Anonymous wrote:13:50 here and a long-standing PG county resident with a young child. Please don't assume where someone lives because of their post.

When I looked at the cost of the cheapest private school, plus travel expenses, it makes more sense for me to sell and buy in a neighborhood with better public schools and just pay for aftercare.

St. Jerome's School
$8,500 tuition
$288 fees
$60 week aftercare ($2,580 a year)
About $1,136 per month for 10 months

Friends Community School
$16,250 tuition
$0 fees
$7.50 per hour aftercare ($112.50 per week, $4837.50 a year)
$2,108.75 a month

The Washington Post is having a forum this Wednesday to discuss the state of our schools. OP, come out and hear what people have to say. I am looking for viable options to keep my house and would love if people could take about reasonable school options for county residents. I considered moving to inbounds for Tulip elementary too but I would consider moving after that.

You mention Tulip Grove, which is rated highly, and then say that you'd move after that. That's the thing. How much do you really know about the middle school and high school in Bowie? I have a neighbor whose son graduated last spring from Bowie high school. He's very smart. He got an academic scholarship to a well respected university in DC (I don't want to say too much about him on a public web site). But my point is, he's a product of Bowie schools. And I wouldn't at all be disappointed if my kid turned out like him.

I feel like so much is said about schools, and I wonder how much experience the people saying them has actually had with the schools. Test scores only tell part of the story, because they are averages, so if you do have a portion of the student base that is lower SES, then yes, those scores are going to bring down the overall average. But I'm not sure it tells the whole story of a school.

13:50 here and a long-standing PG county resident with a young child. Please don't assume where someone lives because of their post.

When I looked at the cost of the cheapest private school, plus travel expenses, it makes more sense for me to sell and buy in a neighborhood with better public schools and just pay for aftercare.

St. Jerome's School
$8,500 tuition
$288 fees
$60 week aftercare ($2,580 a year)
About $1,136 per month for 10 months

Friends Community School
$16,250 tuition
$0 fees
$7.50 per hour aftercare ($112.50 per week, $4837.50 a year)
$2,108.75 a month

The Washington Post is having a forum this Wednesday to discuss the state of our schools. OP, come out and hear what people have to say. I am looking for viable options to keep my house and would love if people could take about reasonable school options for county residents. I considered moving to inbounds for Tulip elementary too but I would consider moving after that.

For the OP what is the age of your children?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me, the issue is whether I want to have a cheaper mortgage, more space and pay private school tuition.

I have decided that I can live without as much space, increase my mortgage and move to a neighborhood with good public schools.

When you do a cost-benefit analysis, you really don't come out ahead by living in an area with unacceptable public schools. Private school tuition has gone up so much in recent years, that it doesn't make sense to have a cheaper mortgage and still pay $1,500 or more per month in tuition.

Actually, when I did the math for my family, PG county came out way, way, ahead. Our type of house, with our proximity to DH's job, the beltway, dc, and public transit would cost 800k almost anywhere else. Our house cost 320k. Private school (which is cheaper in PG) is fine for that 500k difference for our one DC. If more people actually did this calculation, PG would become more desirable.

I have a similar situation. PG County is actually the best location, commute wise, because of where my spouse and I work. It gives us public transportation options as well that we weren't able to find elsewhere. And it was comfortably within our budget. Our local elementary school is highly rated. The middle school and high school are actually pretty average. They aren't rated as low as some others in PG. The high school has an honors program that people seem pretty happy about, so we figured we would cross that bridge when the time came.

Quite honestly, if more people did the cost-benefit analysis you mention, they would move to PG. And over time, the schools would improve. Everyone acts like people who buy in PG just do it for the space, but the truth is that most people can't afford anything in MOCO or NOVA. And given all of the crazy bidding wars, et cetera, it seems to me that something has to give, that increasingly people might see PG as a viable option. After all, if they build more houses in MOCO, the schools will just get overcrowded, which I think is already happening. And when that happens, the quality goes down.

Who knows.

But to the OP, the Great Schools site should list private school options. I would also say, it depends where you are in PG. If you are closer to MOCO or Howard County or AA county, you might also check to see if there are private schools there that aren't too far.

Anonymous wrote:For me, the issue is whether I want to have a cheaper mortgage, more space and pay private school tuition.

I have decided that I can live without as much space, increase my mortgage and move to a neighborhood with good public schools.

When you do a cost-benefit analysis, you really don't come out ahead by living in an area with unacceptable public schools. Private school tuition has gone up so much in recent years, that it doesn't make sense to have a cheaper mortgage and still pay $1,500 or more per month in tuition.

I would also add that you could pay a ton of money to live in an area "with good schools" and find by the time your child is old enough for high school, it isn't all that great anymore.

