Watching your friends relocate to the burbs for "schools"

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:DD just started 3rd grade and same as the previous year's a small but consistent flow of our friends and acquaintances are no longer there. We do the tap dance of one or two play dates after they move where the conversation always circles back to their rationalization of why they just had to move out of the city which comes off as (you will understand soon enough). Am I missing something or are all of our peers simply misguided. It seems like every friend she makes now lives in Md or VA. I assume it will stabilize by middle school?

"Are all of or peers simply misguided?" Wow, what arrogant self-righteousness.

No one could possibly make a different choice than you without being misguided.

Maybe people move for better schools, or more space, or to get away from crime, or to avoid assorted nuisances inherent with city living, or to be near relatives in the burbs or any other of a million possible personal factors.

Nothing wrong with your choice to prioritize the benefits of the city, but your condescension towards your (no doubt former) friends who chose differently is the only thing that is misguided.

+ 100

We moved to MoCo, with some hesitation. Once we go there, we smacked ourselves on the head and asked ourselves why we didn't do it sooner.

To each his own. We moved to MoCo in Chevy Chase, MD. I could not get of there fast enough. I wanted back to DC. It's was too suburban for me. I never assumed that our kids would want to attend a state school. Our oldest chose a private college. I didn't want to choose for him. You never know what type of college your kid might want. You can't assume that because you move to VA or MD that your kid will want that unless you insist, which we didn't.

Haha, Chevy Chase MD is almost indistinguishable from 90% of DC. Other than having good schools of course.

But it's true, the wealthy don't have to bail b/c they always can go private which I am sure you will well before college.

I think you mean 90% of ward 3. Def not all of DC.

NP here but the point remains, is there really much benefit to being in Tenleytown compared to Friendship Heights/ Chevy Chase?

I am pretty sure that Bethesda Elementary is actually even more diverse in both race and SES than Janney or Lafayette. Just a guess though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just dropped by from the Maryland forum, and this is fascinating to me. All the talk in Silver Spring is that you have to move to Bethesda by middle school or your child will be irreparably harmed by gangs or underachievers or whatever. Anxious parents probably always think the grass is greener elsewhere.

There are a few posters who jump into every thread about SS and start bashing it. Of course SS isn't a fit for everyone -- what is? But there's a lot of garbage thrown around. One can simply post "How do you like Woodside?" or "is this overpriced for Four Corners?" and someone will immediately jump in with "schools suck! gangs on University Blvd!" and not bother to answer the question (not that they have anything to add, anyway).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:DD just started 3rd grade and same as the previous year's a small but consistent flow of our friends and acquaintances are no longer there. We do the tap dance of one or two play dates after they move where the conversation always circles back to their rationalization of why they just had to move out of the city which comes off as (you will understand soon enough). Am I missing something or are all of our peers simply misguided. It seems like every friend she makes now lives in Md or VA. I assume it will stabilize by middle school?

"Are all of or peers simply misguided?" Wow, what arrogant self-righteousness.

No one could possibly make a different choice than you without being misguided.

Maybe people move for better schools, or more space, or to get away from crime, or to avoid assorted nuisances inherent with city living, or to be near relatives in the burbs or any other of a million possible personal factors.

Nothing wrong with your choice to prioritize the benefits of the city, but your condescension towards your (no doubt former) friends who chose differently is the only thing that is misguided.

+ 100

We moved to MoCo, with some hesitation. Once we go there, we smacked ourselves on the head and asked ourselves why we didn't do it sooner.

To each his own. We moved to MoCo in Chevy Chase, MD. I could not get of there fast enough. I wanted back to DC. It's was too suburban for me. I never assumed that our kids would want to attend a state school. Our oldest chose a private college. I didn't want to choose for him. You never know what type of college your kid might want. You can't assume that because you move to VA or MD that your kid will want that unless you insist, which we didn't.

Haha, Chevy Chase MD is almost indistinguishable from 90% of DC. Other than having good schools of course.

But it's true, the wealthy don't have to bail b/c they always can go private which I am sure you will well before college.

I think you mean 90% of ward 3. Def not all of DC.

NP here but the point remains, is there really much benefit to being in Tenleytown compared to Friendship Heights/ Chevy Chase?

I am pretty sure that Bethesda Elementary is actually even more diverse in both race and SES than Janney or Lafayette. Just a guess though.

