Anonymous wrote:When you say N St can you be more specific? What’s commutable to Georgetown would be a very annoying commute to the Shaw area.

Ha! Didn't know it would matter.

Near the Mexican Consulate, I believe.

Anonymous wrote:
Coming from Florida, Jax is a nice place to leave, what is the impetus.

Headhunter found my husband. Base salary for new position is almost three times current salary.

I work as a medical technologist with a degree in statistics and background in research and technical writing and a desire to move into the non-profit sector so DC seems like a no brainer.

HHI before figuring in (what would become) four rental properties' income will double if I don't continue to work and likely to triple, possibly quadruple, if I do.

Anonymous wrote:Just FYI: my kids are in DCPS at a school that a lot of people like. There’s no TAG/whatever but I’d say nearly all the kids would have been in the GATE program I attended in elementary. These are all bright kids whose parents care about their education. People’s expectations here are just SO different from where I grew up that I think you could send your kids to many schools without an explicit AAP program and expect them to be challenged.

And FWIW, your husband’s commute from here (we are on Capitol Hill) would be a breeze by Metro, car, or bus.

Since you’re willing to live in less that 2000 feet, DC might not be a bad fit at all.

I honestly haven't even looked in DC as we simply did not believe we could afford to. I just automatically defaulted to elsewhere, but now I'll look in DC.

Are there areas in DC to avoid? To aim for?

Clearly, I don't even know what I don't know so asking good questions is/has been difficult.

Anonymous wrote:Look in the part of 22043 zoned for Haycock - Longfellow - McLean schools. You can find some townhouses to rent in the 3k range and houses above that. When you’re ready to buy, there are SFH in the 800+ range. Commute is good and schools are excellent (Haycock is a center school with AAP, which you said you are looking for). Good luck!

Oooh! Thank you. You're amazing for providing a zip code! That makes searching so much easier.

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax apartments - you'll get the 3/2 for $4,500 and the good schools but fair warning your door to door commute with traffic will probably be 45-75 minutes.

What determines the difference between 45 and 75? Like, if he left at 6:45 everyday to be at work at 8, would he be okay?

Anonymous wrote:Long commute but in Wezt Springfield or Burke you can get a sfh on a wooded lot with a garage and excellent schools for aroun 3K/month

Could you define "long?" And via car or Metro?

We're relocating to somewhere in the DMV in June.

Currently in Jacksonville with mortgage of just under $900/month PITI for 3100 square feet 4bd/3.5ba SFH built in 2005 on 0.25 acres with a 2 car garage in decent school district.

So, looking at our options in DMV has been quite eye opening.

We're wanting, at minimum, a 3/2, 1100 sq ft, <1 hour commute to N Street area DC, good school districts with AAP/TAG/whatever y'all call it here, and W/D in unit.

No preference on house vs condo vs whatever. Would like at least one car garage, but not mandatory. Prefer some sort of yard; if not, access to outdoor play space.

We have a 6.5 DD and 2.5 DS. No pets.

Budget is flexible, but, in my head, I thought 3k/month would suffice to meet our desires. However, on a different board, I was told it probably isn't. So now I'm thinking my searches on realtor.com and apartments.com have been misleading me.

We'd more than likely rent for the first year, possibly two. Absolute max budget for rent would be 4500. We'd like to rent where we'd eventually buy as to avoid switching school districts. Once we're ready to buy, forecasted budget is max 1.5m, preferably in the 600-800k range, though.

Where can we afford to live? Where should I be looking? We wanted to avoid Maryland because of local income taxes, but can be convinced.

There is no rush on our move as husband will precede me to DMV to start working and will Airbnb until school is over for our DD and we'll be renting out our current home once we've relocated.

Anonymous wrote:Avoid Alexandria. For the best AAP centers, look into McLean schools or the elementary schools feeding into Carson middle school, although the commute will be much longer than 45 minutes to DC. Elementary schools have level IV (gifted and/or advanced kids are mixed with regular class) and centers (separate classes). Our DC has been at the center since K and got separate teaching since 1st grade for math until he started AAP in 3rd grade. Kids take a test in 1st grade (nnat) and 2nd grade (cogat) that determine eligibility for 3rd grade AAP. A score of 132 + pretty much guarantees entrance.

