Does anyone else feel stressed about lack of school options?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And your posts are exceedingly rude. I think I would be worried about your children setting bad examples in my well to do suburban school to be honest. I was 14:02 about New York which you thanked me for so I'm not sure why I'm holier than thou. You keep discussing how you won't move out past Arlington or Bethesda but then exclaim that suburban Ohio is the way to go. I've merely pointed out that many of us are happy in the suburbs and even have jobs out here verses DC and feel comfortable about getting a job in the future if needed. If you don't like that option or any others presented to you, please move. As others have said, DC isn't the end all be all, but it isn't the pits either. There are $400,000 houses in our neighborhood with a 500 student population, but they aren't brand spanking new. You'd probably find fault with that too.

I'm glad you're happy in the suburbs here. In my view if I have to move to the suburbs for a good school, I don't have to live in the suburbs here. In my case I can live in suburbs near my entire family, see my COL go down, my QOL go up, and get a good job in my field. So many of you seem incapable of acknowledging that this is possible anywhere outside of DC or another large city (frankly, DC is not even a large city, by any measure). There are plenty of mid-sized cities out there where this is achievable, and people have their reasons for pursuing that as an option. It may not be what would make you happy, and you may not agree with the reasoning, but that doesn't make it an invalid choice and it doesn't make people stupid, or provincial, or whatever other baseless charge folks want to throw out there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I don't get this. Our HHI is well below that (This $100k below) and we are doing fine. We are in the northern Arlington/southern McLean area. We saved one of our salaries entirely for the first few years of marriage so we could have a huge down payment. Then we bought a fixer upper and fixed it up.

When did you buy, and when did you move here? That makes a huge difference. If you are younger and trying to start a family, you are buying shitty houses that cost 1/3 of your take home pay, a ton of savings and time to fix, while trying to pay for daycare (another third of pay), and navigate crappy school systems. Those who bought when the market was more reasonable and apartments could be had for cheap ( a one bedroom runs $1500+ these days and a 2 bed $3k or more) just don't seem to get this. Living in DC is not worth the overpriced RE.

[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.

Don't you have the same problem in every expensive urban area? Look at NY, San Fran, and LA, in addition to DC. All of these cities have lots of job opportunities and great lifestyles for wealthy people, but they certainly are not affordable for people that don't pull in high incomes. What makes no sense to me is why you'd ever live in one of these extremely expensive areas if you couldn't afford to do it and were unhappy with the options. If you're here for the job opportunities, then likely those job opportunities are good, and you can afford a good school and/or a good suburb. If the job opportunities suck, than why wouldn't you move to a lower COL area? Same goes for people living in these other very expensive cities. People complain about not being able to afford NYC unless they make $X salary. Yeah, that's true, except why live there unless you have a great job that allows you to enjoy the amenities that you have to pay more for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I don't get this. Our HHI is well below that (This $100k below) and we are doing fine. We are in the northern Arlington/southern McLean area. We saved one of our salaries entirely for the first few years of marriage so we could have a huge down payment. Then we bought a fixer upper and fixed it up.

When did you buy, and when did you move here? That makes a huge difference. If you are younger and trying to start a family, you are buying shitty houses that cost 1/3 of your take home pay, a ton of savings and time to fix, while trying to pay for daycare (another third of pay), and navigate crappy school systems. Those who bought when the market was more reasonable and apartments could be had for cheap ( a one bedroom runs $1500+ these days and a 2 bed $3k or more) just don't seem to get this. Living in DC is not worth the overpriced RE.

The key for us was saving for years for a large downpayment AND not starting a family until we had bought the shitty house and redone it. When we bought our "shitty" house, it would have cost us 1/3 of our HHI IF we only had 10% to put down. Since we saved prior to it, we had enough for a more reasonable mortgage AND for reno costs. I think people want everything NOW and perfect, but planning and saving work well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I don't get this. Our HHI is well below that (This $100k below) and we are doing fine. We are in the northern Arlington/southern McLean area. We saved one of our salaries entirely for the first few years of marriage so we could have a huge down payment. Then we bought a fixer upper and fixed it up.

