Pregnant and house searching -- PK3 question

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone! I'm preggo and house searching and am overwhelmed by all the DCPS info. This is a subjective question, but has anyone who moved to a district where there is no PK3 later regretted it when they had a kid? So few schools offer it and daycare is like $24000 a year in DC, so I feel a lot of pressure to find a home in a district with PK3. $24000/yr is substantial savings for our budget.

[Anonymous]

Also we keep looking in Glover Park b/c it's affordable.... but it's actually not much better for us over a 7 yr timespan (compared to say, a more expensive place that feeds to SWW@FS) because of the difficulty of IB getting into PK4 at Stoddert. 2 years of PK at SWW@FS would save us $50,000 in daycare costs even though our mortgage would be higher in that district.

[Anonymous]

PK isn't guaranteed in DC, meaning you can buy in area that has PK, but not get a seat because there are not enough seats available for all the kids within that zone. Usually however, there is a seat available sonewhere (in another school). If all you want is free PK, you can list schools that have a high chance of having seats available and the drive your kid over to that school, then go to your inbound school once kindergarten begins.

[Anonymous]

I'm in your same boat (pregnant and house searching), and we just decided to rent until our older child goes through the lottery. We were really impressed with a lot of the charters, which are mostly in Ward 5 (NE) or Petworth, but if we bought in those areas and didn't get into a charter we would be stuck at a bad in-boundary school.

Our plan is to find a 3 BR rental in an area where we would be able to go to the decent neighborhood school as a backup. That should get us through the next 1.5-2 years until our older child would go through the lottery. Then when we find out where she gets in, we can look to buy closer to that school then, or stay put in our rental if we want to see how it goes first. I just really didn't want to get stuck in a home and not be able to move before we see how the school thing shakes out.

[Anonymous]

Also the vast majority of schools have PK3. So you must be looking at Ward 3/Upper NW schools.

As others have said, all PK4 seats citywide are allocated by lottery and there is no requirement to attend or guarantee that every child will get one of the slots. In recent years there has not always been room for all the IB children (same thing on Cap Hill / Brent).

The other things to consider is that after care, holiday day care and summer camps, assuming you plan to continue working. Your savings from pre K 3 and PK4 tuition/day care may not turn out to be as large as you imagine. Do the math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also the vast majority of schools have PK3. So you must be looking at Ward 3/Upper NW schools.

As others have said, all PK4 seats citywide are allocated by lottery and there is no requirement to attend or guarantee that every child will get one of the slots. In recent years there has not always been room for all the IB children (same thing on Cap Hill / Brent).

The other things to consider is that after care, holiday day care and summer camps, assuming you plan to continue working. Your savings from pre K 3 and PK4 tuition/day care may not turn out to be as large as you imagine. Do the math.

+1

Sending my child to DCPS preschool only reduced my childcare bill by about 55%. It great, but not truly free. If you go for cheap summer camp, you can probably save more, but the desirable DPR sites go quickly, and the YMCA moved kids to different sites last year, which meant havoc for patents' commutes. Also Stoddert does not have many before and after care slots.

[Anonymous]

I would not think shortsightedly OP. Make the better long term school decision.

[Anonymous]

Preggo?

[Anonymous]

I don't regret it. We decided it was more valuable to us to be able to live somewhere IB for good elementary, middle, and high schools and we picked a house where my kids can walk to all three. Worth more than one year of free day care.

[Anonymous]

Whatever you do, having a plan to sell and move in 3 or 5 years is a bad one. Just budget for 5 years of childcare and move to a good DCPS zone unless you are prepared to take a haircut on your real estate investment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't regret it. We decided it was more valuable to us to be able to live somewhere IB for good elementary, middle, and high schools and we picked a house where my kids can walk to all three. Worth more than one year of free day care.

Agree - we are in a smaller less renovated home IB for Deal/Wilson. I am so glad we made this choice.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks everyone--I always learn so much from this board! We currently rent a 1 bedroom in the Ross district so I guess we could keep doing that and bump up to a 2 bedroom within our building. Judging by the 6 fruitless months we've spent house searching I definitely don't want to do this again ever, but with a $500k budget it's been impossible to find a 2 bedroom, much less a 3 bedroom with decent HOA fees where we want to live (within 30 min walk to the left side of the red line since we want to be car free and both work in Bethesda--I know I know, car free with a baby is impossible anyway).

[Anonymous]

good luck OP! there are more people juggling the exact same decisions and weighing things than you realize.

[Anonymous]

Big plot twist to reveal you work in Bethesda. I would rent a condo there while waiting to buy. I used to live in one of the buildings off Wiconsin myself.

[Anonymous]

Thanks PP! There must be a lot of then b/c they keep writing better offers than we do lol