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[quote=Anonymous]I agree with posters who are advising - worry about getting into a daycare or finding a nanny or nanny share, not schools just yet. 
We bought a house in Petworth neighborhood before the "boom" there, w/2 year old and pregnant with #2.  We had been in boundary for Oyster before we moved - it's  considered a good school but did not have PS-3 and we needed more room. I was worried about schools so we did due diligence. Visited local, walkable schools on tour. Went to charter school open houses. Wrote up a list of DC public schools ranked by test scores and then re-ranked them based on the waitlist length for kids trying to lottery in from "out of boundary." We wasted two slots on our first lottery on schools we would not have wanted to actually commute to, based on friends going there or word of mouth (i.e. local was Capitol Hill & too difficult to get to.) Wasted a couple more on impossible-to-lottery-in-to-schools that even with 2 or more PS-3 classes had no room for kids who were non-sibling or non-proximity. 
Turned out the DCPS Title 1 school a few blocks away had a nice facility, awesome teachers and a lot of great kids and like-minded parents plus perks like inexpensive aftercare and school meals because of their Title 1 status. Got waitlisted at several charters but did get in to a couple well regarded ones esp. ones that were preschool ONLY at the time. 
I would say withhold judgement on DC schools until you have had a chance to visit them in person (don't forget charters and schools near your workplace.) 
I don't know much about Catholic/church schools here but  top tier private schools are more like $35K a year not including aftercare if you both work and what about summer? Budget $300-400 a week for that either way unless you attend a year-round school like Haynes.   
P.S. If you are white racists you will not be happy here, schools are 50% or more Hispanic and AA unless you are over in richy-rich westerly NW. [/quote]

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