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Anonymous wrote:The earlier PP really needs to learn the difference between Falls Church and the City of Falls Church. The City of Falls Church is small, with expensive houses and condos and very good schools and a charming little downtown. The areas of Falls Church in Falls Church high school and Stuart are not as nice. (the demographics are not as wealthy, or as caucasian.) There's also West Falls Church, which is the part of Falls Church (some of Falls church city, some in Fairfax County) closer to Tysons.

And yeah, some of the areas that feed into Falls Church HS are rougher. there's a fair amount of lower-income housing in that boundary. Not unusual around here.

I find your comment about demographics [not as wealthy, or as caucasian] really offensive, and I think you're making a big leap assuming that OP is looking for the same. In my hometown, which is pretty darn "ghetto" [I really don't think you folks truly know what this means], the best school is in a neighborhood that is hardly "caucasian" at all. When the test scores came in, I'm sure the "caucasians" were shocked.

My impression of the city is old, dark, depressing and overpriced.

We are looking to buy in Fairfax County and looked at some homes in the City of Falls Church. Maybe it's me, but even the high priced homes around Shadow Walk, Great Falls St., and Park Avenue are so old and depressing. The average homes are at least 75 years old and all the ones we have seen have funny smells. Overgrown trees (not the pictureques kind) line the streets and you cannot cut down any trees in your yard without permission from the City Hall. There are so many good schools in this metro area, why lock yourself up to this overpriced dump?

Lyon village in Clarendon or Berkshire Oakwood in Arlington.

Anonymous wrote:The earlier PP really needs to learn the difference between Falls Church and the City of Falls Church. The City of Falls Church is small, with expensive houses and condos and very good schools and a charming little downtown. The areas of Falls Church in Falls Church high school and Stuart are not as nice. (the demographics are not as wealthy, or as caucasian.) There's also West Falls Church, which is the part of Falls Church (some of Falls church city, some in Fairfax County) closer to Tysons.

And yeah, some of the areas that feed into Falls Church HS are rougher. there's a fair amount of lower-income housing in that boundary. Not unusual around here.

I find your comment about demographics [not as wealthy, or as caucasian] really offensive, and I think you're making a big leap assuming that OP is looking for the same. In my hometown, which is pretty darn "ghetto" [I really don't think you folks truly know what this means], the best school is in a neighborhood that is hardly "caucasian" at all. When the test scores came in, I'm sure the "caucasians" were shocked.

If $ is no object, move to Chevy Chase Village in MD, as close as you can get to the Friendship Heights station. Livingston St. Park, as one PP mentioned has just been renovated (with a splash park!), the Chevy Chase library is right there, the schools are great (although many think that Somerset, just next door, has a better elementary school, Chevy Chase elementary is very good, I've heard). The strip of shops and restaurants on Connecticut ave by the Chevy Chase circle is right there, and there are so many store and restaurants at Friendship Heights (although that's not as neighborhood-y as the Conn Ave area). Circle Yoga/Budding Yogis has great mom and me/kids yoga, Stride Rite for shoes, Child's Play toy store, Full of Beans for overpriced clothes, Homemade Pizza for quick takeout. The area is really great for a family.

For what it's worth...

We live JUST inside the western border of Falls Church City - on Grove Ave. It's about a 1/2 mile walk to the WFC metro. Could walk to the FC Farmer's Market, but don't (maybe a little more than a mile). Could bike if you were motivated. Can walk to the Giant and everything connected there (Starbucks, CVS, Baja Fresh). Not "charming" but very useful. We go to the Farmers Market almost every weekend and never have problems finding parking somewhere. ALso never have issues parking down by 4 Provinces, Clare and Dons, Argia's, etc. Library has nice kids section and programming.

The city works hard to promote a small town feel with Memorial Day parade, Taste of Falls Church in September, Watch Night on New Years...about a quarter of FCC residents have kids. Big, new houses will be in the $1 million and up range - townhouses less. Hard to find something in the $600-800,000 range. BUT...if you go just a few doors away (from us) towards the metro, there are houses for sale. Also down on/off of Shreve is a little more affordable. Those houses feed into Shrevewood ES, which I think is fine. Haycock ES has an excellent gifted program. Longfellow MS is hit or miss, but overall fine, and McLean HS (in FFx Cty) is good.

If you can find a house in FCC in your price range, grab it. But in the surrounding areas in Fairfax or Arlington are good as well. FCC has 6 or 8 parks - as previously mentioned, Lincoln Park I think is the best, as it's enclosed, easily accessible, and shaded (although it becomes a lake after a hard rain). We can walk to the little park behind the Wachovia. We walk to Mike's Deli (next to the 7-11) for dinner at least once a week. Cherry Hill Park is nice but more spread out. Mt. Daniel is the FCC ES and has an amazing playgound but it is all sunny. We just joined Poplar Heights pool down off Shreve and have met a bunch of families from FCC. Also know families who belong to Tuckahoe pool on Lee Hwy, as well as High Point.

