which would you do, if these were options for middle and high school?

[Anonymous]

#1 would be my choice.

[Anonymous]

can't - I meant

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The publics can be amazingly bad.

So can the privates, and you pay for the privilege of their ineptitude.

We moved to an excellent cluster in Mo Co and paid only about $600K for a home on 2 acres. Prior to that, my children were in private. I'll admit that (as an educator) the public outshines the private on many, many levels. However, back in the old 'hood, the schools were highly impacted and thus low achieving. So private was our only option.

totally worth the move
fantastic to save that tuition for college instead!

There are homes in good areas that aren't selling for $700 and up. But so many people are stuck on the name and cant' see beyond that. (Bethesda, anyone?)

[Anonymous]

We are in a school district with 9-10s. Not as good as a private. Those scores are so inflated.

[Anonymous]

easy choice #2

[Anonymous]

We are currently doing #1 at a DC charter. Kids are happy and are excelling. However, if I ever feel like the school isn't meeting the kids' needs, we'll switch schools or move. Staying put for now is allowing us to save $ in case we ever want to do #2 or #3.

[Anonymous]

That $25,000 tuition will only go up every year. #3 in a heartbeat. We started with private but realized that with an excellent school district, it wasn't spending $50k every year for tuition (2 kids)

school was ok for one, the other not so much. You just never know when financially or for other reasons, the private won't work. Having a great school to fall back on was key in that decision.

[Anonymous]

I'm OP. In case you are counting (I am!) the vote is 9 for option 1, 6 for option 2, and 4 for option 3.

It seems that none of the options is really a no brainer as far as this crowd is concerned. But keep those comments coming -- I have a couple of years to decide.

[Anonymous]

Here's the killer. We did Option 1. We started in a GREAT public school actually, even though by DC standards it is considered ok. Anyway, we ended up putting our oldest in private. Here's the kicker. He most likely would have ended up in private even if we had moved to awesome school district (Option 3). The problem is that you still have to do what is best for your kid. You might move to the best school in the state and still realize that it isn't a great fit. I'm glad that we had the ability and flexibility to move him to private without skipping a beat.

[Anonymous]

Option 1. Pay off the house and save your $$ for a rainy day or job loss or death or divorce (not to be so gloom but you never know).

Schools change over time so what is not so good now can be good by the time DC goes to school. Plus if your child needs extra assistance, you'll have the extra cash.

It's better to be cash rich than house poor. Lessons learned from the housing crisis.

[Anonymous]

OP, assume you don't live in DC, or charters and OOB lotteries would be in your decision matrix. Personally, I would not want to leave a neighborhood where my kid had lots of friends and there was a real sense of community. In DC, I would stay in my house and then look at city-wide schools like SWW, Latin, Basis, and Banneker, while maybe also applying to privates.

Assuming you don't have public/charter school choice, I would go with option 2.

[Anonymous]

We're just about to do option 3, though there are other benefits as far as commute and lifestyle go in our case as well.

[Anonymous]

I would go with #1 and give the public schools a chance. You said your kids have lots of friends in the neighborhood - what are those parents doing? We live in a neighborhood with similar schools (probably 7s on GreatSchool). Some parents wouldn't be caught sending their kids to the publics, so they're shelling out the cash. We are doing public so far and, frankly, haven't had any problems. We also notice that our kids are at the same level, academically, as the private kids. Now, when my oldest starts middle school next year, we have the funds saved up to go private -- if necessary. But we're certainly glad we didn't put that money to an unnecessary private elementary education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not naming it because I don't want the debate to get very specific about a particular school. Think 5 or 6 on GreatSchools measurements, vs. the "excellent" publics that rate more like a 9 or 10.

We are in the exact same situation except we live in a $900k that is half paid off and we would move to a $1.5 million home in McLean or similar. We have 2 young kids who are not yet school aged. We plan to send our kids to the ok public school (rated 5 on greatschools) and hope that they get into the neighboring AAP center (rated 9 on greatschools). If and when we feel the public school option is inadequate, we will go the private school route. Zoned middle school and high school are ok (rated 7). HS seems to have good college acceptances if you are top of your class.

We love our house, our neighborhood, the area, our commutes to work, etc. Would rather keep our house than move to a house that is probably smaller and older than our current house just to live in McLean. Often good school districts are overcrowded and large class sizes are a concern. Our school seems to have smaller class sizes compared to other Fairfax county schools, probably due to the less than stellar academic reputation.

[Anonymous]

2. It's cheaper than option 3 and it gives you the most control over your situation. If your only issue with the school is the rating, option 1 is a good fall back.

[Anonymous]

Out of curiosity, which way are you leaning?