Capitol Hill families - If you moved to NW or burbs for school, do you have any regrets?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also am completely confused why acknowledging that Eastern serves communities way beyond Capitol Hill makes me "think a great deal of myself." But you assuming everyone in every neighborhood wants to be described as living on the Hill & it is somehow insulting to say they don't... doesn't.

This all started with correcting the false assumption that everyone on “the Hill” can trade up for some 1.5 mil home in N Arlington as part of the Hill-suburbs migration OP is asking about. If your answer to that is “of course they can because the Hill is exclusively the historic district” then you don’t really have anything useful to add.

The rest of us understand that when we talk about “the Capitol Hill school situation” we are generally referring to kids zoned for EH, SH and Jefferson. I guess there’s some reason to quibble about the less central feeders (Miner, Van Ness, Amidon, JOW) but we are all truly in the same boat as far as school options here go.

You’re in the same boat with respect to MS/HS but your neighborhoods are by no means equivalent. Point is that it’s more of a loss to turn one’s back on certain CH addresses than others in adjacent areas when heading for Ward 3 or the burbs. _That_ is what is implied in the handwringing of the OP.

In other words, not all Eastern-zoned families would be giving up the same thing.

— NP who doesn’t even live in CH but visits and has eyeballs

Yes, it's obvious some of you who are posting don't live in or near CH.

Look, it is hard for someone who lives at 7th and Maryland NE (unquestionably Capitol Hill) to leave the neighborhood if they love the neighborhood. But what some of you who are obsessing about how certain things are "on the Hill" and others are outside an invisible boundary need to understand, is that the person who lives at 7th and Maryland NE is sad about moving away from not just the CH historic district, but a much broader area with a bunch of amenities and community that extend well beyond it. They are sad to move away from H Street, which is not "on the Hill" but is walkable from their house and includes a nice grocery store and a host of restaurants and bars and retail stores they enjoy. They are sad to miss out on walkability to Nats Park in the summer, which is in Navy Yard but the proximity of Navy Yard and its amenities is a huge benefit to people on the Hill. They'll also miss Union Market and the Angelika, being able to walk or bike or catch a bus into downtown or to the museums on the mall. All of this is part of what makes CH special. It's not about just living in a few square blocks of row homes.

They also have friends throughout the Hill *and environs* that will include people who live north of H, east of Lincoln Park, and south of Pennsylvania Ave. And those friends, they'll find, have the same concerns about schools (their kids are zoned for the same schools after elementary), the same reasons for loving the neighborhood, the same reticence to leave. They will spend lots of time at those friend's homes or meeting those friends in the neighborhood, even though they live "on Capitol Hill" and their friends live in NoMa, Navy Yard, and Hill East.

If you live in a suburb without the kind of walkability and density of the Hill, you may not get any of this. If the only places you can walk in your neighborhood are the surrounding streets, and going anywhere else means getting in the car whether it's 2 miles or 20 miles away, you might not get this.

No one who lives on Capitol Hill looks at people who live in Kingman Park or near Union Market or south of Eastern Market and thinks "oh those people's problems and attachment to this area are totally different from mine." Unless they are very dumb.

If we’re throwing down, the Hill is the area bounded by S/N Cap to the west, Florida Ave/Benning to the north, the Anacostia to the east, and I-65 to the south. Fight me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also am completely confused why acknowledging that Eastern serves communities way beyond Capitol Hill makes me "think a great deal of myself." But you assuming everyone in every neighborhood wants to be described as living on the Hill & it is somehow insulting to say they don't... doesn't.

This all started with correcting the false assumption that everyone on “the Hill” can trade up for some 1.5 mil home in N Arlington as part of the Hill-suburbs migration OP is asking about. If your answer to that is “of course they can because the Hill is exclusively the historic district” then you don’t really have anything useful to add.

The rest of us understand that when we talk about “the Capitol Hill school situation” we are generally referring to kids zoned for EH, SH and Jefferson. I guess there’s some reason to quibble about the less central feeders (Miner, Van Ness, Amidon, JOW) but we are all truly in the same boat as far as school options here go.

You’re in the same boat with respect to MS/HS but your neighborhoods are by no means equivalent. Point is that it’s more of a loss to turn one’s back on certain CH addresses than others in adjacent areas when heading for Ward 3 or the burbs. _That_ is what is implied in the handwringing of the OP.

In other words, not all Eastern-zoned families would be giving up the same thing.

— NP who doesn’t even live in CH but visits and has eyeballs

Yes, it's obvious some of you who are posting don't live in or near CH.

