Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure where the NCI campus is or if you wanted to walk there, but I would recommend a location further south on the 270 corridor than previous posters. Perhaps Ashurton ES and the schools that tracks into? Basically the Garrett Park region of Maryland is probably more walkable. While King Farm and Kentlands are walkable, they are very far out and have a contrived feel to them. But, hey, if people like them that's great. Typically Bethesda, downtown Silver Spring, and Takoma Park tend to be the type of walkable communities that I think of being a former urbanite. The communities the previous posters referred to are pretty far out, but the Grosvener metro is close. You would also have a reverse commute to Baltimore and the new ICC is worth the toll.

Hint: the NCI campus is "very far out" -- near King Farm and Kentlands, in fact!

Are you thinking NCI or NIST? I know NIST has a campus out there.

If Kentlands is "very far out", then NIST is "beyond the end of the world".

The NIST campus starts about a half mile from Kentlands.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure where the NCI campus is or if you wanted to walk there, but I would recommend a location further south on the 270 corridor than previous posters. Perhaps Ashurton ES and the schools that tracks into? Basically the Garrett Park region of Maryland is probably more walkable. While King Farm and Kentlands are walkable, they are very far out and have a contrived feel to them. But, hey, if people like them that's great. Typically Bethesda, downtown Silver Spring, and Takoma Park tend to be the type of walkable communities that I think of being a former urbanite. The communities the previous posters referred to are pretty far out, but the Grosvener metro is close. You would also have a reverse commute to Baltimore and the new ICC is worth the toll.

Hint: the NCI campus is "very far out" -- near King Farm and Kentlands, in fact!

Are you thinking NCI or NIST? I know NIST has a campus out there.

If Kentlands is "very far out", then NIST is "beyond the end of the world".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure where the NCI campus is or if you wanted to walk there, but I would recommend a location further south on the 270 corridor than previous posters. Perhaps Ashurton ES and the schools that tracks into? Basically the Garrett Park region of Maryland is probably more walkable. While King Farm and Kentlands are walkable, they are very far out and have a contrived feel to them. But, hey, if people like them that's great. Typically Bethesda, downtown Silver Spring, and Takoma Park tend to be the type of walkable communities that I think of being a former urbanite. The communities the previous posters referred to are pretty far out, but the Grosvener metro is close. You would also have a reverse commute to Baltimore and the new ICC is worth the toll.

Hint: the NCI campus is "very far out" -- near King Farm and Kentlands, in fact!

Are you thinking NCI or NIST? I know NIST has a campus out there.

NCI is at Shady grove hospital.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure where the NCI campus is or if you wanted to walk there, but I would recommend a location further south on the 270 corridor than previous posters. Perhaps Ashurton ES and the schools that tracks into? Basically the Garrett Park region of Maryland is probably more walkable. While King Farm and Kentlands are walkable, they are very far out and have a contrived feel to them. But, hey, if people like them that's great. Typically Bethesda, downtown Silver Spring, and Takoma Park tend to be the type of walkable communities that I think of being a former urbanite. The communities the previous posters referred to are pretty far out, but the Grosvener metro is close. You would also have a reverse commute to Baltimore and the new ICC is worth the toll.

Hint: the NCI campus is "very far out" -- near King Farm and Kentlands, in fact!

Are you thinking NCI or NIST? I know NIST has a campus out there.

Kentlands. Your son could walk to school. There are shops and restaurants. Upcounty magnet programs for science and math are good. (So are down county, but Kentlands is considered upcounty).

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure where the NCI campus is or if you wanted to walk there, but I would recommend a location further south on the 270 corridor than previous posters. Perhaps Ashurton ES and the schools that tracks into? Basically the Garrett Park region of Maryland is probably more walkable. While King Farm and Kentlands are walkable, they are very far out and have a contrived feel to them. But, hey, if people like them that's great. Typically Bethesda, downtown Silver Spring, and Takoma Park tend to be the type of walkable communities that I think of being a former urbanite. The communities the previous posters referred to are pretty far out, but the Grosvener metro is close. You would also have a reverse commute to Baltimore and the new ICC is worth the toll.

Hint: the NCI campus is "very far out" -- near King Farm and Kentlands, in fact!

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure where the NCI campus is or if you wanted to walk there, but I would recommend a location further south on the 270 corridor than previous posters. Perhaps Ashurton ES and the schools that tracks into? Basically the Garrett Park region of Maryland is probably more walkable. While King Farm and Kentlands are walkable, they are very far out and have a contrived feel to them. But, hey, if people like them that's great. Typically Bethesda, downtown Silver Spring, and Takoma Park tend to be the type of walkable communities that I think of being a former urbanite. The communities the previous posters referred to are pretty far out, but the Grosvener metro is close. You would also have a reverse commute to Baltimore and the new ICC is worth the toll.

So in other words, instead of living 2 minutes from your job, pay 3 times per square foot and add 20-25 minutes each way to your commute so you can live somewhere "authentic" like next to Bethesda Row?

Kidding aside, Garrett Park is nice (though not as close to NCI), but is there any walkable shopping/entertainment from there?

