D.C. public elementary schools. Lay it on me.
March 18, 2016 7:55 AM Subscribe
We have a 6-month-old and are looking to buy in the parts of D.C. where you can get a 3 bedroom row house for around $600k--think Bloomingdale, Eckington, Petworth, Brightwood Park, etc.
We're not looking at specific schools yet and aren't thinking past elementary school.
D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) do not have a particularly great reputation in the region. We both grew up going to well-funded, high-achieving, not-particularly-diverse suburban public schools and have no real starting point to assess what the public school system is offering here.
So, how bad is it? (Please tell us it's not bad at all!) What does it mean when the local elementary school has only 13 percent of students proficient or better in English? Is this the reason people with kids buy in the suburbs or can we make this work? Why have I been staring at the school lottery page for two hours and still can't figure out how this works in practice? General thoughts are welcome but we're especially looking for thoughts from those with specific knowledge of D.C. Public Schools.
So, how bad is it? (Please tell us it's not bad at all!) What does it mean when the local elementary school has only 13 percent of students proficient or better in English? Is this the reason people with kids buy in the suburbs or can we make this work? Why have I been staring at the school lottery page for two hours and still can't figure out how this works in practice? General thoughts are welcome but we're especially looking for thoughts from those with specific knowledge of D.C. Public Schools.
I hate to suggest wading into the swamp, but you might want to check out or ask in the DC Urban Moms forum. There is a huge amount of discussion on this topic there.
posted by procrastination at 8:17 AM on March 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by procrastination at 8:17 AM on March 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
DC's Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) built out the excellent LearnDC for folks like you.
As an aside, if that's your budget and criteria for housing, you'll likely need to look further afield than Bloomingdale/Eckington/Edgewood. I live in Bloomingdale, and you'd be hard-pressed to get a three-bedroom rowhouse for that money, what with all the flippers overbidding over list with all-cash offers.
posted by evoque at 9:08 AM on March 18, 2016
As an aside, if that's your budget and criteria for housing, you'll likely need to look further afield than Bloomingdale/Eckington/Edgewood. I live in Bloomingdale, and you'd be hard-pressed to get a three-bedroom rowhouse for that money, what with all the flippers overbidding over list with all-cash offers.
posted by evoque at 9:08 AM on March 18, 2016
DC Urban Moms is a good suggestion because it has a lot of very specific information and scuttlebutt you're unlikely to find anywhere else, but please take into account that it is fairly (and at times, severely) skewed by classism, racism, elitism, unsubstantiated rumor, backbiting, NIMBYism, parent-on-parent warfare, weird DC-area tribalism, etc. You'll see issues on there lamented as fatal flaws of certain schools or neighborhoods that are really just minor.
posted by sallybrown at 9:32 AM on March 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by sallybrown at 9:32 AM on March 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
What does it mean when the local elementary school has only 13 percent of students proficient or better in English? Is this the reason people with kids buy in the suburbs or can we make this work?
1) Yes this is part of the reason people buy in the suburbs
2) Can you "make it work"? Sure, there are kids in DCPS who are doing okay, especially at the elementary school level, but the schools generally speaking, aren't good. Staff turnover is high, student scores are low, and what would have been considered utter chaos (students running out of the classroom as an example) at my suburban elementary schools is a thing that happens pretty regularly.
That said, this is a really hard question to answer without thinking about a specific school. They vary widely, and you'd really need to identify one before assuming that they're all going to be one way or another. There's also charter schools, which you can't count on being accepted to, but are a completely different sort of beast, with even wider variance in quality.
If I'm blunt about my preferences, I would be okay with my kid attending many DCPS elementary schools, some DCPS middle schools, and probably no high schools, except the application schools and possibly some charter schools. That's based on what schools I think are safe, more than "good," based on a belief that we'll be doing enough home support to make up for the school not being ideal. For each of those, though, I'd have to visit the school to be sure; it's a hard judgment call to make, sight unseen.