Oh, and to drive on 66 I leave in the morning around 8:15 and I'm at my desk by the Air and Space Museum by 9:00 without fail (usually it takes less time than that, esp if I leave earlier). Going home can be 30 minutes as long as I leave by around 4:45. I use the hybrid exemption on 66 though. Husband leaves around 8 and drives to Georgetown and take him about 35-40 mins on Lee Hwy. Can take him longer than that to get home, but it's really just getting across Roosevelt bridge.

Hope that helps. We've really liked having a small town feel in the middle of everything else DC has to offer. Don't know that I'd call it "charming" per se, but definitely feels small town.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, what is it about Dupont that you find makes it not family friendly? Too loud? Do you want more park space? more parkING space? more kids in the neighborhood?

Love Dupont. Love to walk to the playgrounds, love to walk to work. Just want to have a place where schools are good through HS.

If I were you I would stay in dupont and bank funds for private schools in case your dcps neighborhood, dcps out of boundary or charter schools don't pan out. Lots of new charters coming up and Neighborhood schools turning around and you may want to be a part of that. Did you know that if you help found a charter your child gets a preference to get in? Anyway, Lots of great free options, but it's smart to save up money just in case . . .

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Anonymous wrote:I am amazed by the thinly veiled racism on this thread. I hope that all of you talking about avoiding "the ghetto" or "free and reduced lunch" are really just using euphemisms for "people of color" and you sound like bigots.

I'm the poster who used "free and reduced lunch." I explicitly avoided mentioning race, because there's plenty of poor white trash where I'm from that I am reluctant to have my kids around either.

I'm also not one who'll freak out over a FRL percentage greater than 5%. Some folks are poor, and let's face it -- it's probably not ideal to be in an extreme low-poverty environment.

But once that percentage starts creeping up above 40-50%, you gotta start wondering. Will your kid be busy teaching his classmates the English he learned at 3-4? Will the teacher be teaching a 3rd grade class at a 1st grade level? Will the parents simply not be committed to education (come on, they can't ALL be hard-working folks who've just met a little misfortune?) In some cases, you can give it a try, but in others, you just get the vibe that the administration is all about the at-risk kids and yours is going to get ignored unless he is in the top 10% of self-starters.

But for full disclosure, since I'm a bigot and all, where do YOU live and send your kids to school?

I am a the PP you are responding to. I realize what you are saying, and those are valid concerns. When backed up by your thought process, rather than just thrown out, they sound much less bigoted. Also, I don't know you, have no idea if you are a bigot or not. I was not calling you one. I was simply stating that comments like yours, when set apart from any knowledge of your deeper thought processes, makes you sound like one.

I live in Mount Pleasant with an infant. Not sure where the little one will go to school when the time comes. Also not sure how that has any bearing on my opinion about racist comments.

I also called things ghetto and talked about reduced lunches. It has nothing to do with race, it has everything to do with the fact that with poverty comes crime. We can't deny it. COME ON! OPEN UR EYES. And a high rate of kids who don't speak English is a problem too b/c the teachers spend more time helping them than keeping up with the class.

You might want to familiarize with ESOL in Fairfax County and how it works before saying things like this. In Fairfax County, students who know little to no English are in their own separate ESOL classes. They are not just thrown in with the general population for mainstream teachers to deal with. It is not until they have at least an intermediate level of English, that they go into mainstream classes where they generally are some of the top students in the class - IMO because they have worked so hard to get there. We do have students who are beginning students of English and basically illiterate in their native language and they will never move into mainstream classes because they don't have the skills to do so (this is in high school). Usually they end up dropping out because of their age or just general frustration. Fairfax County is actually very strict about the skills ESOL students need to go to mainstream classes - much more so than other counties in the area.

I taught 1st and 2nd grades in FCPS for 5 years, ending in 2008. Certainly, FCPS has a great ESOL program and the county puts plenty of money toward extra support for those kids. But I can tell you from firsthand experience that there were several kids in my classroom each year who only got pull-out ESOL services maybe an hour a day and whose English proficiency could NOT be described as fluent. And yes, those kids did sometimes require additional attention. But as a PP pointed out, lots of English-speaking kids need additional attention too--some don't pick things up as quickly, some are gifted, some are prone to acting out, and some are just emotionally needy.

