What neighborhood should I move my boys to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here with some missing facts:

- yes, the oldest has an IEP and I’ll work on getting one for myself younger son.
- my income is around $200K pre-child support and I really don’t know how that’s going to look at this point.
- I have some savings, so I’m thinking around $800-$900K+ might be workable. But I may rent first if I can find a good situation? I’d hate to purchase a too-expensive home and limit what I can do for my boys in terms of services/activites/tutoring/etc.
- my boys are Asian, but I am Caucasian. I’d love for my boys to have classmates that look like them.
- By far my first priority is schools/services, with a distant second being LGBTQ-friendly places… we’ll settle for whatever Asian community we can get if the first two are in place!
- with my salary/finances, public schools make the most sense. So maybe I’ll just need to do more expensive housing to get the best supports at school.

Thanks so much to all of you!! I am feeling overwhelmed and you have all helped so much already.

Is your ex on board with you moving kids out of state?

[Anonymous]

NP here. OP, if you locate anywhere in MoCo, MCPS should provide transportation to the school with the SN program that your kids are placed at. DC was in Autism Connections at Tilden for middle school. It was his home school but that was true of only one other student in the program. Many of the other students in the program were bussed door to door, a.m. and p.m.

[Anonymous]

Moco makes sense, but also look at Howard county if you aren't commuting. I know folks who had a good experience at Jeffers hill elementary; the area is quite diverse and very child-friendly (lots of activities like swimming, soccer, cricket, art classes, etc.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In terms of schools for your sons, it doesn't matter what neighborhood. Moco will send your boys to the school that has the program for them no matter where you live.

While that is theoretically true, it is difficult these days to get MCPS staff to pay attention to kids who have special needs who are not failing academically or causing major behavioral problems. OP could make it easier for a principal to accommodate their request by already living in the catchment area for the programs she thinks would be best for her kids.

This, 100%.

Also to the PP with young adult children - unfortunately your experience is a bit out of date. Things have changed in MCPS and not for the better. Demand for sped is higher and budgets are lower. This cascades into teacher/para/SLP shortages, max class size allowable, and a fight from school admin to ration services. Newflash - high functioning ND elementary school kids get bubkus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In terms of schools for your sons, it doesn't matter what neighborhood. Moco will send your boys to the school that has the program for them no matter where you live.

While that is theoretically true, it is difficult these days to get MCPS staff to pay attention to kids who have special needs who are not failing academically or causing major behavioral problems. OP could make it easier for a principal to accommodate their request by already living in the catchment area for the programs she thinks would be best for her kids.

This, 100%.

Also to the PP with young adult children - unfortunately your experience is a bit out of date. Things have changed in MCPS and not for the better. Demand for sped is higher and budgets are lower. This cascades into teacher/para/SLP shortages, max class size allowable, and a fight from school admin to ration services. Newflash - high functioning ND elementary school kids get bubkus.

Yes. I am the PP who wrote the above. My "high" functioning 5th grader spent large portions of each day in the nurse's office in elementary school because he was too anxious in the classroom, and nobody flagged it or offered much of anything. We fought for an IEP but even with outside testing and an advocate we weren't able to get it in place until March of their 5th grade year. We saw the writing on the wall and knew that Middle School would be harder and the supports just weren't there so we moved him to an SN private. I'm so glad OP is going in with an IEP in place, at least for the school-aged child.

[Anonymous]

900k with a 200k salary as a sole parent is INSANE if you ask me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:900k with a 200k salary as a sole parent is INSANE if you ask me.

We don’t know the down payment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree re: Takoma Park for an existing community of friendly LGBTQ+ families. There are also good ASD supports at Seaton and Garrison elementary schools in the Logan Circle/Shaw neighborhoods of NW DC, and those schools are also diverse with several Asian families and families with single and queer parents. NB: they are harder to lottery into without living in-boundary.

No to Takoma Park. Agree community is very supportive of LGTBT+ families as other minorities but not friendly towards Asians.

[Anonymous]

In-bounds for Bethesda Elementary. Very accepting community towards special needs, more diverse, more cosmopolitan and less clique-y than other areas of Bethesda or CC due to many international families in apartments. There are a number of non-traditional families. Be careful as some neighborhoods around Bethesda Elem are more traditional or conservative.

