Crazy to move from BCC cluster ES to Janney/Deal/Wilson for schools?

[Anonymous]

OP, why only Janney, Lafayette or Murch? Why not Shepherd or Hearst?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP why aren't you considering private school?

OP here. Have you seen private school tuition costs? The idea of paying $36k+ per year for the next 10 years and then paying for college is not something that I would like to do. I know that there are some privates that are cheaper, but most of those are parochial schools and I honestly do not believe that parochial schools provide any better educational outcomes than good publics. In fact, many are probably worse considering teachers don't have to be certified, etc. So that leaves us with the "top" privates and they entry point there is generally about $36k and above. Paying $400k for education before even getting to college is like wow. And then, what if either DH or I are unemployed at some point. If we stretched things to make private work, a normal period of unemployment of 3-6 months would necessitate going back to public anyways. So while we are well off by nearly all measures, we are certainly not rich enough to attend the type of private school that would make the type of difference we are hoping for.

Could you not find wealthier grandparents to cover private tuition just for a fewvyears?

NP: But, what? "Hey, Mom, could you fork over a portion of your social security check so I can send my kids to a ridiculously overpriced private school?"

OP here. I am pretty sure that they were joking.

I think the points raised about governance in both DC and MD are very valid. The nuclear bomb in all of this is mandatory bussing, but I don't think either government is dumb enough to do that. So they will continue to chip away at the edges to make life miserable for everyone. This may sound cruel, but in DC at least due to gentrification and charter schools, the political force behind closing the achievement gap within DCPS is declining and every year that risk recedes a bti. In MCPS however it is rising, due to significant demographic changes in the eastern and northern parts of the county. On a 5 or 10 year time horizon I think situations will be very different and I am trying to incorporate this into my decision making.

I've been doing a bit more research and its a bit disconcerting that Janney is currently at 110% capacity. I need to get better classroom level data, but I am not sure that level of crowding helps us out much from our current situation.
http://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/Janney.pdf

Although I do like CCDC, the commuting options are not great and Lafayette is just too big. So that leaves Murch as an alternative that some have suggested. I may need to consider that as another viable option.

But frankly, if schools are not going to be better in DCPS on the main issue of overcrowding, then I am not sure it would make a lot of sense to move.

Geez OP just go private if you are that paranoid about our elected officials trying to "close the achievement gap" ie serve all students. You can sell your fancy Bethesda house, pocket the profit for private school tuition, and live in an apartment or buy something cheap in Hyattsville.

+1 OP if you need racially diverse with no poor kids and small class sizes you need to head to private school.

Oh come of it. I'm willing to bet that there are more poor kids in classes at top elementary school privates in this city than in most lower grades classes at Brent, SWS, Janney, Lafayette etc.

Stick to your guns, PP. The focus on "closing the achievement gap," when that isn't going to happen for poor kids in all but a handful of cases in DCPS is a real drag. DC has never even passed a law on gifted education, unlike MD and VA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, why only Janney, Lafayette or Murch? Why not Shepherd or Hearst?

OP doesn't want too many blondes, or immigrants, or blacks.

Just a few of each, in perfectly progressive proportions of course.

[Anonymous]

Who in their right mind gives up the Churchill cluster for the JKLM-Deal-Wilson Cluster-f*ck??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who in their right mind gives up the Churchill cluster for the JKLM-Deal-Wilson Cluster-f*ck??

The tides have changed. Keep up!

[Anonymous]

To me it would be crazy to move from BCC to Wilson just for schools, but that's different from saying I really love where I am living in the district and don't want to move for schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To me it would be crazy to move from BCC to Wilson just for schools, but that's different from saying I really love where I am living in the district and don't want to move for schools.

OP specified other reasons for moving too, including wanting to be closer in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP why aren't you considering private school?

OP here. Have you seen private school tuition costs? The idea of paying $36k+ per year for the next 10 years and then paying for college is not something that I would like to do. I know that there are some privates that are cheaper, but most of those are parochial schools and I honestly do not believe that parochial schools provide any better educational outcomes than good publics. In fact, many are probably worse considering teachers don't have to be certified, etc. So that leaves us with the "top" privates and they entry point there is generally about $36k and above. Paying $400k for education before even getting to college is like wow. And then, what if either DH or I are unemployed at some point. If we stretched things to make private work, a normal period of unemployment of 3-6 months would necessitate going back to public anyways. So while we are well off by nearly all measures, we are certainly not rich enough to attend the type of private school that would make the type of difference we are hoping for.

