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Posted By: Lovemydd Did you move for your child's education? - 03/04/14 11:48 PM
And was that the best decision or did you regret it? I really like a private Montessori school that is about an hour from where we live. I would love for dd4.5 to go there a year and a half from now. However, to make it work on an everyday basis for dd, we would have to move to be closer to school. Our commute to work would be the same as now. However, dh is not too keen on moving because a) we have a nice home that we love and b) we may have to look at another school again when dd is ready for middle school. Has anyone else done this. Any lessons learnt? Thanks.
Posted By: bina Re: Did you move for your child's education? - 03/05/14 12:05 AM
oh.. what a hard decision. I have not done that...but I think about it sometimes. I have been talking to lots of people who have done that and they don't regret it.
We didn't move, but we transferred our son to a school that is 50 miles from our house. We have been commuting for 3+ years. We will be moving nearer to several schools, but we're not picking a house based on DS's school -- we are picking a house that is centrally located by several decent school options, just in case we need to move schools. By the time our DS was 7, he had been in 3 different schools. I would suggest that moving before you know how your child will be in school may not be the best idea. I agree with your DH on this one. smile

ETA: Of course, every family needs to do what fits best for them. This worked for us since my job is near DS's school. But if you have a kid really outside of the norm, I would take more of a wait-and-see approach when it comes to school. It is really hard to predict what type of learner your kiddo may be a year down the line, especially in the first years of school. Your best bet is to find a very flexible school that is willing to make adjustments if necessary, such as compacting curriculum, subject acceleration, and other differentiation.
New city, rented first, bought very close to DS' school. If we lived elsewhere and I knew what I kow about how well gifted is handled here, I would move even cross country for it. But I'd want to be very confident about a situation before I pulled the trigger. DS was in the school almost a year before we moved closer.

Advice:
Try it before you buy it.

You've read enough here to kow there are so many ways it can go sour for kids who are much further out. You also have to account for middle school and then high school.
Originally Posted by Zen Scanner
You also have to account for middle school and then high school.

Great point. Even though we love, love DS's elementary school, the program ends after 5th grade, so we have to find a new school. There are many people who did move into the district for the program who have discovered that what follows in middle school isn't quite ideal.
Quote
Advice:
Try it before you buy it.

QFT.

We thought that the school (within walking distance! highly regarded! well-run!) we bought near would be a good one, too.

And then we learned just how unwelcome DD's food allergies made her there.

Oh, and how little they "could" do with a 5yo working at 3rd grade level.

We've been living in a house and paying for our neighbors to have excellent public schools. EXCELLENT ones.

For 13 years. While we paid out of pocket to homeschool, and then deal with the virtual school system in our state.

No guarantees. Even less so if there is ANY whiff of "second exceptionality" here. Just so that you know that.
We commuted across town for a few years to a K-12 school before moving to that side of town. Also flirted with a move to Nevada for Davidson... which honestly would have been fantastic for D2, but I just wasn't very interested in living in Reno.
We did move here for our ods's school. It is a great school and yds just got accepted to it. But we will either need to figure out affording private school for middle school/high school or we will need to move again.
I don't regret moving to this district for the school we are at now, because it is superior to anything else we could have done and we have to live somewhere.
We moved to Reno for DD11 to attend Davidson and haven't regretted it one bit. We are renting however because we weren't going to buy without knowing if it would fit. It was a bit nerve racking, but to us it was worth it.
It also puts us in a good position for DD6, if/when she needs to academy.
Reno was not on our list of places to live either, but we knew we would need to move from where we were before even if she did not get into the academy because there were no alternatives where we were. One thing about the move here that has been great is there is a community for the entire family that gets your kid and accepts you with open arms because they've all been through what you've been through or something similar trying to find a good fit your your kid.
Posted By: Sweetie Re: Did you move for your child's education? - 03/05/14 01:54 AM
There are 5 elementary schools in a very small area of this city (high density apartments, houses, and condo developments). From my house I can drive west 3 miles to two elementary school. And south 2 then another 1 mile to two others and east 6 miles to another and there is a charter school I am not even counting.

I moved my son from his zoned school to a school of choice with a dual language program...but he was two miles from the zoned school and three miles from the choice school. We were lucky.
Posted By: Dude Re: Did you move for your child's education? - 03/05/14 02:18 AM
We didn't, but we did consider local school district reputation in selecting a place to live.

What I learned is that just because a district has a good reputation, doesn't mean it's good for your kid.
Originally Posted by Dude
We didn't, but we did consider local school district reputation in selecting a place to live.

What I learned is that just because a district has a good reputation, doesn't mean it's good for your kid.
Agree with this statement. Moved a few times as a kid and my mother said the higher the schools ranking, the less it was willing to accommodate my brother & I.
Posted By: ashley Re: Did you move for your child's education? - 03/05/14 05:36 AM
We bought in the best school district (based on academic performance) and DS went to the top rated school in our district for K. We thought we had a done deal. And then we found out that it did not matter how good the school's API scores were and how many enrichment activities were paid for by the cash rich PTA. My DS was not learning anything new to him. Gifted services do not kick in until 3rd grade and differentiation made a very small impact to his school work. We pulled him out and now commute to a private school. We pay property taxes for other people's kids to get a quality education smile But the good thing is that my property value has held up because of the stellar school district.
That being said, I have identified the middle school and high school that we would like for DS and will buy and move near there when he gets to that age.

OP, my son is in his 3rd school at age 6. I suggest that you commute to your school of choice before you make your decision to move.
Posted By: SFrog Re: Did you move for your child's education? - 03/05/14 07:10 PM
Originally Posted by Dude
What I learned is that just because a district has a good reputation, doesn't mean it's good for your kid.

Yep.

One (of the many) factors that went into our house purchase was the school district. While it would have been a great fit for a normal to mildly gifted learner, they were not equipped to deal with a highly gifted - high achiever. Luckily there is a private K-5 only a 10-15 minute drive away, and open enrolling to the more accommodating district next door for middle and high schools has kept us from needing to relocate.

If we had to, we probably would have bitten the bullet and relocated elsewhere.

--S.F.
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