Look, it is hard for someone who lives at 7th and Maryland NE (unquestionably Capitol Hill) to leave the neighborhood if they love the neighborhood. But what some of you who are obsessing about how certain things are "on the Hill" and others are outside an invisible boundary need to understand, is that the person who lives at 7th and Maryland NE is sad about moving away from not just the CH historic district, but a much broader area with a bunch of amenities and community that extend well beyond it. They are sad to move away from H Street, which is not "on the Hill" but is walkable from their house and includes a nice grocery store and a host of restaurants and bars and retail stores they enjoy. They are sad to miss out on walkability to Nats Park in the summer, which is in Navy Yard but the proximity of Navy Yard and its amenities is a huge benefit to people on the Hill. They'll also miss Union Market and the Angelika, being able to walk or bike or catch a bus into downtown or to the museums on the mall. All of this is part of what makes CH special. It's not about just living in a few square blocks of row homes.

They also have friends throughout the Hill *and environs* that will include people who live north of H, east of Lincoln Park, and south of Pennsylvania Ave. And those friends, they'll find, have the same concerns about schools (their kids are zoned for the same schools after elementary), the same reasons for loving the neighborhood, the same reticence to leave. They will spend lots of time at those friend's homes or meeting those friends in the neighborhood, even though they live "on Capitol Hill" and their friends live in NoMa, Navy Yard, and Hill East.

If you live in a suburb without the kind of walkability and density of the Hill, you may not get any of this. If the only places you can walk in your neighborhood are the surrounding streets, and going anywhere else means getting in the car whether it's 2 miles or 20 miles away, you might not get this.

No one who lives on Capitol Hill looks at people who live in Kingman Park or near Union Market or south of Eastern Market and thinks "oh those people's problems and attachment to this area are totally different from mine." Unless they are very dumb.

If we’re throwing down, the Hill is the area bounded by S/N Cap to the west, Florida Ave/Benning to the north, the Anacostia to the east, and I-65 to the south. Fight me.

Actually to amend that slightly - the NW border is the train tracks. NOMA is definitely not the Hill.

[Anonymous]

Let’s be real. The only part of DC that isn’t part of the Hill is the NW quadrant. That why when people leave the Hill but stay in DC, they end up in NW.

[Anonymous]

We've lived near 7th and Maryland for the past 20 years and agree with all of the above. If you don't want to have regrets about moving, you need to plan far ahead to give your family the best shot of staying in the event that you lack charter lottery luck, or don't care for your DCPS or charter options. We built a basement rental years ago to enable us to afford parochial middle school and high school if need be. If we didn't have our rental income, which covers for more than half of our mortgage, we'd be gone, and upset about it. Standards for academics and behavior aren't high enough for us in DCPS and we wouldn't choose a DC charter.

[Anonymous]

The parents moving from the Hill to NW or the burbs for school aren't nearly that committed. They aren't going to go the extra mile to stay by building basement apartments. They want lottery luck. They plan on getting it until they....don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The parents moving from the Hill to NW or the burbs for school aren't nearly that committed. They aren't going to go the extra mile to stay by building basement apartments. They want lottery luck. They plan on getting it until they....don't.

Or they can’t afford a row house with a basement?

Kind of hard to put a rental unit in your condo.

I don’t know why it’s hard for some of you to understand that the main factor in being able to stay on the Hill long term without relying on lottery luck is money/resources. You’re very attached to the idea that you are able to stay because others “failed to plan.” You can plan all you want but if you don’t have the money or resources to make certain real estate choices or establish alternative forms of income, it won’t matter.

Like I’m happy for you that you have a solution that works for you, but refusing to get that your solution is out of reach for many people just makes you sound like a jackass. Of course not everyone can fund private school with a rental income unit! Come on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The parents moving from the Hill to NW or the burbs for school aren't nearly that committed. They aren't going to go the extra mile to stay by building basement apartments. They want lottery luck. They plan on getting it until they....don't.

Or they can’t afford a row house with a basement?

Kind of hard to put a rental unit in your condo.

I don’t know why it’s hard for some of you to understand that the main factor in being able to stay on the Hill long term without relying on lottery luck is money/resources. You’re very attached to the idea that you are able to stay because others “failed to plan.” You can plan all you want but if you don’t have the money or resources to make certain real estate choices or establish alternative forms of income, it won’t matter.

Like I’m happy for you that you have a solution that works for you, but refusing to get that your solution is out of reach for many people just makes you sound like a jackass. Of course not everyone can fund private school with a rental income unit! Come on.

If they can’t afford a rowhouse with a basement, how are they going to afford a condo in NW or the burbs?