Not all privates are that expensive. Check out Woods Academy in Bethesda and for HS there are many great Catholic choices. By HS, MCPS may have figured out how to project enrollment properly. They must or there will be a total revolt / exodus.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Could you do private? Moving is going to cost a lot, for no guarantee that you'll like the schools better.

It's a lot cheaper to move -- even twice! -- than go private.

I think it isn't unlikely she'll move and eventually go private anyway. It would be cheaper to skip the move.

OP here. We have been in our house for a while. Have a ton of equity, plus appreciation. Even after transaction fees would probably come out a bit ahead. Moving and then private is obviously not preferred, but it is not out of the question just probably not within our budget even if we didn't move.

I am picky about schools, so I'm not being dismissive, but if you did a couple years of private (2nd & 3rd) somewhere with smaller classes, you might be happier in Moco in 4th and onward than DCPS. First grade is so early in the journey (much less Oct of first grade!) to make this kind of decision. If you want to move anyway, maybe it makes sense.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who in their right mind gives up the Churchill cluster for the JKLM-Deal-Wilson Cluster-f*ck??

The tides have changed. Keep up!

I don't think the tides have changed yet, but you can definitely sense that they are changing. My personal feeling is that 10 years from now NW DC will seem like a gated community, for good and bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me it would be crazy to move from BCC to Wilson just for schools, but that's different from saying I really love where I am living in the district and don't want to move for schools.

OP specified other reasons for moving too, including wanting to be closer in.

I'm in the BCC cluster and no more than 5 minutes further out than most of CCDC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me it would be crazy to move from BCC to Wilson just for schools, but that's different from saying I really love where I am living in the district and don't want to move for schools.

OP specified other reasons for moving too, including wanting to be closer in.

I'm in the BCC cluster and no more than 5 minutes further out than most of CCDC.

Then, for you, a move wouldn't make a commute difference. That is not useful to OP who feels the need for a better commute and a less crowded school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who in their right mind gives up the Churchill cluster for the JKLM-Deal-Wilson Cluster-f*ck??

The tides have changed. Keep up!

I don't think the tides have changed yet, but you can definitely sense that they are changing. My personal feeling is that 10 years from now NW DC will seem like a gated community, for good and bad.

That's funny.

NW closely resembles the country we live in, so my feeling is that more and more of DC will resemble NW and the country.

The only gated community will be SE, where local corrupt politicians will continue with their petty machinations against the general public for a few more decades.

They will end up in prison, or in exile, and we will become the major global reference we deserve to be.

[Anonymous]

NW doesn't closely resemble the country.

MD/DC is an odd place, it's much richer and much less white than most everywhere else, even though in general wealth and race are correlated (both in DC and elsewhere).

So sometimes you get crazy people going on about how white certain areas are (see the Bethesda RE thread) even though they aren't really all that white compared to our nation as a whole. Then other times you have people totally out of touch who think $1.3 million for a fixer-upper is somehow normal.

Dunno much about VA even though I've lived MD/DC my whole life. I think it used to be farms and now there are a lot of IT people from Kansas and India there or something, and they all seem rich and like their jobs vaguely involve bombing places, or building bombs or selling bombs or whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NW doesn't closely resemble the country.

MD/DC is an odd place, it's much richer and much less white than most everywhere else, even though in general wealth and race are correlated (both in DC and elsewhere).

So sometimes you get crazy people going on about how white certain areas are (see the Bethesda RE thread) even though they aren't really all that white compared to our nation as a whole. Then other times you have people totally out of touch who think $1.3 million for a fixer-upper is somehow normal.

Dunno much about VA even though I've lived MD/DC my whole life. I think it used to be farms and now there are a lot of IT people from Kansas and India there or something, and they all seem rich and like their jobs vaguely involve bombing places, or building bombs or selling bombs or whatever.

This thread isn't about "NW" or "NWDC," which includes places like Brightwood Park and Columbia Hts.

For the last 14 pages, we've been talking about Janney and that general neighborhood. Don't inject your demographic agenda into it to score points.

I live right around Janney and trust me, it's not "much less white than most everywhere else" in the country.