I do have to take issue with PP's ridiculous statement that the ESOL students are "generally" the top kids in the class because they've worked so hard to get there. Maybe it happens later on in high school, but I never once saw it happen in 5 years at the elementary level. I don't even think I ever had an ESOL student even be considered for a GT center. (Not saying that's right, just saying PP is overgeneralizing.)

I live in McLean. It takes me 30 minutes to get to work in Van Ness - I take the Beltway and then River Road to Conn. Avenue.

Anonymous wrote:

OP, in response to the PP that claims Capitol Hill is an "absurd" suggestion (and likely feels the same about every DC neighborhood, including Dupont) I can't help but think of those friends that moved out to the burbs for the great public schools and then found that a DC private school is actually a better fit for their kid. they feel a bit "absurd" at this point. If you want to leave the city, awesome, go for it! But don't assume that your kids will be any better off in the suburbs. If you are happy in the city, there is a high likelihood that your kids will love it too-- after all, they are your kids! HTH!

PP here. Love the assumptions. I actually lived on the Hill for 10 years, up until a month ago. Loved it and still do. I never said it was absurd for ANYONE to raise kids on the Hill, I said it was absurd that people kept making suggestions to the OP based on their criteria rather than hers. Read her posts--she wanted great schools in the neighborhood, through high school. Certainly the Hill has viable options, but it can't fairly be said to meet OP's definition. So yes, it's absurd to make everything about YOU and YOUR choices, when OP is a different person (a stranger even) who has specifically set forth the things she wants.

I'm also the person who said Haycock area was average for the area. I have no gripe with Haycock at all, but OP has insinuated that her budget is unlimited and I just don't see Haycock as a place where I would live if money was no object. With a few outliers, the homes are very average, and it has a very anytown USA type of feel. Not much character. Nothing wrong with that at all, and the schools are great. But just not where I'd live if I didn't have to make the budget tradeoffs. (Which I do, and we looked very seriously at a couple of homes in the Haycock area.)

OP, it's hard to get meaningful advice on something like this unless you provide some more specific information about your price range. Is money really NO object? Are you looking to spend $1 million? $2 million? More? It really makes a difference. For example--if I had $2 million to spend, I'd be looking at the most desirable areas of N. Arlington, Chevy Chase, Bethesda, or Mclean. If I had $1.2 million to spend, I'd be looking at other areas of N. Arlington or Falls Church City. If I had $750K to spend I'd be looking at Haycock-type neighborhoods or maybe Silver Spring, and thinking very hard about whether I was willing to live in a tiny house to be closer in or in a neighborhood I preferred.

I bet 90% of the people on here who have touted their neighborhoods wouldn't stay if they had an unlimited budget to move. That's all I'm saying.

PP, how do people in McLean commute to downtown DC everyday, say from Langley forest or Chesterbrook area? Driving may be quite stressful given that congestion is only getting worse not better.

Anonymous wrote:OP, what is it about Dupont that you find makes it not family friendly? Too loud? Do you want more park space? more parkING space? more kids in the neighborhood?

Love Dupont. Love to walk to the playgrounds, love to walk to work. Just want to have a place where schools are good through HS.

there is nothing walkable where I live in Falls Church -- it sucks. Hate it. No where for the nannies to walk except to some parks. I despise this weather.

OP, what is it about Dupont that you find makes it not family friendly? Too loud? Do you want more park space? more parkING space? more kids in the neighborhood?

Lacey Woods...just west of Ballston. We are walking distance to the Ballston metro, Lacey Woods Park, Westover, Bon Air Park, Rose Garden, and right on the Custis Trail. For restaurants - we can walk to Pupatella, and places in Ballston and Westover.

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Anonymous wrote:Haycock Road looks like its really close to 66. Do you hear the incessant hum of the traffic?

Nope. Still too far away. We sometimes hear the metro trains going by and occaisionally the pile driving from construction on 66 but those would be the only instances. And we live .5 a mile from 66.

Would this be the north or south of I-66?

North.

Thanks for the information. I thought if it is north of I-66, it will be too far to walk to Lincoln park and the metro. But I suppose you can use the school playground. Is the school playground well visited by families with young kids?

We typically drive over to Lincoln park from where we are (west of Haycock) but can easily walk over to the school playground. There are always a few younger kids playing there. We've been bringing our kids over there to play since they were 3.

The school playground is awesome (for a local playground). We go there on weekends and it's not as busy as you would imagine. The only thing is that there is not alot of shade, so during hot summer days, it can be brutal and the equipment too hot to go on.

We live close by there and walk to Cherry Hill Park, which is near City Hall in Falls Church. That's a nice, shaded park.

There is also a small park on the bike path where the bike path meets West Road, near the 7-11 and ice cream place. It's small but cute.

Lot os parks.