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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]here is my (lottery aside) problem with the charter school options:  washington latin seems truly lovely but its really just too far for my particular capitol hill family's particular willingness to commute.  i personally don't really like basis.  i think the best solution is not buses to charter schools - its honors classes at the capitol hill middle schools so the high-achieving students that now exist at pretty much all of the capitol hill area elementary schools start to opt in.    [/quote]

Can gently suggest that your commuting worries might be overblown? We are a Cap Hill family who have commuted
to various Latin campuses for a decade now.  The bus from Eastern Market is an expense and kind of crazy at times, but you will only need a year or two before your kid with be delighted to take the metro with all their friends and feel competent and grown up. It is a gift to give your kids the confidence to navigate their own way to school.

It is a 45-minute commute each way on public transit which gets wearying. But after all the years, no one in our family regrets it. The pain is worth the gain.[/quote]

An hour and a half round trip commute???

Hard pass.[/quote]

The issue is that people move to the Hill precisely for walkability and the neighborhood feel. Yes there are people who are willing to commute across town for schools, as there always have been. It used to be that the wealthy people on the Hill sent their kids to privates in NW and they'd do that commute starting in elementary. But the cohort of people who have kids starting middle school around now have become used to being able to walk to school, to knowing their classmates families and bumping into them at the farmer's market or soccer practice on the weekend. It's really hard to make that adjustment to committing to a couple years of busing or driving and then having their kid take a long metro commute daily. This is why Basis is somewhat inexplicably popular on the Hill (given that Hill families lean a bit more crunchy and Basis is not at all crunchy) and why a Latin campus closer to the Hill would be an instant draw for Hill families. Like to the point that it will undermine the stated goal of that Latin campus, which is to provide more opportunities to underserved families east of the river and in Ward 5. [/quote]

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