good enough for you. You'll have plenty of black classmates for your kid, your kid will go to Bowie State, and you're happy with that.

Nothing anyone will say on here will convince you otherwise. So it's a pointless post.

[Anonymous]

The good elementary schools is a trap. I once almost bought in a large town with a terrible HS but a great elementary school. But the town ha one side of town dangerous and scary and other side cute like Gilmore Girls.

Come middle school they merge and parents on hood side forced to pay for the Catholic school nearby or move.

It was a trap of you had young kids at by sixth grade you have to move

[Anonymous]

ntek87ntek wrote:My wife and I had our first child last July and are trying to figure out what our real estate buying strategy will look like as our daughter grows up. How are folks here in a similar situation approaching buying real estate and picking a school district? Has anyone else gotten advice like what I'll list below? Given how expensive home buying is, we all need to start planning and saving for this NOW, and this topic has taken up a lot of my mental headspace recently.

Our particular budget/goals: $750k-$800k. We have no interest in sending our kid to private school. We're people of color and don't want to be in a district where our kid is the only one who looks like her in the classroom. Our kid is too young for us to know if she will have special needs. We're perfectly fine if she ends up going to an average public university or trade school rather than getting in the high achievement elite college admissions rat race.

Advice I've heard: How true is it?

Don't buy into a district with "good schools:" Over the course of a child's 18 years in school, school district boundaries can change, the characteristics of student bodies can change, and the quality of teachers and administrators can change as they turn over. It therefore makes zero sense for families with small children to buy a "forever home" on the basis of the school district's reputation.

Quality of elementary schools and middle schools matters less than quality of high school: The idea here is that you can buy a more affordable home in a district with mediocre elementary/middle schools, save up money, and then move to a district with a better high school. At the elementary/middle school level, parental involvement matters much more as long as the kid's school is clean and safe. But with high school, things like extra curriculars and AP/IB classes make a big difference in college admissions or preparing for future vocational career paths.

School rankings are not a useful metric: There's a lot of media reporting about how sites like GreatSchools measure how wealthy the parents are in a school district rather than how effective a school district is in educating children. How true is that for the DMV area? Are there more reliable metrics we should be looking at? Or is it true that the quality of a school district is so idiosyncratic that broad assessments make no sense at all:

1. An academically talented kid could succeed in any school / a kid with mediocre academic abilities would struggle even at the best school
2. One bad teacher/one bullying problem/one bad set of friends can erase any benefits of going to a "good" school
3. Outcomes for kids with special needs depend much more on quality individualized support than how well-funded or "good" a school is.

Don't buy into a district with "good schools: Disagree, buy the best you can afford. The extent to which boundaries change is not applicable to all school districts so you can’t make a blanket claim. Home values can be reinforced by the quality of schools.

Quality of elementary schools and middle schools matters less than quality of high school: Disagree, your kid is learning critical thinking skills and study habits. I think it’s challenging to throw them in a significantly harder high school if they haven’t been performing at that level previously. But yes, AP/IB classes matter plus extra curricular.

School rankings are not a useful metric: Recommend digging into the ratings you care about in GS - test scores? Equity? Year over year improvement?

It’s a trade off, buy what you can afford, figure out what you might need to supplement, and trust in your kid they’ll figure it out with your support and help. I’m sure all well-meaning parents want the best for their kids, but it’s really expensive in this area.

[Anonymous]

I have three kids (age 15-21), and I have observed that the culture in which your child grows up really matters as much as the schools.

So wherever you live, try to surround yourself with people with admirable qualities. (My DH and I both grew up in LMC neighborhoods where most people were lovely, but there was also a distinct trashy element that was kind of demoralizing. We wanted our kids to grow up in a neighborhood where people have slightly higher standards for themselves in terms of behavior.)

Because our budget was limited (like yours), we had a choice between a nice house (in a less desirable neighborhood) or a mediocre house (in a nicer neighborhood). We chose the mediocre house in the nicer neighborhood, and have had no regrets.

[Anonymous]

- We bought our house based on what we could afford and while we looked at school rankings, the numbers showed that the local elementary school where we purchased scored rather low comparatively to other options in Fairfax county. Based on the data lower academic performance appeared to break across the English as a second language student body. We looked at that language diversity as a plus, not a detriment. We are a mixed race family. My wife and I were raised speaking English, but have both acquired second languages not connected to our racial make up. As others have said, all schools in Fairfax County are on the higher end of the national spectrum. Getting choosy is an option, but one that probably doesn't get you much in return. I would counsel you on picking a neighborhood that you like, rather than following a school ranking. I'd much rather like my neighbors where I live than have top school in my backyard. I would also point out that the middle school where we live was ranked No. 1 in Virginia when we purchased our house. By the time our kids passed through it it wasn't even in the Top 10. So these things can change on you. Our kids are in high school and attend an IB focused program. You will find lots of opinions about AP vs IB. If it matters that much to you once your kid grows up I think you can petition to attend an school outside of your pyramid if your local high school is not what you want. We are incredibly happy with our local high school. We have lots of friends who attend a cross town high school that is AP focused and generally considered more white and affluent. They also have more issues statistically with drugs and seem to place more on athletics as a social component to the high school experience. You won't know if your kid is a sports maven, so I think those kinds of issues are rather stupid to base your home buying around. Buy a good property based on the things that make it a good property. I think proximity to transportation options, other community services, low crime rates, avoiding listed sexual predators, and whether people in the neighborhood maintain their properties are probably more important factors to consider.

