Have you moved to get a better in-bound school?

[Anonymous]

We entered lottery, but I'm preparing myself for negatives again this year.

DH feels it is risky (what if kid doesn't like the school? what if we change our minds about the neighborhood? etc.), but I'm on-board because I'm no longer enamored with our very busy, very loud, not super safe neighborhood.

We're renters, so it isn't a major life investment but it would be somewhat disruptive. We're not wealthy and moving isn't exactly easy (or free), but the payoff for kids may just be there. (IMO they'd like an area a bit less noisy and with less street commotion as much as I would.)

Has anyone moved to get a better school within DC? Would love to hear how it has worked out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We entered lottery, but I'm preparing myself for negatives again this year.

DH feels it is risky (what if kid doesn't like the school? what if we change our minds about the neighborhood? etc.), but I'm on-board because I'm no longer enamored with our very busy, very loud, not super safe neighborhood.

We're renters, so it isn't a major life investment but it would be somewhat disruptive. We're not wealthy and moving isn't exactly easy (or free), but the payoff for kids may just be there. (IMO they'd like an area a bit less noisy and with less street commotion as much as I would.)

Has anyone moved to get a better school within DC? Would love to hear how it has worked out.

I mean ... I currently live in a busy, loud, now super safe neighborhood (maybe the same one?) and I know SO MANY families who moved to upper NW for the schools. It's very, very common. They are almost universally happy with the decision.

(We decided to play the lottery and eventually lucked out, and we do love our house and feel very connected to the neighborhood, so all is well).

[Anonymous]

This is very common. It's why identical houses, within blocks of each other, can have price differences of hundreds of thousands of dollars-- one is in a desirable school's boundary and the other is not. If you're renting, it's even less of a risky investment.

[Anonymous]

You move inbounds for that school. The answer is very simple. You just have to decide what's more important to you.

[Anonymous]

We strongly considered moving for our young kids, but decided to lottery in PK years and then, if needed, we could move for Kinder (when in bounds is actually a guarantee). We lucked out with the PK lottery and I’ll admit that I’m jealous of families that can walk to school or live close to classmates. But I also love our house and it’s walking distance from the public high school. If I had been renting, I would definitely move for a school, especially if I already lost the lottery.

[Anonymous]

while not as pronounced as it was a few decades ago, there is still an annual migration of people who move to MD & VA every year who don't want to raise their kids in DC fir various reasons but schools is way up there. Go to any street in Bethesda and you will find countless parents and their kids who used to live in DC. The ones in Bethesda, Arlington and McLean all could have afforded NW if they wanted to but made their choices.

[Anonymous]

We thought about moving for schools, but we love our local friends and house (and our low mortgage interest rate). We decided to go private instead--we figured our monthly cost would be roughly equivalent when considering a new, higher mortgage. It has worked out for us.

[Anonymous]

Yes, we moved across the park.

[Anonymous]

We moved in bounds for Deal and JR. In hindsight wish we had moved to MD or VA for college options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We thought about moving for schools, but we love our local friends and house (and our low mortgage interest rate). We decided to go private instead--we figured our monthly cost would be roughly equivalent when considering a new, higher mortgage. It has worked out for us.

That's good to hear...This is our likely bet for next year too. Pretty sure we could keep the friends even if we moved; we like the house ok; but the bottom line is we love the mortgage rate - and also got decent financial aid on a private school just a few minutes away.... so that even if we made an even trade on house price dollar for dollar in a good district, the extra we'd pay out for the higher mortgage rate until rates come down significantly (if they ever do) would roughly equal what it would cost us to just stay put and shell out for the post-financial aid private school rate. So that'scurrently the path of least resistance.

That said: we're federal workers - so who knows what the future holds? The smartest play eventually might be to rent out our place (in a neighborhood that's fab and in demand when you're a few years younger, but just ok and borderline annoying when you're middle aged) and go for a rental in a decent upper NW school district - to stay par on housing costs and eliminate the school cost. There's just a pretty decent amount of initial effort, expense and mental energy attached to that, so we couldn't even handle thinking about it in the environment of total chaos in this town that happen to coincide perfectly with lottery and school application season this year.

[Anonymous]

Yes, although we moved from a rental to owning, which we were planning to do anyway. Lack of lotto luck made us speed up our decision by a year or 2.

[Anonymous]

My kids went to two different schools in upper NW and I worked in third one. All have been lovely. We have owned and rented several apartments since here since 2008.
As very light movers, it's not a big deal at all. I'm not taking any furniture with me but my mattress. Very good time to change the decor and go much lighter on kid's stuff.

[Anonymous]

Yes. But unfortunately, that meant we left DC.

We moved for 1st to a high performing school just over the boundary in MD. Rented a SFH, intending it to be just a few years until we bought in the same neighborhood. Ended up staying a long time because the house and financial and school situations were great.

Then we moved again the summer before high school to purchase a SFH in another part of the same county. Kid weighed in on high school choice heavily.

We have a resilient kid who did fine with these moves and they now know kids all over the county from school and from their sport. Part of what also eased the HS transition is that most of their middle school friends dispersed to various magnet programs, and lived all over the county in the first place.

Staying in DC forever was initially our plan but we are glad we didn't get caught up in the "must stay in DC to be cool/legit" thing that a lot of people do in their early parenting years. If you can afford a $2m house and your kid can get into Walls I'm sure it works great. We chose an easier route and it's been great.

[Anonymous]

Yep, we moved to Virginia. I went very unhappily, but it's the best thing we ever did. Not one regret.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. But unfortunately, that meant we left DC.

We moved for 1st to a high performing school just over the boundary in MD. Rented a SFH, intending it to be just a few years until we bought in the same neighborhood. Ended up staying a long time because the house and financial and school situations were great.

Then we moved again the summer before high school to purchase a SFH in another part of the same county. Kid weighed in on high school choice heavily.

We have a resilient kid who did fine with these moves and they now know kids all over the county from school and from their sport. Part of what also eased the HS transition is that most of their middle school friends dispersed to various magnet programs, and lived all over the county in the first place.

Staying in DC forever was initially our plan but we are glad we didn't get caught up in the "must stay in DC to be cool/legit" thing that a lot of people do in their early parenting years. If you can afford a $2m house and your kid can get into Walls I'm sure it works great. We chose an easier route and it's been great.

I would not call myself cool but we've stayed in DC because it's our best quality of life. We walk, we have incredible community, and because our commutes are shorter we see each other. It's weird to assume parents are just trying to look cool by staying in DC instead of trying to create the best situation all around (not just best US News ranked school) for the families. Frankly our biggest draw to the suburbs would be eventual cost of college.

OP if you don't like where you live it sounds like moving is best even regardless of lottery luck or schools. I would look around neighborhoods and see what you can afford and like. Or move to the suburbs if that fits. People move all the time for IB schools but I wouldn't do it if you love your neighborhood and community, but sounds like that's not the case here.