Reply to I regret buying in ACPS...should we try to move before ES or wait until DC is older?

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Reply to "I regret buying in ACPS...should we try to move before ES or wait until DC is older?"

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[quote=Anonymous]We feed into an ES on the West End which is decent (according to my neighbors) but not highly rated by Great Schools. (I know GS isn't the be-all-end-all arbiter of school quality.) Our school of course has a high % (&gt;60%) of free/reduced lunch. Those in our demographic score well, but our demographic is a small minority at the school, which I'm OK with in theory but find myself worrying about it in reality. I liked the *idea* of diversity when we bought here, but as it turns out, our immediate neighborhood isn't very diverse NOR is it very friendly. Many people (most?) move out of the neighborhood by the time their children get near middle school and/or go private.

I'm now having regrets now about buying here. We did so primarily because of my commute (~15 min) and what we could afford inside the Beltway. DH has a longer reverse commute. Both of our jobs could theoretically take us into the city if we leave our current employers, which would be harder to do if we lived further out. DC1 will start K in 2017 if we start on time. I don't really want to move, as we will have only been in our house ~5 years if we sold next spring, so we'd probably only be around 70% LTV. There are also a lot of half-started upgrades we're working through as we can afford them, but if we had a year warning we could hopefully finish those up. I feel like we will outgrow our house by MS (poor layout for kids), but I was hoping to hold on to that great commute for a little bit longer and think that being close to my kids' school during the week is a big advantage. The MS/HS are quite poor and unlikely to improve, and it's unlikely that we could afford private on our incomes, so I feel like a move at SOME point is probably inevitable. We like the house but don't love it. Our neighborhood is OK, but maybe we'd feel better about it after we start ES and get to know families better? Most likely if we were to move we would be considering the West Springfield area for pricing, proximity to friends, public transport, proximity to DH work, and housing stock in our likely price range (~$600k in today's values). We would consider other areas, too. I think an area like N. Arlington would be really out of reach for us. Even S. Arl. would be a stretch at this point. Our incomes also won't increase much more than 3% a year, and home values in our zip seem to have stagnated.

I don't know what I'm looking for exactly. Maybe experiences from people who hung out in ACPS (and not the Lyles-Crouch/Charles Barrett/Maury) and were happy, or who moved out at some point and realized the grass really is greener? A friend who works at ACPS HQ tells me we have nothing to worry about at our ES, but I am worried. I also think pulling up and moving after establishing DC at ES might be disruptive, but maybe it wouldn't be at a lower grade?

I appreciate withholding the judgment and condescension. This was our first home purchase and a learning experience for us both. I know that ACPS schools are often disparaged on here, but when we bought our ES seemed OK enough. It has actually slid a bit on the GS ratings since we bought (probably one reason prices have stagnated). Thanks for any insight or thoughts you can share.[/quote]

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