DC Urban Moms as a resource is completely fraught, on account of the kind of racism, elitism, etc. that means that plenty of those parents are never even really considering standard public school.
The lottery can be confusing, but it only matters 1) for Pre-K where you don't have a right to attend your neighborhood school, so you have to apply by lottery no matter what, 2) if you want to enroll in a different school from your neighborhood school, including a charter school. You only have to do it when changes school for case #2.
I work in a field ancillary to the schools in DC, and my wife used to teach in them, so I'm happy to take a MeMail on this.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:05 AM on March 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
1) Yes this is part of the reason people buy in the suburbs
2) Can you "make it work"? Sure, there are kids in DCPS who are doing okay, especially at the elementary school level, but the schools generally speaking, aren't good. Staff turnover is high, student scores are low, and what would have been considered utter chaos (students running out of the classroom as an example) at my suburban elementary schools is a thing that happens pretty regularly.
That said, this is a really hard question to answer without thinking about a specific school. They vary widely, and you'd really need to identify one before assuming that they're all going to be one way or another. There's also charter schools, which you can't count on being accepted to, but are a completely different sort of beast, with even wider variance in quality.
If I'm blunt about my preferences, I would be okay with my kid attending many DCPS elementary schools, some DCPS middle schools, and probably no high schools, except the application schools and possibly some charter schools. That's based on what schools I think are safe, more than "good," based on a belief that we'll be doing enough home support to make up for the school not being ideal. For each of those, though, I'd have to visit the school to be sure; it's a hard judgment call to make, sight unseen.
DC Urban Moms as a resource is completely fraught, on account of the kind of racism, elitism, etc. that means that plenty of those parents are never even really considering standard public school.
The lottery can be confusing, but it only matters 1) for Pre-K where you don't have a right to attend your neighborhood school, so you have to apply by lottery no matter what, 2) if you want to enroll in a different school from your neighborhood school, including a charter school. You only have to do it when changes school for case #2.
I work in a field ancillary to the schools in DC, and my wife used to teach in them, so I'm happy to take a MeMail on this.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:05 AM on March 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
If I'm blunt about my preferences, I would be okay with my kid attending many DCPS elementary schools, some DCPS middle schools, and probably no high schools, except the application schools and possibly some charter schools.
That seems like a reasonable assessment. My husband and I bought a place in Eckington about a year ago. I tried to wade through as much info as I could regarding schools and such before I got overwhelmed. When it comes to a lot of issues related to DCPS but especially rankings and boundaries, things can and do change all the time. I personally didn't want to try to spend near the top end of our budget with the expectation that our kids could go to a certain school only to flip out later when the boundaries change, especially since I wasn't pregnant when we started looking for a home.
I tried to focus on our needs for the next five years. Five years from the date we bought our place, we will be the parents of a 4 year old, possibly a younger kid as well. At 4 years, our kid might be going to pre-K but she might also still be in a daycare program if we find one we like. Pre-K would probably be preferable because daycare isn't cheap but if we're not happy with the pre-K situation, we can stay out of it. If we stay at our place for longer than that, we can take our chances with DCPS or plan to send our kid to a private school for a year or two. Again, that's not ideal but we think we could make it work. When private school becomes prohibitively expensive and our options with DCPS are underwhelming, then we might talk about moving. Until then, we're planning to stay in DC.
On a related note, I was encouraged to stay in DC because there's pre-K for 3 year olds and 4 year olds. They're not all good programs but that's not an option in nearby areas. Plus it seems like the general trend with DCPS is that it's improving - maybe not every school, maybe not my school but it seems like overall, they're improving. I'm not committed to staying here permanently but I also don't feel the need to pack up just yet.
posted by kat518 at 11:09 AM on March 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
That seems like a reasonable assessment. My husband and I bought a place in Eckington about a year ago. I tried to wade through as much info as I could regarding schools and such before I got overwhelmed. When it comes to a lot of issues related to DCPS but especially rankings and boundaries, things can and do change all the time. I personally didn't want to try to spend near the top end of our budget with the expectation that our kids could go to a certain school only to flip out later when the boundaries change, especially since I wasn't pregnant when we started looking for a home.
