Why are all ASD schools in the suburbs?

[Anonymous]

Real estate in DC is very expensive and has been for a while. I think if you could gather the data and look you would see far fewer new private schools in DC than in the surrounding areas over the past few decades.

I also think specialized schools have to go where the market is and I suspect there are just a lot fewer ASD kids on Capitol Hill and more in the burbs, whether because of the concentration of kids generally, families moving for more space or clusters from other causes.

[Anonymous]

What about Parkmont?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On Capitol Hill, you are actually reasonably close to ivymount, kts, diener, lab.

Auburn is a disaster after being sold to a for profit.

Most people have to drive really far to get to these schools, much farther then capitol hill to lab.

Are you crazy??!! With the exception of Lab, which won’t accept ASD kids, those schools are an hour away.

To clarify— they’re an hour away one-way. So if I drive my kid there it would take 4 hours in the car per day. Maybe that’s reasonable to you but it’s a non-starter for me.

We live in Centreville. Our school system has suggested Frost, Ivymount and KTD at various meetings over the years. That could be two hours one way. School systems have no issue sending kids on buses for hours and hours. They need more schools! Its absurd.

[Anonymous]

Capitol Hill is relatively close to most of those schools, competed to other places in the DC area.
Right now, google maps has a 30 minute drive from the US Capitol to Ivymount, a 35 minute drive to Auburn SS, and a mere 20 min to the Lab school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Capitol Hill is relatively close to most of those schools, competed to other places in the DC area.
Right now, google maps has a 30 minute drive from the US Capitol to Ivymount, a 35 minute drive to Auburn SS, and a mere 20 min to the Lab school.

Sorry, I’ve done the commute to Auburn from Capitol Hill (for their Camp Aristotle). It takes a soul-crushing 50 minutes of horrible driving (one-way) on the beltway, or insane urban driving through the city itself. How about putting down Google maps and trying the actual drive through rush-hour traffic.

I haven’t driven to Ivymount, but I have driven endless times to Rockville. On a Saturday it’s 40 minutes one-way. Ditto on a weekday around 11 am. I have learned the hard way to never schedule an appointment with our Rockville-based specialists during a time that has us driving during commuting hours, as then it takes 60-70 minutes.

And Lab is 30 minutes, which is doable, except you repeatedly miss the critical point that LAB DOES NOT ACCEPT KIDS WITH ASD (see ENDLESS threads on this topic).

In any case, like I’ve said, these commutes are feasible if one’s child is publicly funded and this receives transportation. They are not feasible for a working parent to do twice daily round trip.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Capitol Hill is relatively close to most of those schools, competed to other places in the DC area.
Right now, google maps has a 30 minute drive from the US Capitol to Ivymount, a 35 minute drive to Auburn SS, and a mere 20 min to the Lab school.

Maybe at 2 AM. I drove DS to Auburn not from Capitol Hill but near Bloomingdale and it took about 45 minutes to get there and around 1.5 to get back pre COVID. Was a horrible year. Truly. One of my kid’s friends was part of a car pool from Capitol Hill and the parents hired a driver. They moved eventually because it was unsustainable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Capitol Hill is relatively close to most of those schools, competed to other places in the DC area.
Right now, google maps has a 30 minute drive from the US Capitol to Ivymount, a 35 minute drive to Auburn SS, and a mere 20 min to the Lab school.

Maybe at 2 AM. I drove DS to Auburn not from Capitol Hill but near Bloomingdale and it took about 45 minutes to get there and around 1.5 to get back pre COVID. Was a horrible year. Truly. One of my kid’s friends was part of a car pool from Capitol Hill and the parents hired a driver. They moved eventually because it was unsustainable.

DS now attends a mainstream private in Western MA (highly recommend, real estate is very reasonable). We bought the house with commute in mind after that fiasco. 5 minutes door to door.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about Parkmont?

Thanks so much for this suggestion. I’m actually unfamiliar with this school and will research it!! (I’ll also look into Blythe Templeton and Fusion.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Real estate in DC is very expensive and has been for a while. I think if you could gather the data and look you would see far fewer new private schools in DC than in the surrounding areas over the past few decades.