Anonymous wrote:For me, the issue is whether I want to have a cheaper mortgage, more space and pay private school tuition.

I have decided that I can live without as much space, increase my mortgage and move to a neighborhood with good public schools.

When you do a cost-benefit analysis, you really don't come out ahead by living in an area with unacceptable public schools. Private school tuition has gone up so much in recent years, that it doesn't make sense to have a cheaper mortgage and still pay $1,500 or more per month in tuition.

Actually, when I did the math for my family, PG county came out way, way, ahead. Our type of house, with our proximity to DH's job, the beltway, dc, and public transit would cost 800k almost anywhere else. Our house cost 320k. Private school (which is cheaper in PG) is fine for that 500k difference for our one DC. If more people actually did this calculation, PG would become more desirable.

To the OP, my experience on DCUM is that people just really don't know a lot about PG County. For example, someone recently posted a thread about some elementary schools in Bowie, and it got *no* responses.

You might have better luck either going to the city-data forums or perhaps just going to the Great Schools web site. They will list all of the schools in a given area. So pick where you are within PG. And then you can visit the school web site to find out more information.

Where I live in PG feeds to a pretty good public elementary school. But I recently went on to the great schools site to look for what private school options there are for middle or high school if I choose to go in that direction.

I also found out that while the local middle school and high school is average where I live (it's not horrible but not fantastic), they have a pretty good honors program.

Don't believe all of the hype you hear on here about PG schools. Most of the people who post about PG schools either have little experience with PG County, have outdated experience (i.e. "I went to XYZ high in the '80s and it's really gone down hill"), or they moved out of PG or chose private BEFORE even trying the public school system (i.e. all of the hype scared them away from even trying it out).

Anonymous wrote:For me, the issue is whether I want to have a cheaper mortgage, more space and pay private school tuition.

I have decided that I can live without as much space, increase my mortgage and move to a neighborhood with good public schools.

When you do a cost-benefit analysis, you really don't come out ahead by living in an area with unacceptable public schools. Private school tuition has gone up so much in recent years, that it doesn't make sense to have a cheaper mortgage and still pay $1,500 or more per month in tuition.

No one is asking you this question. They're asking for PG school options. You don't know their situation.

For some people, it's not a decision between space, mortgage and school, but other factors, like where they work, come into play. MOCO and NOVA were not options for me because of where I work as well as where my spouse works. There is no way we would have someone who could be home by 6pm to pick up a child from daycare or aftercare if we lived in either of those places.

Sometimes it isn't just about money, but logistics as well. It's fine you made the decision you made, but this thread isn't about choosing between PG and some other place. It's asking for school options in PG county. You don't know enough about the situations of other people to decide whether they "come out ahead."

I'm sick and tired of the way people treat people who live in PG county. Someone comes on here asking for information -- school options in PG. And people think it's an opportunity to basically respond by saying "PG sucks, you shouldn't live there."

It's fine if you don't like PG or wouldn't live there. Then don't participate in the thread.

For me, the issue is whether I want to have a cheaper mortgage, more space and pay private school tuition.

I have decided that I can live without as much space, increase my mortgage and move to a neighborhood with good public schools.

When you do a cost-benefit analysis, you really don't come out ahead by living in an area with unacceptable public schools. Private school tuition has gone up so much in recent years, that it doesn't make sense to have a cheaper mortgage and still pay $1,500 or more per month in tuition.

There aren't many PG private options. Friends Community, Holy Redeemer, St. Jerome's, a handful of Baptist schools, Reid, Holy Trinity, St. Ambrose, St. Joe's, St. Pius. Add Seton and DeMatha to the mix for high school. You've pretty much got the Catholic schools and then one or two a piece of other religious persuasions.

I'm not thinking of any secular privates in PG offhand. Lots of kids go out of county for private - either into DC, MoCo, some in the Northern part of the county go to schools in the Baltimore area. Pretty active homeschool community too according to some friends who homeschool.

There are some other privates in the southern part of the county, but I don't know much about them. Someone else might be able to offer up some of those options.

Many of the privates actually in the county are religious based schools. There are also a couple of private Montessori options.

I figured so much, we are in DC and already in a charter here. What do private schools look like there? Everyone I know that lives in PG goes to school in DC.

Lottery is long since over. The specialty schools have the best reputations, but the odds for most of them are truly terrible. You definitely don't want to count on the lottery (says the person who has now struck out for the 6th time PK3,4, Kinder for 2 kids).

You have missed the lottery for both the specialty schools and charter schools for this fall.

If your IB school is less than ideal, what options are there in PG? Are there charter schools? When is the lottery and how does it work?
TIA