Future parents--heartburn over schooling--would love insight

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1/3 of the kids at Payne do not come from the homeless shelter. This is wildly inaccurate and actually harmful to parents who are considering Payne.

And Payne isn't struggling to keep families past K. The 2011/12 school year was the first year that "gentrifiers" tried Payne. Of the 6 or 7 families in preschool and preK, all but maybe one were very happy atleast for that school year. And about half are staying for the next grade. I don't know if any are thinking of Payne longterm, but not because Payne is bad. I think a lot of parents in the less popular schools play the lottery every year and then weigh options. My child was at Payne and the school was safe and orderly. We would have stayed but are moving our child to be with his sibling.

Come on, the homeless shelter population at Payne is large, as is the PG County address cheater population, the school's test scores are the lowest on the Hill, and the institution is absolutely struggling to keep white families past even preK 3. Yes, well-educated parents were happy with prek3, and a few will stay for prek 4 and maybe even k, but the ES grades are hardly looking like fertile ground for well-educated parents. Class-based PTA battles at Payne have turned ugly. Similar story at Ludlow-Taylor, where the principal isn't half as friendly to the gentrifiers. Stanton Park neighborhood folk are still waiting for LT to "turn" since the prek first became popular 5 years ago. The story is generally "we loved Payne or LT, we would have stayed, but, ahem, we didn't." The point is that the person who started this thread might want to go into the home buying process with his or her eyes wide open.

[Anonymous]

+1. Just because a Hill neighborhood is full of gentrifiers doesn't mean that a particular ES school (DCPS or charter) is, or necessarily ever will be.

Principals who don't want to deal with affluent parents, PTA politics complicated by class-based battles, DCPS and school administrators letting widespread PG county address cheating slide, pockets of crushing neighborhood poverty, faculty of all one race (you know the one), budget cuts, lack of G&T programs can all hinder sweeping change in the elementary grades. Home buyer beware.

[Anonymous]

Is it really important to you to slam a school like Payne, with an engaged, caring and welcoming prinicpal, wonderful preschool teachers, and a small and friendly student community? The test scores are bad, but so are Maury's and even Brent's have only recently improved. Yes, there are about 15 kids who arrive on a bus from a homeless shelter. The older kids at Payne are not fighting in the hallways. If Payne isn't for you that's fine, but unless you've had a kid
at the school please don't pose as an authority on it.

[Anonymous]

I just really don't understand the mindset that I'll buy an $800K+ house and worry about schools later. I would much rather have fewer square feet and make sure I'm either in an excellent school district or I'd send my kid to private school. My child's education is more important than anything else.

[Anonymous]

My point being, if you have the money to buy an 800K house, you have a lot of options. Not sure why you'd pick this one. There are a lot of "vibrant communities" around, and frankly, I'm not even really sure that Navy Yard qualifies. (I work down there, FWIW.)

[Anonymous]

+1

With that kind of $, there are a lot of better neighborhoods if you are worried about schools.

[Anonymous]

geez! she doesn't even have kids yet! why not buy a house where she is happy now? She could sell or rent it out later if she is in the minority of people that A) have children and B) can't find any decent school options in DC.

[Anonymous]

OP, if you have the money to spend and going to public school is important to you, buy in a neighborhood with an established in boundary school. When we bought, we did not have children and did not even look at the school situation. Fast forward 6 years and our IB school has not even taken a step towards being an acceptable choice for us. So not every school is just going to magically turn around. And you can count us in the group that has been unsuccessfully playing the lottery for 2 years. We will most likely go private for K which is not my preference (for reasons completely unrelated to money) at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, if you have the money to spend and going to public school is important to you, buy in a neighborhood with an established in boundary school. When we bought, we did not have children and did not even look at the school situation. Fast forward 6 years and our IB school has not even taken a step towards being an acceptable choice for us. So not every school is just going to magically turn around. And you can count us in the group that has been unsuccessfully playing the lottery for 2 years. We will most likely go private for K which is not my preference (for reasons completely unrelated to money) at all.

Hardly an usual situation. Nobody's slamming the professional IB parents for trying hard to improve Payne and Ludlow-Taylor, the opposite. They're just up against a hell of a lot past prek (although they may be loth to admit it). Best to read the writing on the wall if a home buyer wants to stay put for years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, the downtown feel is the reason??? I didn't realize Capitol Hill/SW had such a "downtown" feel.....WOW!

15:11 - "Obvious reasons?" What are those? Too residential or too dark?

Capitol Hill doesn't have a "downtown" feel, so much as it has a "walkable neighborhood" feel, arguably the best in the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, if you have the money to spend and going to public school is important to you, buy in a neighborhood with an established in boundary school. When we bought, we did not have children and did not even look at the school situation. Fast forward 6 years and our IB school has not even taken a step towards being an acceptable choice for us. So not every school is just going to magically turn around. And you can count us in the group that has been unsuccessfully playing the lottery for 2 years. We will most likely go private for K which is not my preference (for reasons completely unrelated to money) at all.

You're kidding, right? This is a child she isn't even pregnant with yet! Not to mention: boundaries are becoming less and less important, and charters are becoming more and more important. Living west of the park won't get your little Sophia into one of the bilingual schools any more than a great spot in the Yards or CH will. So, live where you're happy now and foresee being happy in the future. The game doesn't change based on where you live.

Also, an ugly and expensive cramped house in AU Park is a bad bargain: monolingual is the new stupid.

[Anonymous]

22:19 is the new stupid. What makes you so sure that people in AU Park seek out a monolingual education? Because they may not be frothing at the mouth at the slight chance of getting into Yu Ying? Thankfully, people in AU Park don't have to worry about the gamble of charter school admittance and there's nothing stopping them from having their children learn a second language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:22:19 is the new stupid. What makes you so sure that people in AU Park seek out a monolingual education? Because they may not be frothing at the mouth at the slight chance of getting into Yu Ying? Thankfully, people in AU Park don't have to worry about the gamble of charter school admittance and there's nothing stopping them from having their children learn a second language.

+1. The bilingual charter schools are overrated anyway. Without immersion MS options, collectively, the little kids in them, whose language skills generally aren't being reinforced at home (almost the entire Yu Ying population as there's no Chinese community behind the school, vs. Oyster, supported by a Latino community), are likely to have a hard time hanging onto their "fluency." CH parents in particular tend to use YY and others to escape not-so-great neighborhood schools, not because they have a connection to the immersion language/culture, or a definite path to Intl Bacca in HS.

You're better off starting with a solid IB ES school and seeing if lottery luck at an immersion school works for you later. Can't agree more with the poster who suggested that. Housing prices are rising a lot faster than salaries - it can be difficult to afford to move after you already have a kid or two.

[Anonymous]

Also since when does "established IB school" = AU Park? I was the original poster of that comment and I meant move into Brent district as other posters suggested. If I had it to do over again, I'd move into Ross. There are plenty of great, urban neighborhoods with schools that are good and rapidly getting better. If you have the money to be choosy, it's worthwhile in my opinion to play attention to the school boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also since when does "established IB school" = AU Park? I was the original poster of that comment and I meant move into Brent district as other posters suggested. If I had it to do over again, I'd move into Ross. There are plenty of great, urban neighborhoods with schools that are good and rapidly getting better. If you have the money to be choosy, it's worthwhile in my opinion to play attention to the school boundaries.

+1
I would pick Capitol Hill proper over Navy Yard a hundred times over if I had a choice!