I tried to focus on our needs for the next five years. Five years from the date we bought our place, we will be the parents of a 4 year old, possibly a younger kid as well. At 4 years, our kid might be going to pre-K but she might also still be in a daycare program if we find one we like. Pre-K would probably be preferable because daycare isn't cheap but if we're not happy with the pre-K situation, we can stay out of it. If we stay at our place for longer than that, we can take our chances with DCPS or plan to send our kid to a private school for a year or two. Again, that's not ideal but we think we could make it work. When private school becomes prohibitively expensive and our options with DCPS are underwhelming, then we might talk about moving. Until then, we're planning to stay in DC.
On a related note, I was encouraged to stay in DC because there's pre-K for 3 year olds and 4 year olds. They're not all good programs but that's not an option in nearby areas. Plus it seems like the general trend with DCPS is that it's improving - maybe not every school, maybe not my school but it seems like overall, they're improving. I'm not committed to staying here permanently but I also don't feel the need to pack up just yet.
posted by kat518 at 11:09 AM on March 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
I work in a field ancillary to the schools in DC, and my wife used to teach in them, so I'm happy to take a MeMail on this.
Me, it's me! I used to teach in DC public schools ; I have teaching experience in either elementary or middle schools in every quadrant except Northeast.
The quality of both the education and environment varies SO MUCH from school to school, and if you have a six-month-old the landscape will look VERY different when they actually start school because a lot of DCPS schools are changing fast (and some aren't changing fast enough). I would definitely, DEFINITELY visit a school before I sent my kid there and be aware that, as Bulgaroktonos says, there are many things that are completely normalized in schools in which I've worked that have been completely shocking to me and would have been really upsetting to me as a child. It's worth considering whether you think your kid can handle a potentially chaotic environment and the effects of lower standards being normal not just in terms of academics but in terms of behavior; I worry about my future child thinking that it's normal for students (even kindergarteners) to threaten the teacher or becoming accustomed to violent outbursts in the classroom.
In terms of academics, in a lot of elementary schools where I've taught, if a kid was on grade level it was often assumed that they were fine and were going to be fine and attention was reserved for trying to bring kids with academic or behavioral issues up to par. This will also vary a lot from school to school and teacher to teacher but be prepared to do a lot of research and support of the kid on your own outside of school.
Also do be aware that teacher turnover in much of the city is VERY high and often happens midyear in some of the more challenging schools (I worked in an elementary school where the other second grade teacher quit at the end of the first day and a fourth-grade teacher who had received commendations for excellence in other urban public school systems went on stress-related disability halfway through the year because the school was so out of control and he felt like he wasn't getting any support) . Unfortunately a lot of DCPS elementary schools are just not stable. That said, there are some phenomenal schools (Key Elementary and Horace Mann in Northwest are both really excellent -- I know people who've worked at both) and some really excellent teachers even in crummy schools and unfortunately a lot of it is a crap shoot.
It's also worth considering that a lot of the schools are changing, many for the better, and one of the ways in which they change is by involved parents sending their kids there and holding the school accountable. There's a lot of value in classrooms that have diverse student populations, including diversity of experience as well as racial and socioeconomic diversity.
We're not in a crazy different position from you (due to give birth in July, currently live in an apartment but are thinking about buying somewhere long term), and, as Bulgaroktonos said, I think a lot of it boils down to the fact that we are comfortable sending our kid to a school that is safe (emotionally as well as physically -- this is not a given) and meets certain minimum thresholds for stability even if it isn't academically excellent because we feel like we can provide enough support at home and through enrichment activities to make it work.
