Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Regions Boston area schools advice?

We are leaning towards renting for a year or two, to get the lay of the land, and see how our first choice for school district turns out. It's a great suggestion. The only downside is moving to a new house 2x in a couple years though! But it could be worth it. Lots of decisions to be made...

Yes, I know some gifted students who attend Boston University Academy. Roxbury Latin for boys and the Winsor school for girls are also middle/high schools worth considering. Boston Latin is a well-regarded public exam school.

Yup, DH was already living in a 'really good school system' sort of town, but I wanted a 'more cultural amenities' sort of neighborhood.

I got swayed by the 'school' idea - wouldn't it be nice to send my kid to a school where he felt normal more than I did?


And public schools mattered because both DH and I felt a strong emotional allegiance to the idea of public schools,



and certainly we weren't 'the kind of people who sent their kid to boarding school.'
It's hard to know exactly, but part of the reason we limited our parenting to our 'one and only' is because we were 'house-poor' in the 'fabulous' school district for so long. (Of course DS gets some of the blame - needy, fussy, 2E, PG, anxious toddlers are a great form of birth control. See 'quote' below)


So if misery loves company, we followed all the familiar advice such as 'pick a 'good' school district' and 'buy as much house as you can' and well - I think familiar advice works great for people in general, but my life has been all about how general =all, including me.

I love the renting idea!
See our Flylady thread on how to declutter so that moving in a few years can be an opportunity instead of a disaster.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Following up on Grinity's comment to this. We actually decided not to buy in the "really good school system", precisely because we thought we would feel obligated to use the schools there if we did, and we weren't at all convinced that they would be a good match for DS. Going through this decision made us realize that, although we do feel some allegiance to the public schools, it doesn't extend so far as to require us to choose them over some other option that is clearly better for DS.

That said, every choice will have its downsides; so for those so-inclined, second-guessing forever remains an option.

Hey! I resemble that remark!

To the above OPs (Grinity), thanks for reminding me why we moved from NYC, to west of Boston and then to the North Shore. We were renting west of Boston and had few options in terms of buying with a 2e, pg, only child; so I can totally relate to you Grinity.

In the end, we decided to move to the North Shore so we can buy a cheaper house and send our son to a creative, private school in a lacking public school system. The creative, private school is a bit unique in MA and fits our son's needs to a t. The creative, private school has a different curriculum and approach to anything found in the public schools so for us it works but it's not cheap and there are tradeoffs. My husband, at the moment, has a terrible commute while he's looking for a job closer to home.

Yes, I would strongly urge you to consider renting around west of Boston before you buy something. Some communities like Concord and Lincoln are more rural than say Newton. Some communities are going to fit your needs better than others.

I know many people try to buy into the best community in the Metro west area of Boston so their kids can go to the best schools. For some people, it works. But it doesn't for everyone.

West of Boston is an expensive and very desirable place to live because it's convenient to Boston and Cambridge where many jobs are located. As a result, many of the school districts are quite competitive with uber professionals at Harvard, MIT, high-tech, and bio-tech industries. There's a perception within the state that some of these communities are the cream of the crop places to live and suitable for gifted kids regardless. I would disagree however. Take a look. See what happens. Keep your eyes and mind open to alternatives.

Me too, Grinity. Me too...

This is very interesting. I do like to revisit my decisions... second guessing ahoy! I've been trying to limit that, thanks to cognitive therapy, etc!

cdfox-Can you expand on this below? I was starting to like the idea that the towns filled with MIT/Harvard/high-tech/bio-tech folks would have schools that might work better for a gifted kid (optimally gifted?), at least in part because of the skew in population.



We would like the cultural opportunities of being closer to the city, and ideally would like a train line near the house for commuting.

Watching this thread as Boston is a possibility for us as well. I suspect we are dealing with more optimally gifted rather than PG so a strong public school would be adequate--Newton I think would be my first choice but I don't think we could afford it. Good luck in your search. The Sage School is supposed to be great FWIW.

Several suburbs of Boston have public school that look good on paper, based on the fraction of students going to 4-year colleges, average SAT and AP test scores, etc. Besides the favorable demographics (a largely White/Asian, affluent, college-educated population), some of the success may be due to programs parents are paying for outside the public schools. A large fraction of parents we know are sending their children to places like the Russian School of Math http://www.russianschool.com/ (started in Newton, and now expanded to other towns) or the Math Club http://www.themathclub.com/ in Lexington. Many Chinese parents send their children to Chinese school one or more days a week, and these schools are not entirely focused on Chinese culture. It may be better for some families to live in less expensive towns within driving distance of these towns, so that they have money for extras such as these.