Not so different by SES. http://public-schools.startclass.com/l/40818/Bethesda-Elementary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just dropped by from the Maryland forum, and this is fascinating to me. All the talk in Silver Spring is that you have to move to Bethesda by middle school or your child will be irreparably harmed by gangs or underachievers or whatever. Anxious parents probably always think the grass is greener elsewhere.

There are a few posters who jump into every thread about SS and start bashing it. Of course SS isn't a fit for everyone -- what is? But there's a lot of garbage thrown around. One can simply post "How do you like Woodside?" or "is this overpriced for Four Corners?" and someone will immediately jump in with "schools suck! gangs on University Blvd!" and not bother to answer the question (not that they have anything to add, anyway).

It sounds like the same thing that happens when people mention DCPS. Some people just insist on painting DC public schools with the same broad brush. For instance, my children attend out IB school, Oyster. We love the school, and we're surrounded by neighborhood children who also attend the Oyster. We're able to walk our kids to school. No issues with neighborhood crime or blight. We also wouldn't have a school with higher test scores if we moved to Chevy Chase, Maryland and sent our children to Rock Creek Forest Elemtary (MoCo's flagship immersion school). We have it good at Oyster, but some people believe the ridiculous stereotype that every DCPS school is failing. Oh well.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Paying for college is a real concern for us. Our oldest is in 5th grade - and we are in a good feeder school. But the reality of saving for and paying for college may drive us to move out of DC.

Are you familiar with the DC Tuition Assistance program? It is a reason many stay and/or move to DC to help pay for college.

Yes - I am familiar with this.

Let's pretend my children decide that they are going to William and Mary. I have 3 children so 12 years of tuition.
The difference between In State and Out of State is ~ 20K. (Note - at UVA it is 30K). DC Tag right now covers $10K.

3 children and 4 years of college, it will cost me an additional $120K to live in DC vs moving to VA.

Suppose they want to go to UC-Berkeley or Penn State?

Berkeley is close to impossible to get in.

Why would one go to Penn State instead of one of the best VA or MD schools?

People who move to NoVa thinking they bought a ticket to a UVa or W&M bargain are going to be sorely disappointed; admission to those schools for NoVa students is unbelievably difficult now.

UVa, for example, takes a third of its students from out of state (UC schools take something like 5% out of staters), and it has to have geographic diversity from within Virginia. Relatively few kids from any given NoVa HS are going to get in, and considering NoVa's explosive growth the competition is fierce. Same for W&M...but it's much smaller than UVa.

There are lots of other good schools in Virginia, and sending kids there at in-state rates is a bargain. But don't move to Arlington there thinking you've eased your kid's path to UVa.

Well, we live in DC and went on the William and Mary tour this summer. The Admission folks made it clear that out of state students are judged by different criteria. It's easier to get in if you are a Virginia resident. We've stuck it out in DC but given that Virginia has some excellent state schools, including William & Mary and UVA, it makes good fiscal sense to get out of the District.

Maybe if you rent. But if you own a home in DC, moving has serious transaction costs -- figure $100,000 on a $1M home ($60K to a real estate agent; $20K in transfer taxes; $20K for fixing small things in one house or the other plus the actual move). And that's real money that evaporates, with no uncertainty about it, today. Now, maybe you can make that back several years down the road IF you have multiple kids AND they all go to in-state public colleges AND your financial situation is such that you actually would pay full sticker price both in-state and out-of-state...but strike any of those conditions and moving is a losing proposition financially (and if you preferred VA for other reasons, you'd probably already live there, right?).

And if your kid (like the vast majority of NOVA kids) doesn't get admitted to UVA or W&M (or VT for engineering), the whole thesis falls apart. I mean, how many kids would prefer VCU for $26,872 all-in per year as a VA resident ( http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1565 ) over, e.g., the University of Minnesota for $26,304 all-in as a DC resident with TAG ( http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=991 )?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Sorry, OP. Your friends "grew up" and decided this shit is real so, instead of working THAT hard and spending THAT KIND of money trying to keep up the millennial pretense of being cool, it was time to face facts. Kids are involved now....time to grow up.

Totally! This was us. Gave up on the coolness of being 15 mins from work and walking distance to amenities. Like another poster said, our stress levels decreased dramatically when we moved. Even our cat is happier, no less the kids. It's a wonderful feeling to open your door and feel comfortable with your children being able to run around outside while you sit in the kitchen and cook. And don't even get me started on the schools. I don't think it's racism either. I'm AA and left for the burbs because I sought more diversity for my children. DC is pretty segregated along race and class.

