Does anyone else feel stressed about lack of school options?

[Anonymous]

We live in DC and are middle class. Our neighborhood ES is not a good option, at least past the lower grades. We had ridiculously high waitlist numbers on the OOB lottery. We were waitlisted at every charter we applied to. We are now faced with either sending DC to a fairly crappy public school, or applying to a private and hoping for financial aid. Or moving to the suburbs; even then, we are facing huge public elementaries. I know we are not the only ones in this situation.

[Anonymous]

How do you define "huge" in terms of a public elementary?

We are in APS and our school is just under 400. It seems like a very nice-sized school. It's one of the smaller ones in Arlington but I think 450 or 500 would still be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in DC and are middle class. Our neighborhood ES is not a good option, at least past the lower grades. We had ridiculously high waitlist numbers on the OOB lottery. We were waitlisted at every charter we applied to. We are now faced with either sending DC to a fairly crappy public school, or applying to a private and hoping for financial aid. Or moving to the suburbs; even then, we are facing huge public elementaries. I know we are not the only ones in this situation.

Yep. This is why we are moving back to our hometown as soon as one of us can lock down a good job. The economics of living here don't make sense if you can't pull in $250K a year or more, which is just insane. In our case the financial pressure is impacting our family size because schooling (and the cost of it) is such a major issue, and it is a major source of frustration for both of us. DC's system is fucked up beyond belief.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you define "huge" in terms of a public elementary?

We are in APS and our school is just under 400. It seems like a very nice-sized school. It's one of the smaller ones in Arlington but I think 450 or 500 would still be fine.

Yes, but you assume that everyone can afford housing costs into Arlington, or wants to deal with the traffic logjam or the wonderful unreliability of Metro to get into the city for their job every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you define "huge" in terms of a public elementary?

We are in APS and our school is just under 400. It seems like a very nice-sized school. It's one of the smaller ones in Arlington but I think 450 or 500 would still be fine.

Yes, but you assume that everyone can afford housing costs into Arlington, or wants to deal with the traffic logjam or the wonderful unreliability of Metro to get into the city for their job every day.

I'm not OP BTW.

[Anonymous]

Same problem here, but lack of middle school options.
I'm lower middle class living in 20007.Find it often to be a choice -bigger house vs better neighborhood (and schools).
Can you move? If not, do some homeschooling in addition to your kid attending the "fairly crappy public school".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in DC and are middle class. Our neighborhood ES is not a good option, at least past the lower grades. We had ridiculously high waitlist numbers on the OOB lottery. We were waitlisted at every charter we applied to. We are now faced with either sending DC to a fairly crappy public school, or applying to a private and hoping for financial aid. Or moving to the suburbs; even then, we are facing huge public elementaries. I know we are not the only ones in this situation.

Yes. That's what we all did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you define "huge" in terms of a public elementary?

We are in APS and our school is just under 400. It seems like a very nice-sized school. It's one of the smaller ones in Arlington but I think 450 or 500 would still be fine.

Yes, but you assume that everyone can afford housing costs into Arlington, or wants to deal with the traffic logjam or the wonderful unreliability of Metro to get into the city for their job every day.

I'm not OP BTW.

OP mentioned moving to the suburbs as one solution, except for the "huge" elementary schools. So I was just responding on that point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you define "huge" in terms of a public elementary?

We are in APS and our school is just under 400. It seems like a very nice-sized school. It's one of the smaller ones in Arlington but I think 450 or 500 would still be fine.

Yes, but you assume that everyone can afford housing costs into Arlington, or wants to deal with the traffic logjam or the wonderful unreliability of Metro to get into the city for their job every day.

I'm not OP BTW.

OP mentioned moving to the suburbs as one solution, except for the "huge" elementary schools. So I was just responding on that point.

I understand. It's just that the reality is many people are priced out of close in suburbs like Arlington, so you have to move to East Bumblefuck to find an affordable house in a good school district, and then spend half your life commuting. I can't speak for OP, but for me that is no "solution."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you define "huge" in terms of a public elementary?

We are in APS and our school is just under 400. It seems like a very nice-sized school. It's one of the smaller ones in Arlington but I think 450 or 500 would still be fine.

Yes, but you assume that everyone can afford housing costs into Arlington, or wants to deal with the traffic logjam or the wonderful unreliability of Metro to get into the city for their job every day.

I'm not OP BTW.

OP mentioned moving to the suburbs as one solution, except for the "huge" elementary schools. So I was just responding on that point.

I understand. It's just that the reality is many people are priced out of close in suburbs like Arlington, so you have to move to East Bumblefuck to find an affordable house in a good school district, and then spend half your life commuting. I can't speak for OP, but for me that is no "solution."

I would add, a lot of people are priced out of East Bumblefuck.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Actually that size school sounds good, but yes, housing costs in close-in suburbs (Arlington/Bethesda etc) are a challenge. And I think most of the elementary schools are larger than that. Its incredible that with all the many schools in this area, middle class families really have very few viable choices, especially if its all chance/lottery. At this point we are considering it all - private, parochial etc - and just hoping we get financial aid. We definitely don't make anywhere near $250K!

[Anonymous]

Grew up outside NYC and experienced the same thing as I'm living in now out in the suburbs except here we can at least afford to live closer to the city than where my parents were able to afford outside NYC. I'm not sure where you're from and what you were expecting. I grew up in an elementary with less than 300 students and it was too small. 500 is a nice size without getting out of control. There are definitely schools out in the suburbs that size and they are better than the NJ schools I attended as a child even with larger class sizes. That's probably not saying much though since the school system in NJ was hardly stellar.

[Anonymous]

Thanks! Its good to get some non-DC perspective on this.

[Anonymous]

The problem is that many of you have bourgie tastes, middle-class budgets and racist attitudes. Stop pretending to be hipsters and go back to your small towns and boring suburbs in Ohio.

[Anonymous]

Are you stuck with your job in DC. If you move to a suburb, can't you also find a job in Rockville or something like that?

I live in the suburbs and I know most of my friends/neighbors/family who live in the suburbs also found jobs close to home <30 min. commute.