Looking for a house zoned for a center school?

[Anonymous]

This is a repost from the Real Estate forum, I figured people here might have a better idea about the AAP centers. We have 3 kids, the oldest just got into the AAP program, and we would like to move him to the center. We are looking for a house; and if our other kids are in Gen Ed, we would like all of them to be in the same school (overlap of 4 years) to simplify logistics, so should we narrow our search to houses zoned for the AAP centers? We are pretty flexible geographically (looking in springfield , burke, centreville, chantilly).
Are there any pros/cons to this? Does anyone have any experiences? Is it a crazy idea to restrict ourselves like this?

[Anonymous]

You can search on Redfin for houses zones for a particular school, justcsetup a bunch of auto searches for each center in the areas you are considering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a repost from the Real Estate forum, I figured people here might have a better idea about the AAP centers. We have 3 kids, the oldest just got into the AAP program, and we would like to move him to the center. We are looking for a house; and if our other kids are in Gen Ed, we would like all of them to be in the same school (overlap of 4 years) to simplify logistics, so should we narrow our search to houses zoned for the AAP centers? We are pretty flexible geographically (looking in springfield , burke, centreville, chantilly).
Are there any pros/cons to this? Does anyone have any experiences? Is it a crazy idea to restrict ourselves like this?

Sounds very normal to me. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Um we did the same thing and the school boundaries changed 1 year later. That sucked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Um we did the same thing and the school boundaries changed 1 year later. That sucked.

One way to guarantee not being rezoned is get a house in front of the school, which is what my friend with 4 kids did.

[Anonymous]

We live in a center boundary, and it's a mixed bag for us. Our school is fine, but, despite its stellar reputation and test scores, we're not jazzed about the experience we've had for our IEP/gen ed kid.

Our older child is not in AAP and, while IQ tests are high, there are some medical issues that interfere with executive function skills. This kid is better served in the general education classrooms, and the problem with being a center school is that all the kids that require additional help - IEPs, ESOL, not performing at grade level - are concentrated in fewer classrooms. Our school has five classes at the AAP grade levels (3-6), and they are split 3 classes for AAP and 2 for gen ed, whereas other schools will have 3-5 classes at each grade level with more distribution of special needs students. Also, the AAP classes are around 20 kids and the general eds are 25+. Kid went from being above grade level prior to transferring into the center base school to not passing an SOL in two years. I think the gen ed teachers are spread way too thin and, in some ways, ignored in favor of the "smart kids".

Our other child is in AAP. We never faced a decision on changing schools to take advantage of the program. Logistically, having both in the same school is helpful; however, when we move to middle school shortly, we'll be dealing with kids in two school anyway - over time, it's unavoidable.


We did not deliberately choose a center as our base school, but we were in a limited budget situation for housing, and the best house we could get for our money happened to be in a center boundary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can search on Redfin for houses zones for a particular school, justcsetup a bunch of auto searches for each center in the areas you are considering.

+ 1. As you do this, make sure the house is not on the border of the school zone. Also, make sure the high school the house is zoned to is one you don't mind or would love to go.

[Anonymous]

We are very happy that our school is a center school. It has made our life much easier with one child who go in the center in 3rd grade, one who got in a few years later in fourth grade, and one in Kindergarten. It's a good experience for all and has made our life simpler.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in a center boundary, and it's a mixed bag for us. Our school is fine, but, despite its stellar reputation and test scores, we're not jazzed about the experience we've had for our IEP/gen ed kid.

Our older child is not in AAP and, while IQ tests are high, there are some medical issues that interfere with executive function skills. This kid is better served in the general education classrooms, and the problem with being a center school is that all the kids that require additional help - IEPs, ESOL, not performing at grade level - are concentrated in fewer classrooms. Our school has five classes at the AAP grade levels (3-6), and they are split 3 classes for AAP and 2 for gen ed, whereas other schools will have 3-5 classes at each grade level with more distribution of special needs students. Also, the AAP classes are around 20 kids and the general eds are 25+. Kid went from being above grade level prior to transferring into the center base school to not passing an SOL in two years. I think the gen ed teachers are spread way too thin and, in some ways, ignored in favor of the "smart kids".

Our other child is in AAP. We never faced a decision on changing schools to take advantage of the program. Logistically, having both in the same school is helpful; however, when we move to middle school shortly, we'll be dealing with kids in two school anyway - over time, it's unavoidable.


We did not deliberately choose a center as our base school, but we were in a limited budget situation for housing, and the best house we could get for our money happened to be in a center boundary.

I hadn't thought about this but yeah, that sounds like a big problem to me. Also I wouldn't be jazzed about a school with more AAP classrooms than general ed classroom.