See, I don't see that as "coolness." For us, a short commute, which allows us to spend more time together as a family and drastically reduces our stress levels, is a straight-up quality of life issue. I'm not a millenial, and I was never cool, but living close-in has some real benefits to both us and our children.

Same here.

This, X10,000

My ability to ride my bike to work, get to and from school meetings and activities during the day, and have hours of extra time with my kids because of my 20 minute commute is a huge, huge, quality of life issue. Easily makes up for concerns about crime, schools, smaller house, etc. But to each his or her own. I understand that people make different choices and value things differently.

[Anonymous]

There are a lot of threads like this and discussions IRL about this issue of city versus suburbs. I get the sense that these discussions are more intense in DC than in most other cities for the following reasons:

1) DC (the District itself) is changing more rapidly than pretty much any other major city, municipality or jurisdiction in the US. Even more so than other cities famous for change, including SF (and the Bay area broadly) and Detroit. You can see this in many objective measures, racial demographics being only the most famous, and it is something we all subjectively feel. So the whole idea or understanding of what it means to live in the city and how we experience that, is incredibly dynamic here.

2) DC has an entrenched culture of professional people moving to the suburbs by default as soon as they have kids, more so than in many other US cities. The suburbs remained the default choice for professional families right up until the late 90s/early 2000s. Gentrification came later to DC than to NYC and SF for example.

3) DC has become a national poster child for a lot of the most important conversations in society today including racial inequalities, public versus private education, (un)affordability of real estate and so on.

So we can expect these discussions to continue!

[Anonymous]

Guys, "one" crossing guard does not help a child cross something like Georgia, or Alaska, or Michigan Colorado or Kansas or Piney Branch, or North Capitol, or any other number of busy streets. And when your child is the only one walking... The issue is compounded. It's not just about cars. Its about peers, it's about the kind of Independence that is formed from having other kids on the street too. Maybe we picked the wrong neighborhood, but, like I said, I look at dtss and I see kids hanging out. Learning how to be independent. I deal with our life in dc and everyone is swept away in their cars from activity to activity. It was cute when we had a six year old; but with a ten year old, I can't stand it.

And the thought of "gangs" in dtss makes me lol. Oh, I'm sure there's some. But most of the rumor about that is just a lot of Bethesda seeing a lot of brown.

[Anonymous]

Crime and safety will cause us to leave long before the school issue. Chief Lanier's parting interviews don't give us much hope for improvement either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Guys, "one" crossing guard does not help a child cross something like Georgia, or Alaska, or Michigan Colorado or Kansas or Piney Branch, or North Capitol, or any other number of busy streets. And when your child is the only one walking... The issue is compounded. It's not just about cars. Its about peers, it's about the kind of Independence that is formed from having other kids on the street too. Maybe we picked the wrong neighborhood, but, like I said, I look at dtss and I see kids hanging out. Learning how to be independent. I deal with our life in dc and everyone is swept away in their cars from activity to activity. It was cute when we had a six year old; but with a ten year old, I can't stand it.

And the thought of "gangs" in dtss makes me lol. Oh, I'm sure there's some. But most of the rumor about that is just a lot of Bethesda seeing a lot of brown.

It must be your neighborhood because the things you want for your child are my DCPS kids' reality. Starting in 6th grade they walked to school, library, soccer, and music lessons and took the bus to religious school and dance. Their life is worlds away from my suburban upbringing where I was carted around from place to place until I could drive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Guys, "one" crossing guard does not help a child cross something like Georgia, or Alaska, or Michigan Colorado or Kansas or Piney Branch, or North Capitol, or any other number of busy streets. And when your child is the only one walking... The issue is compounded. It's not just about cars. Its about peers, it's about the kind of Independence that is formed from having other kids on the street too. Maybe we picked the wrong neighborhood, but, like I said, I look at dtss and I see kids hanging out. Learning how to be independent. I deal with our life in dc and everyone is swept away in their cars from activity to activity. It was cute when we had a six year old; but with a ten year old, I can't stand it.

And the thought of "gangs" in dtss makes me lol. Oh, I'm sure there's some. But most of the rumor about that is just a lot of Bethesda seeing a lot of brown.