I also think specialized schools have to go where the market is and I suspect there are just a lot fewer ASD kids on Capitol Hill and more in the burbs, whether because of the concentration of kids generally, families moving for more space or clusters from other causes.

Agree with this post and also think staff pay is a big part of it. Administrators at these schools make good money. Some of the teachers do alright. Classroom assistants, cafeteria workers, and custodians are probably not going to be able to afford to live anywhere near Capitol Hill and wouldn't do the commute unless the pay was raised significantly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Capitol Hill is relatively close to most of those schools, competed to other places in the DC area.
Right now, google maps has a 30 minute drive from the US Capitol to Ivymount, a 35 minute drive to Auburn SS, and a mere 20 min to the Lab school.

Maybe at 2 AM. I drove DS to Auburn not from Capitol Hill but near Bloomingdale and it took about 45 minutes to get there and around 1.5 to get back pre COVID. Was a horrible year. Truly. One of my kid’s friends was part of a car pool from Capitol Hill and the parents hired a driver. They moved eventually because it was unsustainable.

That was the traffic at 8 am this morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Capitol Hill is relatively close to most of those schools, competed to other places in the DC area.
Right now, google maps has a 30 minute drive from the US Capitol to Ivymount, a 35 minute drive to Auburn SS, and a mere 20 min to the Lab school.

Maybe at 2 AM. I drove DS to Auburn not from Capitol Hill but near Bloomingdale and it took about 45 minutes to get there and around 1.5 to get back pre COVID. Was a horrible year. Truly. One of my kid’s friends was part of a car pool from Capitol Hill and the parents hired a driver. They moved eventually because it was unsustainable.

That was the traffic at 8 am this morning.

Ok. So says google maps. I actually drove to Auburn SS for a year. Soul sucking and the school was definitely not worth it.

[Anonymous]

I know this is not what you want to hear but consider ...

keeping your CH home that you own, rent it for $$$$$, use that money to rent a very nice home closer to an appropriate private ASD school that -also- allows your other kid(s) to thrive in either their current DCPS school or, more likely, switch to a different DCPS school.

On that ^^ topic, what is your DCPS middle school plan for the other kids? Are they already in MS on the Hill? If not yet, maybe find a house to rent midway between Deal and new ASD private. Send other kids to Deal/Wilson

If your other kids are in a MS charter already, find a house to rent north of the charter (say, sheperd park) and much closer to ASD private than your CH address.

I have close neighbors who are doing exactly what I suggest (renting their rental house for $$, using proceeds to rent a nice upper NW house, send one kid to a specialized school closer to upper NW and send other kid to top inbound DCPS ES). Not ideal, but then nothing about these situations will ever be perfect and you know that.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, renting their ROWhouse that they own in the central part of DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know this is not what you want to hear but consider ...

keeping your CH home that you own, rent it for $$$$$, use that money to rent a very nice home closer to an appropriate private ASD school that -also- allows your other kid(s) to thrive in either their current DCPS school or, more likely, switch to a different DCPS school.

On that ^^ topic, what is your DCPS middle school plan for the other kids? Are they already in MS on the Hill? If not yet, maybe find a house to rent midway between Deal and new ASD private. Send other kids to Deal/Wilson

If your other kids are in a MS charter already, find a house to rent north of the charter (say, sheperd park) and much closer to ASD private than your CH address.

I have close neighbors who are doing exactly what I suggest (renting their rental house for $$, using proceeds to rent a nice upper NW house, send one kid to a specialized school closer to upper NW and send other kid to top inbound DCPS ES). Not ideal, but then nothing about these situations will ever be perfect and you know that.

Not sure all these machinations are worth the trouble for the very average schools, SN and not, that are available around here.

[Anonymous]

In our experience, almost all of the private schools are in the richer suburbs, period. We were looking for a SN school for one kid and a mainstream private for the other, and the location of all our options for both were super inconvenient. We thought about moving to be closer, but the cost of housing around these places is usually astronomical. Our goal was to try to reduce costs to afford the schools, but moving nearby would not have helped.