[Anonymous]

Move into the Whitman district in Maryland. All of the elementary schools are good and so are the middle schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We've lived near 7th and Maryland for the past 20 years and agree with all of the above. If you don't want to have regrets about moving, you need to plan far ahead to give your family the best shot of staying in the event that you lack charter lottery luck, or don't care for your DCPS or charter options. We built a basement rental years ago to enable us to afford parochial middle school and high school if need be. If we didn't have our rental income, which covers for more than half of our mortgage, we'd be gone, and upset about it. Standards for academics and behavior aren't high enough for us in DCPS and we wouldn't choose a DC charter.

Not sure why you’re so smug since your plan still depends on the unknown factor of actually getting your kid admitted to a private/parochial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The parents moving from the Hill to NW or the burbs for school aren't nearly that committed. They aren't going to go the extra mile to stay by building basement apartments. They want lottery luck. They plan on getting it until they....don't.

Or they can’t afford a row house with a basement?

Kind of hard to put a rental unit in your condo.

I don’t know why it’s hard for some of you to understand that the main factor in being able to stay on the Hill long term without relying on lottery luck is money/resources. You’re very attached to the idea that you are able to stay because others “failed to plan.” You can plan all you want but if you don’t have the money or resources to make certain real estate choices or establish alternative forms of income, it won’t matter.

Like I’m happy for you that you have a solution that works for you, but refusing to get that your solution is out of reach for many people just makes you sound like a jackass. Of course not everyone can fund private school with a rental income unit! Come on.

Thank you. This is how the whole detour into property value and the definition of the Hill started. My take is that there are many families (me included) that are highly educated and expect that for our kids, yet don’t have the money to “just go private” or “just move to NW.” And of course no matter how much people moralize about it, there’s only so much planning you can do before your kid is in elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The parents moving from the Hill to NW or the burbs for school aren't nearly that committed. They aren't going to go the extra mile to stay by building basement apartments. They want lottery luck. They plan on getting it until they....don't.

Or they can’t afford a row house with a basement?

Kind of hard to put a rental unit in your condo.

I don’t know why it’s hard for some of you to understand that the main factor in being able to stay on the Hill long term without relying on lottery luck is money/resources. You’re very attached to the idea that you are able to stay because others “failed to plan.” You can plan all you want but if you don’t have the money or resources to make certain real estate choices or establish alternative forms of income, it won’t matter.

Like I’m happy for you that you have a solution that works for you, but refusing to get that your solution is out of reach for many people just makes you sound like a jackass. Of course not everyone can fund private school with a rental income unit! Come on.

If they can’t afford a rowhouse with a basement, how are they going to afford a condo in NW or the burbs?

hence my point about why people kick the can down the road …. the suburbs we can afford to move to are not a necessarily hugely evident improvement over the Hill MS, yet are still a big lifestyle change.

I guess the only way I could say I actually planned is that I only had one kid (by choice). So I actually can afford to cram us into a 2 bedroom apartment zoned for a “good” school - but I know that’s not feasible for most families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Move into the Whitman district in Maryland. All of the elementary schools are good and so are the middle schools.

“let them eat cake”

[Anonymous]

Some people on this thread seem really committed to the idea that you must be a moron if you didn't perfectly plan your life 10-15 years ahead. Yes of course some amount of realistic planning is required in life, but you don't always know exactly how many kids you will have, what their educational needs will be, and what schools and school districts will look like that far out. You don't know what your future financial situation will look like. Facing a middle school problem on the Hill is not automatically the result of a lack of planning. Have some empathy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some people on this thread seem really committed to the idea that you must be a moron if you didn't perfectly plan your life 10-15 years ahead. Yes of course some amount of realistic planning is required in life, but you don't always know exactly how many kids you will have, what their educational needs will be, and what schools and school districts will look like that far out. You don't know what your future financial situation will look like. Facing a middle school problem on the Hill is not automatically the result of a lack of planning. Have some empathy.

It sounds like so many people on the Hill are facing a MS problem that if they just all went to their local MS, the problem would be solved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some people on this thread seem really committed to the idea that you must be a moron if you didn't perfectly plan your life 10-15 years ahead. Yes of course some amount of realistic planning is required in life, but you don't always know exactly how many kids you will have, what their educational needs will be, and what schools and school districts will look like that far out. You don't know what your future financial situation will look like. Facing a middle school problem on the Hill is not automatically the result of a lack of planning. Have some empathy.

It sounds like so many people on the Hill are facing a MS problem that if they just all went to their local MS, the problem would be solved.

Well, this is why so many in Hill East are now going to EH. They can’t move and struck out in the lottery, but they know everyone else in the neighborhood is in the sane boat, so suddenly EH doesn’t look so bad.