Also, totally feel free to MeFi mail me if I can help at all, either with information about specific schools or by answering more detailed questions. I don't teach there anymore but I care a lot about supporting public education and trying to improve DCPS (even if I think the organization itself is a terrifying nightmare) and I would be so, so happy to help if there's anything I can do. Good luck!
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 12:06 PM on March 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
Me, it's me! I used to teach in DC public schools ; I have teaching experience in either elementary or middle schools in every quadrant except Northeast.
The quality of both the education and environment varies SO MUCH from school to school, and if you have a six-month-old the landscape will look VERY different when they actually start school because a lot of DCPS schools are changing fast (and some aren't changing fast enough). I would definitely, DEFINITELY visit a school before I sent my kid there and be aware that, as Bulgaroktonos says, there are many things that are completely normalized in schools in which I've worked that have been completely shocking to me and would have been really upsetting to me as a child. It's worth considering whether you think your kid can handle a potentially chaotic environment and the effects of lower standards being normal not just in terms of academics but in terms of behavior; I worry about my future child thinking that it's normal for students (even kindergarteners) to threaten the teacher or becoming accustomed to violent outbursts in the classroom.
In terms of academics, in a lot of elementary schools where I've taught, if a kid was on grade level it was often assumed that they were fine and were going to be fine and attention was reserved for trying to bring kids with academic or behavioral issues up to par. This will also vary a lot from school to school and teacher to teacher but be prepared to do a lot of research and support of the kid on your own outside of school.
Also do be aware that teacher turnover in much of the city is VERY high and often happens midyear in some of the more challenging schools (I worked in an elementary school where the other second grade teacher quit at the end of the first day and a fourth-grade teacher who had received commendations for excellence in other urban public school systems went on stress-related disability halfway through the year because the school was so out of control and he felt like he wasn't getting any support) . Unfortunately a lot of DCPS elementary schools are just not stable. That said, there are some phenomenal schools (Key Elementary and Horace Mann in Northwest are both really excellent -- I know people who've worked at both) and some really excellent teachers even in crummy schools and unfortunately a lot of it is a crap shoot.
It's also worth considering that a lot of the schools are changing, many for the better, and one of the ways in which they change is by involved parents sending their kids there and holding the school accountable. There's a lot of value in classrooms that have diverse student populations, including diversity of experience as well as racial and socioeconomic diversity.
We're not in a crazy different position from you (due to give birth in July, currently live in an apartment but are thinking about buying somewhere long term), and, as Bulgaroktonos said, I think a lot of it boils down to the fact that we are comfortable sending our kid to a school that is safe (emotionally as well as physically -- this is not a given) and meets certain minimum thresholds for stability even if it isn't academically excellent because we feel like we can provide enough support at home and through enrichment activities to make it work.
Also, totally feel free to MeFi mail me if I can help at all, either with information about specific schools or by answering more detailed questions. I don't teach there anymore but I care a lot about supporting public education and trying to improve DCPS (even if I think the organization itself is a terrifying nightmare) and I would be so, so happy to help if there's anything I can do. Good luck!
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 12:06 PM on March 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
DC Urban Moms is a good suggestion because it has a lot of very specific information and scuttlebutt you're unlikely to find anywhere else, but please take into account that it is fairly (and at times, severely) skewed by classism, racism, elitism, unsubstantiated rumor, backbiting, NIMBYism, parent-on-parent warfare, weird DC-area tribalism, etc. You'll see issues on there lamented as fatal flaws of certain schools or neighborhoods that are really just minor.
20 year DC resident here - this is a charitable description of DC Urban Moms, which is a circus maximus of mindless white privilege and barely-dogwhistle race hate.
DCPS is a mixed bag, and changing (largely for the better) very quickly - some schools are doing well, others are still struggling. FWIW, I have a 5 year old and 2 year old and the former, on the strength of the experience of friends who have their kids there, will be attending Bancroft Elementary in Mt. Pleasant next year.
