Our family friends moved out of the Cold Spring district when their child started struggling in school. It was too much pressure. This is a highly sought after area and probably the No. 1 most academically competitive elementary in all of MCPS. Doesn't the school also have no walls so from a sensory perspective it could be challenging for some kids.

We are districted to Cold Spring Elem part of the Wootton cluster. It’s a nice school community and our neighborhood and a few nearby are within your budget. We are in Fox Hills West which is around the top of your budget. Rockshire feeds into Lakewood ES and Wootton and has townhouses and smaller single families so might be a little more affordable. I find this area in general is very accepting of LGBTQ families. We know lots of families with children with autism, ADHD, LDs, etc where the kids have been very successful in school. Obviously outcomes vary by kids because every child’s needs are so individual. My kids have had IEPs and 504s. The most important thing to realize is the special education experience at a school can change for better or worse depending on the staff. We didn’t have a great special ed experience at Cold Spring at the start for one of our kids but our youngest with a neurological condition had a great experience. Our youngest is now at Wootton and pretty happy. I like his resource teacher. He calls me at least once a week and is very accessible. The staff has been wonderful. Is it a pressure cooker? It can be.

Anonymous wrote:Check out Rainbow Families! Great local resource for LGBTQ parents.

Also, you could look at the townhouses just south of Bradley in Bethesda. They might feed into Somerset Elementary? Probably in your budget for renting or buying, walkable to downtown Bethesda. Lots of elementary schoolers there, fewer older kids.

Do your children have any behaviors, or are they good at masking? No on Somerset if they can't blend in. It's a very small and wonderful school with wonderful kids but a kid who comes off as not like everyone else will probably have a rough time fitting in.

Old Georgetown Village. Short bus ride to College Gardens if you can get them into the Connections program. Otherwise the home schools are good. Will likely be re-districted to Woodward for HS but it will be a brand new school, shouldn’t be a negative.

Check out Rainbow Families! Great local resource for LGBTQ parents.

Also, you could look at the townhouses just south of Bradley in Bethesda. They might feed into Somerset Elementary? Probably in your budget for renting or buying, walkable to downtown Bethesda. Lots of elementary schoolers there, fewer older kids.

I can understand the desire to get it right the first time, but might also suggest you look into renting for the first year and get a sense of whether you think the school/neighborhood cluster will work for your needs and is a good fit. There are a lot of good suggestions here, but a lot of variability based on specific experiences; some experiences may be out of date as well, given teacher/administrator turnover. We were in your situation a few years ago and I am very thankful we had decided to rent when we initially landed here, as the school/neighborhood that I first thought would work for us did not, and it gave us the flexibility to move elsewhere with more specific, local knowledge and experience.