McLean is somewhere we were looking at. Thank you! That is helpful.

Is the second grade COGAT offered for all public school second graders or does one have to pay and/or request testing?

Anonymous wrote:--likely the Wisc is of no use here. It seems to have been given before its of any clinical significance

--schools are like much, much harder here then there. I have a family member in the gifted program in fl. I also previously taught a year in fl and for many in fairfax. The difference is astounding.

I'm not saying your child doesn't belong in the program here. I'm saying if you have a Wisc that was likely done on a kindergartener, it won't be much help here. I'm also saying the aap program is far more advanced than the two gifted programs I know about in fl and we often discussed at school meetings issues with our county's gifted services.

Good luck

Hahaha! So I've noticed! It is quite different. Just navigating the system is much harder.

FWIW, WISC was performed just before first grade year. She was 6 years and 2 months at the time.

Thank you all. It kind of seems like with the establishing of residency and paperwork/application package, she wouldn't get placed until mid-second grade at the earliest and even then, she'd be retested anyway.

Am I understanding this correctly?

Budget is flexible though since we'd rent for at least our first year, I'd like to cap it at 3k for a 3/2, which I'm finding is doable in some areas, but not in others.

Anonymous wrote:In FCPS, there are GT magnet schools called centers. If a student is found eligible for Level IV (which your DD probably will be) in 3rd grade, then if she attends a base school, she will be bussed to a center school. If she attends a center school, then she just continues going there.

In 2nd grade, different schools may do push in or pull out for Level II.

Thank you so much! This is so helpful! Do you know how I would determine which schools are centers? I'm going to search FCPS's site now!

ETA: I found this https://www.fcps.edu/academics/elementary-school-academics-k-6/elementary-magnet-schools ... It appears there's only two magnet schools in FC. Is this correct or am I missing something?

Also, I was pointed in the direction of FCPS's site and have discovered some useful information, but my biggest concern is bussing.

It appears second graders would qualify for differentiated learning. Once she qualifies, does this level 2 learning take place at whatever school she attends or will she be bussed to a different school to do It?

We would rather she not have to travel since we have the option of moving into the neighborhood of whatever school she needs to be at in order to avoid any bussing.

I posted this on the AAP board but was told that wasn't the correct place to pose my query so I'm trying here:

We're relocating to the DMV area in June 2018 and have decided on Virginia as our target residence; where exactly will depend on schools.

My daughter is currently in gifted here in Florida. She's in first grade now and will be entering into second grade (captain obvious here) once we're there.

I've read the Virginia DOE's FAQ page about needing a referral to get into TAG programs. What exactly does that entail?

I have her intellectual evaluation that was performed by our school district's psychologist and her WISC-V scores (full scale: 136, verbal 133, and fluid 134 with all scaled scores above 13).

Also, how is elementary school gifted done? Is it once a week or fully immersive or ...? Here, it's once weekly and if she didn't already attend the school where the gifted program was offered, she'd be bussed in on that one day.

Do y'all have a recommendation for best school district for us to live in if we wish to pursue public schools? We've sort of set our hearts on Alexandria, but only because we don't know what else is nearby.

Hubs will work downtown DC, near N Street, and I will seek employment later based on where we land. We'd like to be within a 30-45 minute commute (whether by car or rail) and we'd like to avoid Maryland as we've read there's a local income tax there in addition to state and federal.

Any advice or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

I checked out FCPS's page. It appears second graders would qualify for differentiated learning. Once she qualifies, does this level 2 learning take place at whatever school she attends or will she be bussed to a different school to do It?

This is my biggest concern. We would rather she not have to travel since we have the option of moving into the neighborhood of whatever school she needs to be at in order to avoid any bussing.

Thank you for that point in the right direction. I hadn't even thought to search Fairfax County's site as I was so stuck on Alexandria, which, I think is in Arlington County.

So is the best way to search for information going to be based on counties? We're In Jacksonville which encompasses all of Duval County, so searching by county isn't even top of mind.