Also, and anecdata: Their mom attended DCPS schools (Janney, Deal, Wilson) in the 80s, at their likely nadir, and turned out great.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:12 PM on March 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
20 year DC resident here - this is a charitable description of DC Urban Moms, which is a circus maximus of mindless white privilege and barely-dogwhistle race hate.
DCPS is a mixed bag, and changing (largely for the better) very quickly - some schools are doing well, others are still struggling. FWIW, I have a 5 year old and 2 year old and the former, on the strength of the experience of friends who have their kids there, will be attending Bancroft Elementary in Mt. Pleasant next year.
Also, and anecdata: Their mom attended DCPS schools (Janney, Deal, Wilson) in the 80s, at their likely nadir, and turned out great.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:12 PM on March 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
Strictly anecdata: I had friends who were happy with their child's pre-K program in the DC schools (sorry, I don't know which school it was - they were living in the Glover Park area) until it became obvious that their child was struggling and needed special education services. He was evaluated and denied services. Long story short, they ended up moving to Fairfax County, where he was re-evaluated and was granted free special ed preschool (Fairfax doesn't have public pre-K) and multiple weekly home visits from a speech therapist. I don't have personal experience with DC, though I am the parent of a child in special ed in Loudoun County. Your child is very young yet, but you should investigate the full range of services (including gifted education, too) provided by the school district, not just general ed.
I concur with the others that DCUM can be horrifying, primarily because it allows for anonymous posting. However, I have found useful information in the special needs forum on occasion.
posted by candyland at 1:19 PM on March 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
I concur with the others that DCUM can be horrifying, primarily because it allows for anonymous posting. However, I have found useful information in the special needs forum on occasion.
posted by candyland at 1:19 PM on March 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
I have a PhD in DCPS, mostly because I live on the Hill and have a couple of young kiddos. That said, I do have to refer you to DCUM, even though it is terrible. (In fact, I first learned about DCUM - even though I had lived in DC since 2002 - here on the blue. http://www.metafilter.com/116969/And-by-the-way-your-kids-stroller-sucks.) The thing is, 600k for a 3 bedroom is hard to find in DC and I don't know enough about which neighborhoods have acceptable elementary schools at that price range. DCUM (and MySchoolDC which is great) will give you a lot to think about. I would also recommend hiring EV Downey for a consultation. She has a business that consists of advising parents about the DCPS and DC Public Charter School schools. We took one of her overview classes and also paid her to review our lottery list last year and give us pointers about which schools to include and how to rank them. She's very nice.
Okay - the good. As you've noticed, DC has some free pre-kindergarten classes in some DCPS and some DCPCS schools for kids who turn 3 (PK-3) by September 30th of the school year. DC has free PK-4 in even more schools. Some of the DCPS elementary schools are quite good, more are getting better and quickly. Some charter schools are quite good though they are mostly new. One middle school is good (Deal) but it's as over-crowded as the best middle schools in the suburbs. Hardy middle school might be good in a few years. Basis and Latin are good charter schools. Wilson is one good high school. The upper northwest DC elementary schools are the best in the city, specifically Janney, Key, Lafayette, Mann, and Murch. But Key and Mann don't feed into Deal, so they're less desirable than Janney, Lafayette and Murch. There's a good school near DuPont. And on the Hill there are some very good elementary schools: Brent and Maury followed by Peabody. There are also some quite good charters and I don't have time or space to write about all of them. One cool thing is there are five immersion elementary school charters that all feed into an immersion middle and high school (DC International). So you've got free nursery school through 12th and your kid graduates bilingual or trilingual.
The bad. Most DCPS schools are mediocre to bad. The middle and high school situation is dismal right now. (Though there is a bit of hope for Hardy and Stuart Hobson middle schools.) The good charters are very hard to get into (pure lottery). We have friends who are Harvard grads who send their daughters to Yu Ying (the Mandarin immersion elementary school charter) and their joke is it was harder to get into YY than Harvard.