Well, not all of us make enough to save 20% or more, and if we waited until we did, we'd be too old to start having children at that point. I'm sure that's a circumstance you can judge too, though.
When did you buy, and when did you move here? That makes a huge difference. If you are younger and trying to start a family, you are buying shitty houses that cost 1/3 of your take home pay, a ton of savings and time to fix, while trying to pay for daycare (another third of pay), and navigate crappy school systems. Those who bought when the market was more reasonable and apartments could be had for cheap ( a one bedroom runs $1500+ these days and a 2 bed $3k or more) just don't seem to get this. Living in DC is not worth the overpriced RE.

The key for us was saving for years for a large downpayment AND not starting a family until we had bought the shitty house and redone it. When we bought our "shitty" house, it would have cost us 1/3 of our HHI IF we only had 10% to put down. Since we saved prior to it, we had enough for a more reasonable mortgage AND for reno costs. I think people want everything NOW and perfect, but planning and saving work well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I don't get this. Our HHI is well below that (This $100k below) and we are doing fine. We are in the northern Arlington/southern McLean area. We saved one of our salaries entirely for the first few years of marriage so we could have a huge down payment. Then we bought a fixer upper and fixed it up.

When did you buy, and when did you move here? That makes a huge difference. If you are younger and trying to start a family, you are buying shitty houses that cost 1/3 of your take home pay, a ton of savings and time to fix, while trying to pay for daycare (another third of pay), and navigate crappy school systems. Those who bought when the market was more reasonable and apartments could be had for cheap ( a one bedroom runs $1500+ these days and a 2 bed $3k or more) just don't seem to get this. Living in DC is not worth the overpriced RE.

We didn't live in apartments buildings that charged $1500 for one bedrooms. When we were single we lived in group houses and had a room. When we married we lived in a hole in the wall one room basement "apartment" off the beaten path and saved as much as we could.

[Anonymous]

Still think OP is too whiny and entitled to merit all the good advice she is getting.

[Anonymous]

MCPS schools are among the best in the country. We purposely avoided living in DC because of the poor quality of the schools. Unless you can afford to pay for private school, I would get out while you can. You won't regret it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, the problem I have with the PP who says there are too many options is I think think she/he fails to see that ALL of those options still require a certain HHI.

It is expensive even to get a small apartment in MOCO. So let's not fool ourselves. I lived in Takoma Park in the early 2000s, and it was expensive then (and I lived in a 1-bedroom apartment that didn't have AC).

People who say move to PG and then you can afford private school don't realize that for a lot of people, even living in, gasp, PG county is expensive!!! Not all salaries in DC support the high COL.

Personally, I don't care about scores. I don't care about getting a kid into an Ivy League. For me, the issue is safety and behavioral issues. And that is a serious concern in the public school choices in D.C. and PG and parts of MOCO. that's what scares people. And because of those issues, private schools are hard to get into and expensive.

I hate when people act like people are overdramatic.

Personally, I plan to give public schools in PG a try, but I live in a section that feeds to a more stable school. And where I live isn't dirt cheap, like people pretend PG is, but MOCO doesn't work for me for financial and commute reasons.

And yes, it is reasonable for people to consider commute. If a person has to commute over an hour to and from work, it does affect how much they see their kid. Not to mention it adds to before and after care costs, and even then MOST of those after care places require you to be there by 6pm. Some long commutes don't allow for that.

So while I believe there are solutions and trade-offs, I still think it's very hard for the true middle class in the d.c. area (by middle class, I mean 100k hhi).

