Moving to DC - Murch or Eaton (or other?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not Eaton. The school is currently under construction, so they've put the kids in a temporary "swing space" at another nearby site. Frankly, the temporary facility looks like a jail.

Clearly you are not a parent of either a Murch child or Eaton child but feel the need to chime in. My son was at the swing space when they renovated Murch and I assure you it was much better than what they had at the old school.

Don't let the swing space issue make your decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should also consider Hearst. It is smaller than Eaton and Murch.

Hearst class size is much larger than Murch.
Murch school size is much larger than Hearst.

Hearst class size is only large in certain grades, and they are planning to add classes for those grades next year. My kid has 23 kids in their class. Is the average at Murch much lower?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Also, if you're worried about the size of Murch, just know that the new Eaton will be larger than the original. They are expanding the size of the school so that they can take a lot more out-of-boundary kids. I have no issue with OOB kids, but if you're hoping for a "small school" setting then it won't be the new Eaton.

Plus, Ethan is the designated school for the Ward 3 family homeless shelter. That’s fine in many ways, but those at-risk kids likely will have special needs which will require a lot of teacher resources and there will be lots of classroom turnover. Finally Murch feeds to the best middle school, Deal. Eaton feeds to second tier Hardy MS.

You must know a whole lot about the families who have yet to move into the shelter.
OP, Hardy will be number 1 middle school by the time your child goes to 6th grade.
Concentrate on finding a good rental. We hate our building (we own) which has ended up being much bigger problem that the schools in upper NW.

Hardy MS also has 1990s-style urban school uniforms.

Will you ever stop? You post this on every Hardy thread. No one thinks it's funny except you. And no, not a Hardy parent.

Public school uniforms aren’t funny, but they are kind of pathetic.

I wish my public school had uniforms.

[Anonymous]

Hearst is great and located next to a large, beautiful park. Lots of different kinds of housing in the zone from large SFH to apartments that can fit a family.

[Anonymous]

How do you feel about bilingual schools? Oyster is great and in a nicer neighborhood that is closer in. There are several apartment. Buildings within a block. I’m not sure I agree with the idea to rent a condo or coop rather than a rental - if you want to stay long term, rental is better because a condo owner could decide to sell or move back in.

Let me know if you are interested in oyster and I will post specific apartment buildings. They are the ones on Calvert Street and then the cross street from Calvert that oyster is on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you feel about bilingual schools? Oyster is great and in a nicer neighborhood that is closer in. There are several apartment. Buildings within a block. I’m not sure I agree with the idea to rent a condo or coop rather than a rental - if you want to stay long term, rental is better because a condo owner could decide to sell or move back in.

Let me know if you are interested in oyster and I will post specific apartment buildings. They are the ones on Calvert Street and then the cross street from Calvert that oyster is on.

Thank you for the offer! I was very interested in the bilingual option but we're not sure how long we'll stay in DC or this neighborhood (hopefully a while but we want to see how we like it) so I thought putting him in a bilingual setting for only a year or two might not be the best idea. Thank you again for the feedback!

[Anonymous]

Thank you everyone for the feedback! It's nice to see such an involved community of public school parents, we look forward to being part of it. We're still working on housing but these comments have been incredibly helpful. Please keep them coming..

[Anonymous]

Former Eaton parent here with a kid at Deal and a kid at Hardy. Eaton is a wonderfully close-knit community, and my children had terrific experiences there. Dear friends of ours have kids at Murch, and they love the school. I don't think you can go wrong with either elementary school, but I encourage you to reach out to both for a tour. When selecting a school based on middle school feeders, we are happy with both Deal and Hardy. Both kids are learning a lot, working hard and socializing well (and on the topic of uniforms, my Hardy kid and his cohort have never complained once complained about uniforms, and my Deal kid was part of a successful movement to relax the Deal dress code for girls when she was in the 6th grade -- both were great fodder for interesting dinner conversations).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hearst is great and located next to a large, beautiful park. Lots of different kinds of housing in the zone from large SFH to apartments that can fit a family.

You mean WAS located next to a large, beautiful park. The DC government just cut down most of the trees.

[Anonymous]

Currently live in NE with two elementary age children in EOTP charter. Not a great middle school option available, is it time to start looking at moving to WTOP or MoCo for middle school? At what housing budget would you be in or out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Currently live in NE with two elementary age children in EOTP charter. Not a great middle school option available, is it time to start looking at moving to WTOP or MoCo for middle school? At what housing budget would you be in or out?

WOTP is much better than the disaster that is currently MoCo. Go read those boards before you move.

[Anonymous]

Have people actually done this? (moved from NE to WTOP-just for middle school)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Currently live in NE with two elementary age children in EOTP charter. Not a great middle school option available, is it time to start looking at moving to WTOP or MoCo for middle school? At what housing budget would you be in or out?

WOTP is much better than the disaster that is currently MoCo. Go read those boards before you move.

I hope no one is making a final decision on schools based on what they read here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have people actually done this? (moved from NE to WTOP-just for middle school)

People have been doing this for decades. Usually it's for MS + Wilson.

[Anonymous]

Murch is a a neighborhood school, while Eaton is more of a District-wise school.