More info. Starting in kindergarten, kids are guaranteed a spot as of right in their neighborhood school (in bounds: IB). Generally, the worse the school the more likely it is to have a PK-3 program, and the more likely there are to be spots available for IB or even out of bounds (OOB) kids. On the Hill, for instance, all the elementary schools currently have PK-3 programs, but some of them have way fewer spots available than there are kids interested. There are preference categories for the lottery starting with sibling preference. You would "play the lottery" if: (1) you are IB for a school with PK-3 or PK-4 and you want a free spot, (2) you are IB for a less desirable school and you want the chance of getting into a better school, or (3) you want a charter. Brent, the best school on the Hill, had so many siblings of current students last year that that even IB kids with siblings enrolled did not all get in. Maury, and I believe the JKLMM schools all turned away IB kids in the PK-3 (Maury) and PK-4 (Maury and the JKLMM schools) lotteries. We are in an okay DCPS elementary school for now which we go into OOB through the PK-3 lottery. We don't like it. We're grateful for free PK-3, and our kid loves it, but it is not remotely a school we would send our kids to after PK. We're in bounds for a very good one, so we're guaranteed a spot in kindergarten. But our middle school and high school are terrible. So we're looking at Janney, Lafayette and Murch for next year, with a plan to send our kids there and then to Deal and Wilson. If we got into one of the immersion charters through the lottery I would feel like we won the megabucks, but the odds are so slim. You can't actually lottery into any of the really good DCPS elementary schools from OOB anymore, so the charters - while nearly impossible - are at least in the realm of what's possible. I think the highly regarded charter schools (HRCS) - which I swear is a term DCUM made up - may have 0-6 spots for PK-3 students who are not siblings of enrolled kids. So a school like YY or School-Within-A-School may add 10-20 new families per year total.
(We've checked out Montgomery county and Arlington county schools too. The best ones are seriously overcrowded or the commute is very long. But many of the better DCPS schools are overcrowded too.)
Okay, so what do you do if you want to buy in DC?You have a six month old, so you have 2-3 years depending on whether they then 3 before or after September 30. You could consult with EV Downey and buy in the best most up and coming school zone you can afford a 3-bedroom in and hope it improves a bit. For 600k that will NOT get you a school system with a good middle or high school but you could move for middle or charter for middle or maybe your middle would have improved in the next decade. You can play the lottery and hope for the best and move again if you get in nowhere good. You can raise your budget about $150k and buy IB for a school like Maury or Peabody. You could buy a smaller house in a place like Maury or Peabody. (The Hill ROCKS for families!) You could raise it even more and reduce your # of bedrooms and buy in Janney, Lafayette or Murch and be set for school through high school and not have to worry about this. You could rent until PK-3 or PK-4, see how you do in the lottery, and if you get into a great charter, buy wherever you want, and if you don't, buy the best house you can afford in a JLM school zone.
Good luck! We're grappling with a lot of this now too. I know there are a few schools in parts of DC besides the Hill and upper NW that are good, I just don't know them.
posted by Amizu at 5:37 PM on March 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
Okay - the good. As you've noticed, DC has some free pre-kindergarten classes in some DCPS and some DCPCS schools for kids who turn 3 (PK-3) by September 30th of the school year. DC has free PK-4 in even more schools. Some of the DCPS elementary schools are quite good, more are getting better and quickly. Some charter schools are quite good though they are mostly new. One middle school is good (Deal) but it's as over-crowded as the best middle schools in the suburbs. Hardy middle school might be good in a few years. Basis and Latin are good charter schools. Wilson is one good high school. The upper northwest DC elementary schools are the best in the city, specifically Janney, Key, Lafayette, Mann, and Murch. But Key and Mann don't feed into Deal, so they're less desirable than Janney, Lafayette and Murch. There's a good school near DuPont. And on the Hill there are some very good elementary schools: Brent and Maury followed by Peabody. There are also some quite good charters and I don't have time or space to write about all of them. One cool thing is there are five immersion elementary school charters that all feed into an immersion middle and high school (DC International). So you've got free nursery school through 12th and your kid graduates bilingual or trilingual.