There aren't gangs roaming downtown SS. There are gangs in and around the apartment buildings on upper Piney Branch, New Hampshire Ave, etc. And some school boundaries, especially middle and high school, include children from DT SS and these areas. That's where the talk comes from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Guys, "one" crossing guard does not help a child cross something like Georgia, or Alaska, or Michigan Colorado or Kansas or Piney Branch, or North Capitol, or any other number of busy streets. And when your child is the only one walking... The issue is compounded. It's not just about cars. Its about peers, it's about the kind of Independence that is formed from having other kids on the street too. Maybe we picked the wrong neighborhood, but, like I said, I look at dtss and I see kids hanging out. Learning how to be independent. I deal with our life in dc and everyone is swept away in their cars from activity to activity. It was cute when we had a six year old; but with a ten year old, I can't stand it.

And the thought of "gangs" in dtss makes me lol. Oh, I'm sure there's some. But most of the rumor about that is just a lot of Bethesda seeing a lot of brown.

There aren't gangs roaming downtown SS. There are gangs in and around the apartment buildings on upper Piney Branch, New Hampshire Ave, etc. And some school boundaries, especially middle and high school, include children from DT SS and these areas. That's where the talk comes from.

It isn't like large gang fights and problems with teenage mobs in DTSS are unheard of or at the flagship High School. Hell there was talk about a curfew it got so bad a few years ago.
http://kutv.com/news/nation-world/gang-rivalry-sparks-massive-brawl-at-md-high-school
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/concerns-about-silver-spring-spur-consideration-of-curfew/2011/07/26/gIQAXiYobI_story.html

[Anonymous]

OP - Just go private/parochial and save yourself a lot of heartache. People complain about a lot of the schools in the 'burbs too. The only magic is private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Paying for college is a real concern for us. Our oldest is in 5th grade - and we are in a good feeder school. But the reality of saving for and paying for college may drive us to move out of DC.

Are you familiar with the DC Tuition Assistance program? It is a reason many stay and/or move to DC to help pay for college.

Yes - I am familiar with this.

Let's pretend my children decide that they are going to William and Mary. I have 3 children so 12 years of tuition.
The difference between In State and Out of State is ~ 20K. (Note - at UVA it is 30K). DC Tag right now covers $10K.

3 children and 4 years of college, it will cost me an additional $120K to live in DC vs moving to VA.

Suppose they want to go to UC-Berkeley or Penn State?

Berkeley is close to impossible to get in.

Why would one go to Penn State instead of one of the best VA or MD schools?

People who move to NoVa thinking they bought a ticket to a UVa or W&M bargain are going to be sorely disappointed; admission to those schools for NoVa students is unbelievably difficult now.

UVa, for example, takes a third of its students from out of state (UC schools take something like 5% out of staters), and it has to have geographic diversity from within Virginia. Relatively few kids from any given NoVa HS are going to get in, and considering NoVa's explosive growth the competition is fierce. Same for W&M...but it's much smaller than UVa.

There are lots of other good schools in Virginia, and sending kids there at in-state rates is a bargain. But don't move to Arlington there thinking you've eased your kid's path to UVa.

Well, we live in DC and went on the William and Mary tour this summer. The Admission folks made it clear that out of state students are judged by different criteria. It's easier to get in if you are a Virginia resident. We've stuck it out in DC but given that Virginia has some excellent state schools, including William & Mary and UVA, it makes good fiscal sense to get out of the District.

Maybe if you rent. But if you own a home in DC, moving has serious transaction costs -- figure $100,000 on a $1M home ($60K to a real estate agent; $20K in transfer taxes; $20K for fixing small things in one house or the other plus the actual move). And that's real money that evaporates, with no uncertainty about it, today. Now, maybe you can make that back several years down the road IF you have multiple kids AND they all go to in-state public colleges AND your financial situation is such that you actually would pay full sticker price both in-state and out-of-state...but strike any of those conditions and moving is a losing proposition financially (and if you preferred VA for other reasons, you'd probably already live there, right?).

And if your kid (like the vast majority of NOVA kids) doesn't get admitted to UVA or W&M (or VT for engineering), the whole thesis falls apart. I mean, how many kids would prefer VCU for $26,872 all-in per year as a VA resident ( http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1565 ) over, e.g., the University of Minnesota for $26,304 all-in as a DC resident with TAG ( http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=991 )?

So what are all the factors that should go into a spreadsheet when trying to make this decision?

[Anonymous]

Moving so your 10-y.o. kid can go to UVA on the cheap is so presumptuous and misguided.