[Anonymous]

FRL / FARMS is the metric that matters most, IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're just justifying not being able to afford a top tier school district. Your comment about private schools is also ignorant. There is no 100% white school and plenty are diverse enough.

What you are really doing is convincing yourself going to a middling to lower ranking public school is perfectly good. And yep, it is perfectly good enough for you. You'll have plenty of black classmates for your kid, your kid will go to Bowie State, and you're happy with that.

Nothing anyone will say on here will convince you otherwise. So it's a pointless post.

Not OP but damn calm down SAH Karen, nowhere in OPs post did he/she say that private schools are white only, nor nowhere is the OP trying to justify sending kids to bad schools. They have a set budget and want to make the best of it.

OP, we do not have kids yet (30 is too early for that lol not ready for our lives to come to a standstill) but have relatives in area who did go through this over past few years. We were also I a similar position as you and similar, albeit slightly higher, budget (we bought last year and we're paying attention to schools for when we do have kids)

The Elementary and Middle school quality matters a lot as well, it is the foundation of the child's education. Focus on making sure that they get into a good elementary and middle as you have no idea where you will be living or what you buying power will be 14 or so years down the line (ie going for a district with a good high school but middling ES and MS makes no sense).

In terms of Great Schools, true the ratings are very much correlated with the income levels of the district, and research has shown that a determinant of a child's success is the parents education and income level. That being said, because of that, you do want to be in a district where the parents are involved and your child is surrounded by kids whose parents give a damn.

As for us, we were mostly looking in Arlington and McLean. Decided Arlington since was closer to the city. Within Arlington we, after looking a lot, liked two places, one was a nicer place but districted for Barett ES (a bad school) while another was a more OK place but districted for Taylor ES (and decent ES). Ended up going with the place districted for Taylor. But as you choose, make sure to look at the district maps as well.

[Anonymous]

Do not pay a huge premium to be in one of the "best" public school zones is decent financial advice, especially if the address does not have much upside other than great schools. Most elementary schools are fine. But I agree middle school is a more important focal point than high school, especially if you have young children and might go private for high school anyways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Visit schools in areas you are interested in. I agree that Great Schools scores are a proxy for SES. Most public schools in Fairfax county (where I live) are very good. I wouldn’t stress about getting into an 8-10 rated school.

We’ve been here for 15 years. No redistricting issues so far. One thing we didn’t count on was having 2 kids who need additional resources for learning disabilities, one of them significant. Fairfax county has been good at supporting them with IEPs, but we still may be looking at alternatives for at one child.

Buy a house in a neighborhood you can afford and like. School needs may very well change.

+1 to the bolded. Great Schools and similar sites are a reflection of SES, and frankly, whiteness, of the particular school. The whiteness factor may decline in the next generation as America becomes majority minority and I think you see a bit of it now, but overall that's the deal.

I'd think more about the neighborhood as well as the overall makeup of the school. Our neighborhood school is not majority white - it's 30% white, 30% Asian, 30% Hispanic. This was great for us/our kids - they loved it and it naturally learned about other cultural practices, etc. by simply being in school with kids from a different race and culture than their own.

Also, don't underestimate your own influence. I think any bright child with involved parents can succeed in in a district like FCPS, if that's where you are looking.

[Anonymous]

This is terrible advice. Nobody wants to have to move after 15 years in one location just for HS.

Of course it’s true that the “good schools”
can go downhill. But generally they are not going to go from decent places where kids go to good colleges, to a disaster, in 10-15 years.

And of course it’s even more delusional to think a terrible HS is magically going to “improve” in a decade.

Buy a house where the schools are at least acceptable all through HS. Or have a plan to pay for private.

[Anonymous]

At your price point you’re looking at a tear down in Fairfax county further out from dc or buying in London county exurb for a nicer home. So pick between that, the rest of this analysis isn’t really that relevant. If you had a 2M budget then it would matter more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is terrible advice. Nobody wants to have to move after 15 years in one location just for HS.

Of course it’s true that the “good schools”
can go downhill. But generally they are not going to go from decent places where kids go to good colleges, to a disaster, in 10-15 years.

And of course it’s even more delusional to think a terrible HS is magically going to “improve” in a decade.

Buy a house where the schools are at least acceptable all through HS. Or have a plan to pay for private.

This. You and your kids will hopefully build community and friendships in your neighborhood, school, local activities, etc. You won't want to up and leave all that for MS or HS. Or if you are sure you won't care, just rent in the best school zone for each level.

IMO, elementary is critical for early skill building and love of learning. MS is a socially tricky time and you want your kid with a good crowd, ideally friends from the ES years. I'd look for schools that aren't "split feeders" meaning you can stick with the same friends all the way through. After that I'd look at size / teacher ratio, and FARMS. Plenty of affluent areas have diverse schools so with a few notable exceptions you are not going to stand out as an unusual family in most public schools in the area.

As far as real estate advice, don't overlook townhouses.