The bad. Most DCPS schools are mediocre to bad. The middle and high school situation is dismal right now. (Though there is a bit of hope for Hardy and Stuart Hobson middle schools.) The good charters are very hard to get into (pure lottery). We have friends who are Harvard grads who send their daughters to Yu Ying (the Mandarin immersion elementary school charter) and their joke is it was harder to get into YY than Harvard.
More info. Starting in kindergarten, kids are guaranteed a spot as of right in their neighborhood school (in bounds: IB). Generally, the worse the school the more likely it is to have a PK-3 program, and the more likely there are to be spots available for IB or even out of bounds (OOB) kids. On the Hill, for instance, all the elementary schools currently have PK-3 programs, but some of them have way fewer spots available than there are kids interested. There are preference categories for the lottery starting with sibling preference. You would "play the lottery" if: (1) you are IB for a school with PK-3 or PK-4 and you want a free spot, (2) you are IB for a less desirable school and you want the chance of getting into a better school, or (3) you want a charter. Brent, the best school on the Hill, had so many siblings of current students last year that that even IB kids with siblings enrolled did not all get in. Maury, and I believe the JKLMM schools all turned away IB kids in the PK-3 (Maury) and PK-4 (Maury and the JKLMM schools) lotteries. We are in an okay DCPS elementary school for now which we go into OOB through the PK-3 lottery. We don't like it. We're grateful for free PK-3, and our kid loves it, but it is not remotely a school we would send our kids to after PK. We're in bounds for a very good one, so we're guaranteed a spot in kindergarten. But our middle school and high school are terrible. So we're looking at Janney, Lafayette and Murch for next year, with a plan to send our kids there and then to Deal and Wilson. If we got into one of the immersion charters through the lottery I would feel like we won the megabucks, but the odds are so slim. You can't actually lottery into any of the really good DCPS elementary schools from OOB anymore, so the charters - while nearly impossible - are at least in the realm of what's possible. I think the highly regarded charter schools (HRCS) - which I swear is a term DCUM made up - may have 0-6 spots for PK-3 students who are not siblings of enrolled kids. So a school like YY or School-Within-A-School may add 10-20 new families per year total.
(We've checked out Montgomery county and Arlington county schools too. The best ones are seriously overcrowded or the commute is very long. But many of the better DCPS schools are overcrowded too.)
Okay, so what do you do if you want to buy in DC?You have a six month old, so you have 2-3 years depending on whether they then 3 before or after September 30. You could consult with EV Downey and buy in the best most up and coming school zone you can afford a 3-bedroom in and hope it improves a bit. For 600k that will NOT get you a school system with a good middle or high school but you could move for middle or charter for middle or maybe your middle would have improved in the next decade. You can play the lottery and hope for the best and move again if you get in nowhere good. You can raise your budget about $150k and buy IB for a school like Maury or Peabody. You could buy a smaller house in a place like Maury or Peabody. (The Hill ROCKS for families!) You could raise it even more and reduce your # of bedrooms and buy in Janney, Lafayette or Murch and be set for school through high school and not have to worry about this. You could rent until PK-3 or PK-4, see how you do in the lottery, and if you get into a great charter, buy wherever you want, and if you don't, buy the best house you can afford in a JLM school zone.
Good luck! We're grappling with a lot of this now too. I know there are a few schools in parts of DC besides the Hill and upper NW that are good, I just don't know them.
posted by Amizu at 5:37 PM on March 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
If I were you, I'd try to poke my nose around the schools to get the vibe. My kid attended a co-op preschool inside of an elementary school and it felt very chaotic to me, especially now compared to his different (still urban, less diverse, Catholic) elementary school.
posted by k8t at 8:03 AM on March 18, 2016