Really cannot understate the role of supplementing at home, it is fairly cheap and easy in the earlier grades.

I have a friend who rents an apartment and has a 2nd job to send her kid to full pay catholic high school.

Anonymous wrote:We live in a teeny tiny house in Bethesda and send our kids to public school.

Teeny house in Bethesda is still a million plus. Not middle class.

We have friends who made very different choices based on their priorities, family size, and budget.

They include: Move out to MD area to get a lawn for their 3 kids etc, go public, and supplement.

Another family did DCPS K-6, lives in a 2br condo with 2 kids, and gets FA to go to private.

Other friends live in NE DC, did charter schools and then onto Catholic school once in middle school.

We also have others who did catholic school and then application-only dcps schools.

Lots moved to Howard county before the 2020s housing bubble.

We did the lottery for a speciality program and it has been great. Small classes and nurturing community. We also supplement with a tutor and lots of museums, theater, etc. Kids perform very well on MCAP, so I guess they are learning as much as those in better schools. Other kid who didn't get into lottery program has gone to Catholic schools.

We live in Petworth in an house we can afford and go to one of the subsidized parochial. There are trade offs but our kid is safe at school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine go to DCPS. I have no idea what kind of educations they are getting. I'm not that involved. I went to free test-in boarding school abroad. That was painful.
They will be fine. They have the ability to do well.

Sad, you should care more about their education and safety

Safety?

JFC.

If you prioritize house size: move way out

If you prioritize commute, live in a condo

If you want an actual house close-in, quit worrying about what school is “bad” and go to public schools rated 5/10 or so and realize that they also have great teachers and lots of middle class kids in them.

Live in an apartment.

But no, you want lots of square footage and a yard.

So move to Loudon and send your kids to the Academies.

Anonymous wrote:Accept bad free school, move to Frederick or further away, homeschool, or scrimp to pay for private and hope the financial aid is enough.

+1. Also pay for a lot of tutoring/ supplementation at home, or work more than one job and cut other expenses to the bone to pay for private.

Accept bad free school, move to Frederick or further away, homeschool, or scrimp to pay for private and hope the financial aid is enough.

We live in a teeny tiny house in Bethesda and send our kids to public school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly? They live in the exurbs, where they can get into a better school district for a cheaper price.

Close in DC is filled with childless people, rich people and people in subsidized housing. Maybe in a few instances someone that bought a long time ago in an area that boomed, but honestly most of that gentrification wave was 05-15 and not 15-25 so they would have had to buy before they had kids to still have school age kids right now.

The further out you go, the more real middle class people there are.

This is exactly what we did. Bought in 2013 in a neighborhood 99% of DCUM would never live in, had a kid in 2017. Private, substantial financial aid. House boomed, but refinanced for a 2.5% rate, so we're pretty well stuck in an so-so DC neighborhood in an awful school pyramid. Even with all we'd make selling, we can't afford to give up that rate. So we went private and feel incredibly lucky that we even got into one, and that they have generous aid.

Yes, but there's been no gentrification close in since Covid and things are still continuing to decline; I assume they will stabilize eventually. H Street is looking rough. All to say, that game worked for prior generation but you are reciting history, it's not applicable for someone in 2025. Now they are looking at places that are both expensive and kind of meh at the same time.

Anonymous wrote:Mine go to DCPS. I have no idea what kind of educations they are getting. I'm not that involved. I went to free test-in boarding school abroad. That was painful.
They will be fine. They have the ability to do well.

Sad, you should care more about their education and safety