[Anonymous]

I would avoid King Farm or McLean. They are nice communities but pressure cooker communities. We know several families who have moved out of those areas with kids with LDs as they are not really great for kids' mental health.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I'm an Asian expat living in downtown Bethesda. It's an affluent and liberal part of Montgomery County. I moved here because I wanted my high-functioning ASD and ADHD kid to have the best school experience on a budget: ie, it was worth my while paying more for housing to get the special education services and accommodations of a school cluster that knows how to deal with such kids. I looked at privates, of course, because "technically" I can afford them. But you always end up needing to pay for extra tutoring or social skills group outside of school anyway, so a good public seems less wasteful to me, to save for college. My son goes to an 85K a year private uni. For reference, UMD is 30K a year, in-state. Financial considerations are important.

He went to Bethesda Elementary first, since it has a great reputation for understanding children with special needs of all types (the Principal Ms. Seymour is no-nonsense but she's the driving force behind that commitment); then was accepted into the gifted and talented, learning disabled (GT/LD) program of the neighboring school cluster at North Bethesda Middle and Walter Johnson High Schools. The cluster also has an autism program, but your kids might not need that. Both the Bethesda-Chevy Chase and Walter Johnson clusters have a great reputation for academics and are appropriate for the services and accommodations you might be looking for. My son had very effective schooling: his hard work, the school accommodations and understanding IEP teams, and my parenting efforts, helped him get into a good college (meds for ADHD helped as well!).

Precious few people in Montgomery County will care that you're a lesbian, OP, even in the exurbs. My neighbors and the parents are school are welcoming of all people and lifestyles. Downtown Bethesda, and indeed many parts of MoCo, has a lot of international diversity. DCUM gets stuck on "most people look pale in Bethesda and Chevy Chase" and entirely bypasses the fact that people come from all over the world, with many cultural, religious and language differences. My kids' friends are from Asia, the middle East and Eastern Europe. Some of them have ADHD and/or high-functioning autism like my son. It's the fashion nowadays at the middle and high school level to try on sexual identities like a new pair of jeans. Most of these kids will probably end up in straight relationship as adults, but I am pointing this out to explain the mindset here. My youngest at Westland Middle school (BCC cluster) was assigned International Baccalaureate summer reading and every time the school chose novels about a non-binary kid or a school bullying/restorative justice event. Just to let you in on the vibe.

If that part of MoCo is not in your budget, then I've also heard good things from the Rockville and Poolesville clusters. Whitman and Churchill clusters (west Bethesda and Potomac, respectively) have excellent schools, but are as expensive as Bethesda/Chevy Chase.

My kids are now young adults and teens, and over the course of their childhood I've talked to a lot of parents from DC, MD and VA, with kids in public and private. I think that MCPS generally has the most to offer, in terms of gifted and special needs programming, as well as number of courses at the high school level... but your individual experience at an individual school will vary. It will be more satisfactory if you are prepared, know what your kids need and what the school can realistically offer.

And welcome to the area

Good post but would avoid Whitman, Churchill as there's a lack of diversity )racial/ethnic, socioeconomic and thought).

[Anonymous]

Lots of Asians in the Wootton cluster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of Asians in the Wootton cluster.

yeah, but not very diverse otherwise. OP needs to decide whether she just wants Asians or diversity in terms of race/ethnicity as a whole

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of Asians in the Wootton cluster.

Another high pressure cluster. Don't do it OP. Pick one with more diversity like Rockville, BCC. If you're looking at MCPS I would start by getting a list of high school clusters and looking at the ones that have a a decent number of Asians, 7- 10%, and then cross out the Ws and see what's left.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m also a lesbian mom with relatively low support need autistic 3yo son. We live in Columbia Heights and love it (though wouldn’t necessarily recommend). Just wanted to add that we got a placement through his IEP at School Without Walls @ Francis Stevens and he has been doing so well and we are really happy - it’s a 10:6 classroom with 10 “regular” kids and 6 special needs kids. The school is moving back to its per any campus in the West End next year after renovations, which won’t be very convenient for us but we’re very happy to keep him there. All of this is to say that your sons may qualify for placements at certain schools independent of where you live.

OP here - I am so glad this worked out for you.

I’m looking for the sure thing! I have heard that getting placements in DCPS is tricky and certainly not guaranteed.

I am trying hard to land in the right location up front to establish our family in the community for the long term. I’d love to help my boys establish some (hopefully!) long term friendships and connections, which we anticipate will likely be challenging as social demands increase.

If parents had the luxury of picking the specific neighborhood, (based on specific schools) that’s what I’m hoping to learn from the DCUM braintrust!