I'm the PP who posted the list of options. Our family income is about $80K. For us the apartment in Bethesda was the right choice. All of the options I listed are well within the range of a middle class DC family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And your posts are exceedingly rude. I think I would be worried about your children setting bad examples in my well to do suburban school to be honest. I was 14:02 about New York which you thanked me for so I'm not sure why I'm holier than thou. You keep discussing how you won't move out past Arlington or Bethesda but then exclaim that suburban Ohio is the way to go. I've merely pointed out that many of us are happy in the suburbs and even have jobs out here verses DC and feel comfortable about getting a job in the future if needed. If you don't like that option or any others presented to you, please move. As others have said, DC isn't the end all be all, but it isn't the pits either. There are $400,000 houses in our neighborhood with a 500 student population, but they aren't brand spanking new. You'd probably find fault with that too.

I'm glad you're happy in the suburbs here. In my view if I have to move to the suburbs for a good school, I don't have to live in the suburbs here. In my case I can live in suburbs near my entire family, see my COL go down, my QOL go up, and get a good job in my field. So many of you seem incapable of acknowledging that this is possible anywhere outside of DC or another large city (frankly, DC is not even a large city, by any measure). There are plenty of mid-sized cities out there where this is achievable, and people have their reasons for pursuing that as an option. It may not be what would make you happy, and you may not agree with the reasoning, but that doesn't make it an invalid choice and it doesn't make people stupid, or provincial, or whatever other baseless charge folks want to throw out there.

There's nothing wrong with moving to Ohio. You're welcome to move to Ohio, and being close to family is a wonderful reason to do so. But if you're moving to Ohio because of your family, then claiming it's because there are no school options in the DC area is disingenuous.

Right now the economy in much of Ohio is a disaster. If you can find a high paying job in Ohio, that's fantastic. Many families, however, are struggling with job loss, cuts in hours or pay, and the loss of value of their homes.

[Anonymous]

why is so much of this thread taken up by a debate on moving to a far-away state?? We all live here. We are looking for solutions to the problem HERE. Sure, moving out of the area is always a possible solution for any local problem but that shouldn't have to be the only option. What is exceedingly frustrating is that there are so MANY families facing the same struggle but the schools in less afluent areas have not found a good way to balance meeting the needs of poor kids while not turning off the middle class kids. So the schools go further downhill while middle class families have to move into a smaller and smaller pocket of "good" areas or swallow private school costs. I don't want to move or do private - I want to be able to send the kids to the local school and honestly - as a suburb dweller who pays a fair amt in taxes towards those schools - i really don't see this expectation as wildly unreasonable.

[Anonymous]

PP, wheredo you see the schools going further downhill as a result of trying to meet the needs of poor kids, while middle-class families move into a smaller and smaller pocket of "good" or swallow private school costs?

[Anonymous]

I think there's a sea change brewing among the next tier schools. People are actively considering schools like Powell, for example, or Takoma, which had very few in-bounds, middle SES families for decades. Now people are competing to place their 3 yr olds there. Yes there will be peel-off at first, like when the first charters opened... people peeled off for new charters or WotP schools that had a solid reputation. But some people stayed and made the school desirable. Those same charters 10 yrs later have wait lists in the 800s. The same thing will happen with these middle of the road schools in places like Capitol Hill, Petworth, Shaw. It will be a combination of school choice pushing competition, gentrification, political pressure, parental expectations.

Unfortunately, the worst schools in the farthest neighborhoods will probably improve the least.

[Anonymous]

Large cities are not known for having great school systems or for being affordable living with kids. Too many other competing interests and people without children who don't care. Also, they are often very transient places. DC has actually become a lot better over the past 10 years. Before then, most people wouldn't even consider staying in DC for the school years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Large cities are not known for having great school systems or for being affordable living with kids. Too many other competing interests and people without children who don't care. Also, they are often very transient places. DC has actually become a lot better over the past 10 years. Before then, most people wouldn't even consider staying in DC for the school years.

Exactly this. It's about priorities. And the reality is that raising a family in a city requires trade-offs. Not everyone is willing to make those trade offs, or stick around to fight a dysfunctional government and entrenched status quo interests to try and make it better. For me, I expect that the people my taxes employ to run decent schools will do their jobs. I shouldn't have to work a full time job while raising a family AND spent countless hours as an activist to ensure that my kid can go to a decent school.