I'm not sure where the NCI campus is or if you wanted to walk there, but I would recommend a location further south on the 270 corridor than previous posters. Perhaps Ashurton ES and the schools that tracks into? Basically the Garrett Park region of Maryland is probably more walkable. While King Farm and Kentlands are walkable, they are very far out and have a contrived feel to them. But, hey, if people like them that's great. Typically Bethesda, downtown Silver Spring, and Takoma Park tend to be the type of walkable communities that I think of being a former urbanite. The communities the previous posters referred to are pretty far out, but the Grosvener metro is close. You would also have a reverse commute to Baltimore and the new ICC is worth the toll.

If you're commuting to Baltimore by car, then you can get on the ICC easily from the Shady Grove area -- if you don't mind paying the tolls.

Also both of the middle school magnet programs for the upcounty are at Roberto Clemente MS in Germantown, which is not an impossible bus ride from the Shady Grove area. If you were in the Gaithersburg HS or Quince Orchard HS clusters, those are the programs your son would apply to.

Hard to know what 2 years ahead in math looks like in Seattle. Here that would be 6th grade Algebra. That might be hard to arrange. 7th graded Algebra is generally considered the top for kids still in ES. I agree you should look at Falls Grove and Kings Farm. Be sure to be alert for application for MS GT magnets which will come up quickly in 5th grade. They are quite competitive and unfortunately a long bus ride away..but they are there if your child is interested. One is humanities based and the other is math/science.

Johns Hopkins what? where? They have various locations, in Baltimore, Columbia? or the Johns Hopkins Community Physicans which have offices in various locations.
The Baltimore and Columbia locations are not close to a metro, except the Marc train. You might end up driving, but that's just for 1 year.

Anonymous wrote:I will be commuting to Johns Hopkins for the first year, then working at the new NCI campus in Rockville after that. We'd love to find a walkable, bikeable neighborhood with schools my son can walk to, with parks and sidewalks that are safe for kids, restaurants and shops to walk to. Bikeable to NCI would be fantastic. Close to the metro would be good, too, to open up job possibilities for my husband. We'd prefer to rent a small house with a fenced yard for our dog, with lots of kids in the area. We hate driving so minimizing that as much as possible would be great. Can anyone suggest neighborhoods that might meet our needs? We'll be visiting sometime this spring to look at schools, but some guidance would be helpful.

Fallsgrove would be the perfect choice for you if (i) you can sacrifice the fence and (ii) you're comfortable with Julius West MS and Richard Montgomery HS. It's the closest neighborhood to NCI there is, and it's a new urbanist design with sidewalks, parks, and shopping attached. If you research the schools and are comfortable, this is probably the best place for you, as it's zoned to offer multiple sizes of homes so I'm sure something would fit your needs. Similarly, King Farm south of Redland Road is zoned the same for schools, and has a similar style to it (though the shopping is fairly limited comparatively).

If you prefer the Wootton HS / Robert Frost MS combo (which many here will say is better - I'll stay out of that debate today), your options are limited in terms of a walkable neighborhood with shopping attached. Fallsmead off of Wootton Parkway offers a strong school district, sidewalks and relatively affordable single family homes (700-800k), but you would need to drive for any sort of shopping or entertainment. At a higher budget, the single family homes in the Willows also have sidewalks (no fences), and are close to NCI, but again don't have walkable access to shopping/entertainment.

Another options is the new Crown development, though it has a school cluster (Gaithersburg) that is generally perceived (rightly or wrongly) as much weaker.

Lastly, if you were willing to rent an apartment or settle for a townhome, the area near Rio (Washingtonian Blvd) offers the Wootton/RobertFrost/Fallsmead school cluster with walkable amenities at Rio. However, there are no single family homes within the area that has that particular school zoning.

King Farm?

You might want to look into the Fallsmead neighborhood off of Falls Rd. in Rockville. It is not far from NCI, good schools (Wootton cluster), and close to Hadley Park. No walking to restaurants/shops though. For that you would need to look at Fallsgrove/Lakewood, but I believe there are mostly town homes/condos in that area. If you truly want a walkable environment, you could check out the Kentlands in Gaithersburg, but you won't find a ton of fenced single-family homes.

Hello, everyone. My family will be moving to MD next summer, and we are trying to narrow down where we should look for a home. Our son will be in 5th grade and transferring from an accelerated/gifted program in his current school in Seattle that works 2 grade levels ahead. It's not possible to transfer into the HGC program in MCPS in 5th grade, so we are trying to identify elementary schools with strong math, in particular. Other subjects (e.g., language arts and social studies) will most likely be new for him because of curriculum differences but I'd hate for him to have to repeat math he's already learned.

I will be commuting to Johns Hopkins for the first year, then working at the new NCI campus in Rockville after that. We'd love to find a walkable, bikeable neighborhood with schools my son can walk to, with parks and sidewalks that are safe for kids, restaurants and shops to walk to. Bikeable to NCI would be fantastic. Close to the metro would be good, too, to open up job possibilities for my husband. We'd prefer to rent a small house with a fenced yard for our dog, with lots of kids in the area. We hate driving so minimizing that as much as possible would be great. Can anyone suggest neighborhoods that might meet our needs? We'll be visiting sometime this spring to look at schools, but some guidance would be helpful.

Thanks!