Reply to Question for those who are doing the DCPS lotteries-- why did you choose to live where you live?

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Reply to "Question for those who are doing the DCPS lotteries-- why did you choose to live where you live?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] I just wanted to chime in that this last part is true.  [b]You can spend over $1 million on a home in many of the closer in neighborhoods and parts of Capitol Hill and not get a good IB school.[/b]  We did it because we value the short commute and living in a mixed use neighborhood and honestly didnt really think about schools (which in hindsight was dumb). If we hadn't gotten a spot at a good charter, we would have moved (still trying to meet those obejctives as best we could) and paid a lot more attention to the school boundaries (probably shooting for Ross or Brent).  [/quote]

But you can also plan ahead and get a good IB school by making a prudent investment in real property if you can afford to.  We did the research and leg work before deciding where to settle on Capitol Hill, even attending PTA meetings at four Hill schools before buying in the Brent District.   We looked not only at school boundaries but all manner of stats--test scores, year on year changes in race and SES demographics by grade to detect trends, how much PTAs were raising and what they were spending on--for several years in a row before choosing a Brent District house to buy.  We bought in SE mainly because Brent was clealry the most middle-class friendly Hill school, the only one with a structured program for advanced learners.  We watched the market in the school district closely for more than a year before buying a fixer and putting a lot of sweat equity into it to avoid breaking the bank.  Not an easy journey but worth it partly because our 3 year old already knows most of his future classmates, Turtle Park pals.  We're a bilingual family who rejected the the immersion school scene in favor of reinforcing community ties via our school choice.

Friends who bought similarly priced homes in the Payne, Miner and Ludlow-Taylor districts took on a lot of lottery stress, generally choosing random Brookland immersion schools, without a connection to their target languages or cultures, just to stay on the Hill.   Friends who bought in the Maury District don't seem sure they'll last past 2nd or 3rd grade.

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