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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We were in the same place ten or so years ago. It's important to realize that there is no perfect solution, that there are various pros/cons. You decide what's important to your family and what might work better for your particular child (this is harder when you have multiple children with different needs).

We thought that for us, staying in Capitol Hill would be better. Yes, for SURE the kids did not receive as good an education. But they were in a nurturing environment that, despite some hiccups, allowed them to have a happy childhood. The local friends on the block, the bike rides to school, then being able to walk to school on their own--those were important to me.

I was not interested in making my kids study for AAP tests (and yes, you are not supposed to study, but I know for a fact people do). I wanted my kids to grow up in a more urban environment (I'm not talking about urban as code for diversity, I'm talking about being able to get around the city on your own). I think some aspects of diversity are overrated, and your kids might not necessarily become friends with kids of other SES backgrounds (which I think is the bigger gap than racial differences, from what I've seen). But still, getting along with people different from them in some way is an important skill. (But, again, I think at this point the suburbs may be more diverse in the true sense of that word.)

I feel like Capitol Hill allowed us to have that small town experience (SOTH for kiddo soccer, the kid musical events around the neighborhood) surrounded by people who similarly wanted to stay. I am sure someone will come and tell me they live in a suburb that has all of that--and maybe we didn't look hard enough. But so far I have no regrets.

For sure, middle school years are challenging. But so far we've made it work, and I have not regretted it. (But, you know, maybe I'll regret it in high school. Who knows.)

I think it's important to decide what's best for your family and then not worry about FOMO. Just remember that there is no perfect school out there. My expensive private high school had some terrible math teachers. :)

If you have a very bright kid, they will read a lot, take music lessons, participate in sports. They will sometimes be bored in school, but it won't take away from their brightness.

If you have a kid who is slow to mature, they will not be shamed and will be allowed to grow at their own pace. Sometimes you'll worry that they are being ignored, and you may need to step in yourself or with a tutor.

If you have a kid who is exactly on grade, they'll be happy and thrive.

If you have a kid with serious behavioral challenges, that's the toughest situation of all, but I'm not sure if moving to suburbs would really help. [/quote]

This is one of the most thoughtful and accurate posts I have read in a long time.  We thought about our Hill lives very similarly and actually valued very similar things but opted to leave. It was the right decision for us and we are very happy with where we landed but the balance could have tipped the other direction with different kids, and honestly if we liked our specific house and block more![/quote]

I agree, this is a fantastic post and does a beautiful job capturing how our family feels. We live up in Petworth and our oldest is at DCI and our younger kids are at a DCI feeder. We always thought we would move to the suburbs once we hit middle school and in fact took a long, careful look at the suburbs a few years ago.

For us, the trade-offs just didn't make sense to our family. Yes, the academics and extracurricular offerings were better, for sure. But there were so many things that living in DC offered my kids that the suburbs couldn't offer.

For us, the thing that stood out most prominently was the number of mental health concerns that we heard in talking to parents of teenage girls (in particular) in the suburbs. Not that mental health concerns don't exist for teenage girls in DC and not that every teenage girl in the suburb faces mental health challenges. But it is top of mind for our family and our three daughters. For our family, minimizing the pressure cooker environment (while also making sure our girls are appropriately challenged) is worth the trade-off......But I totally recognize that is not the trade-off every family makes, and that's totally fine. It is all about what it right for your family and your kids. You will make it work. [/quote]

You made it work because you literally won a lottery. Those who don’t face different choices. I am making it work but absolutely wish we had thought harder about chosing a neighborhood with established IB schools through HS. [/quote]

This is a TOTALLY fair! Not every DC situation is created equal. I might feel different about our current situation if we only had our inbound high school as an option.

Still, our DCI feeder (and DCI itself) is very different than most of the suburb offerings.

At any rate, I’m not pretending to have all the answers here for every family or situation. Just sharing how we thought about it, and why. I don’t think that what we’ve done is right for every family. [/quote]

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