Move for private school or drive 40-45 mins

[saugustine]

We are in a conundrum and if any of you good souls can help is with some advise we would greatly appreciate it.

We live in Lakeridge, VA and have bought our townhome 10 years ago long before we had our daughter so we were not looking into local schools much. Our local school is overcrowded so we decided to send our daughter to Aquinas Montessori school in Alexandria, VA. This school is 40-45 mins away from where we live and 25 mins away from where we work. We thought we can manage the drive but are having second thoughts. We looked into houses close to the school but prices are high while doable. Our initial idea was not to move for private school i.e. pay for expensive house + private school tuition but are rethinking our decision. The issue is that we still don't know where she will go for middle school and we may have to move again in 6-8 years for middle school.

To make our decision difficult we live in a good area with lots of nature around us - we are at waterfront and see eagles, foxes, dears, all kinds of birds and we think living close to nature will be important for our child. But at the same time worry about daily commute for her (we are used to commute living in the DC metro area)


Our questions are - is 40 to 45 mins drive one way too much? should we move to attend private school? or should we move to a good public school district?

[Anonymous]

I know you said your public is overcrowded but have you visited? What are the class sizes in K?
Portable use in 5th grade because of overcrowding may have no bearing on your DD in a K class.
My DD went to an overcrowded elem in moco. It was a focus school
So only had 14 kids in her class K-2nd. The teachers were great and we had a really good experience there.

[Anonymous]

Move to Mount Vernon where you can cut your school commute in half and still be close waterfront and see eagles, foxes, deer, owls, hawks, coyotes. It takes us 5 mins to walk to the boat ramp on the Potomac River where we keep our boat. Can find 4 bedroom/3 bath houses for $900k or less.

[Anonymous]

I would never make an expensive move for an elementary school. But we had a 30-45 minute commute for nursery through 4th and it was not fun; keeping the commute to 20 minutes or less was a priority for MS and HS. Aren’t there any closer options?

[Anonymous]

I would not move as you don’t know where md and hs will be.

[Anonymous]

Go to public

See if it’s really that bad

If it is, look around to move

No way would I drive forty five minutes for a private elementary school. That is absurd

[Anonymous]

Being so far from school will be very hard socially for your daughter. Move to a better school district and go public.

[Anonymous]

Hire a driver.

[Anonymous]

I’d look for a private closer to your home.

[Anonymous]

With traffic, it’s going to be more than an hour one way many days. Do you commute to Alexandria for work? If not, the logistics make no sense to send your young kid to school so far away. Don’t do this to your child—or yourself—it’s not worth it! Find a Montessori school closer to home, or relocate if this school is that worthwhile.

[Anonymous]

saugustine wrote:We are in a conundrum and if any of you good souls can help is with some advise we would greatly appreciate it.

We live in Lakeridge, VA and have bought our townhome 10 years ago long before we had our daughter so we were not looking into local schools much. Our local school is overcrowded so we decided to send our daughter to Aquinas Montessori school in Alexandria, VA. This school is 40-45 mins away from where we live and 25 mins away from where we work. We thought we can manage the drive but are having second thoughts. We looked into houses close to the school but prices are high while doable. Our initial idea was not to move for private school i.e. pay for expensive house + private school tuition but are rethinking our decision. The issue is that we still don't know where she will go for middle school and we may have to move again in 6-8 years for middle school.

To make our decision difficult we live in a good area with lots of nature around us - we are at waterfront and see eagles, foxes, dears, all kinds of birds and we think living close to nature will be important for our child. But at the same time worry about daily commute for her (we are used to commute living in the DC metro area)


Our questions are - is 40 to 45 mins drive one way too much? should we move to attend private school? or should we move to a good public school district?

Go to private and move closer in or find private closer to current home. Friends will live closer to whatever school she ends up at and it will affect her social life and also long commute back and forth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hire a driver.

For a five year old? What kind of daily existence is that for this kid?

[Anonymous]

Surely there are schools somewhere closer to your house.
It’s elementary school - lots of perfectly fine options, potentially even your local public school

[Anonymous]

I would not drive that far. Go to school locally or move.

[Anonymous]

OP the issue here is that children change so much between K and middle school and montessori isn’t for everyone, so it wouldn’t make sense to uproot your home at this stage and for this school. Also, socially it will be a nightmare for you, as others have pointed out. We currently drive 30 min into MD for our DC who is at a K-8 and about to graduate. The school is fantastic but it definitely makes the social interactions challenging as most families live in MD within 15-20
minutes of the school. When DC was younger coordinating play dates into Rockville and farther afield when we live in DC proved to be quite challenging. For high school we didn’t consider anything that DC can’t get to easily on public transportation.

By the way often times public schools have extra people
in the classrooms esp if the school is title 1.