Questions on relocation to Maryland

[Christine]

I grew up in Prince George's County and am ashamed to say that, YES, I am a product of their school system. It is really even amazing that I can even respond to this post and hopefully sound somewhat intelligent . No lie, the schools there SUCK big time. I used to live in Clinton right outside of Andrews AFB. We finally had to move because of teenage kids participating in "gunplay" in our once nice neighborhood. My boss lives in Laurel (in the Montpelier neighborhood mentioned above). He spends a LOT of money to send his son to Takoma Academy and is moving as soon as the boy goes to college.

As for Waldorf, in my opinion, it is almost just as bad. I have several relatives who live there and many co-workers. They send their kids to private school. In fact, my cousin has driven both of her kids to a private school in Virginia, while living in Waldorf. She lives in a neighborhood called Dorchester which is also in Westlake H.S. area. By the way, of all the schools, Westlake is the best.

I think I agree with Snoopy. Go to the Annapolis, Crofton area if you must stay in Maryland.

 

[mom2boys]

Another child of PG county here - only 2 yrs in public - I hightailed it back to Catholic school after 6th & 7th in public. It has changed a lot. The area where I grew up has been on the news alot lately due to shootings. My brother still lives there but he is a big guy with no children and a the type of personality that everyone loves. That & he owns a business which does contract work for the PG county police dept. Still he had just left a mom&pop convenience store - still in his car in the parking lot & an armed robber came racing out of the store.
My sister-in-law (&her sisters) graduated from Westlake - not the best education (of course they also brag about the days they skipped school). A friend taught a Westlake years ago - her first day a student was arrested.
I am in Frederick county - people commute to DC from here - it is a long commute. We have a decent school system and are fortunately to have a wonderful "feeder school area" - meaning the elementary schools & middle school that feed into the high school within our county. Others in the county are not as fortunate. Every school will have its good & bad points. Be sure to know which school your child will go to - in Waldorf, my cousins neighbor hood was split down the middle. She went to one elementary (private middle - because of the school), if she had lived across the street with our grandmother, she would have gone to a different - less desirable elementary school. She did well in high school - she was in honors all the way - totally different than the general population. BTW her principal actually asked some students not to take SATs becuase they "would pull the school average down & weren't college material anyway" I DARE anyone to say that to a kid of mine.

 

[ValerieK]

I think we might just be scaring TriciaT away.

 

[TriciaT]

Umm, I am getting a little nervous. I will look into Crofton and Annapolis furthur. Even if we have to buy a townhouse in a better area instead of a house.

I need to get my dh to read all of these opinions. We may have to factor in the cost of private schools into this move.


I appreciate everyone's honesty.

 

[snoopy]

I think Maryland is a wonderful place to live - just as long as you aren't in P.G. County. Its expensive to live here though, and people are on the fast track - probably no more so than people in New Jersey though. I don't think that aspect would be a shock to your system because you know life on the fast track, but I would caution someone moving from a small town not to expect some idyllic little town. You won't find it in the D.C. metro area.

Northern Virginia is also a possibility - people commute from Maryland to Virginia all the time, your husband would be doing the reverse.

At this particular moment the cost of housing is booming. I expect it will have to level off soon, because at this point I am not sure how people are buying homes, at least not first time home buyers. Unless they have a big chunk of cash to put down!

I suggest you research the area thoroughly to be sure it can offer you what you are looking for. If you are expecting a big change from what you have in New Jersey, I'm guessing you won't find much different here.

BUT, its still a great place to live and in the months March - December I really don't have any desire to live anywhere else.

 

[solotraveler]

I, too, am PG County born, raised and public-schooled.

I was VERY lucky indeed to have the luxury of great schooling (I was in a magnet program and I graduated HS in 1997.) If you do decide to live in PG County, I second the advice of looking VERY closely at the schools your children will be attending. If I were to move back there Greenbelt and Bowie would probably be the only places I'd look-- but I'd also more likely consider the Annapolis/Crofton area. the commute will be a bother no matter where you live

All that said, I would love to opportunity to move back to the DC area.

Best of luck with your decision!
Solotraveler

 

[ValerieK]

TriciaT

I thought of a goood resource for you. This area has a magazine called The Washingtonian. They do a special issue every year that talks about the best places to live in this area.

Washingtonian Magazine

This will take you to a page that has neighborhood and school information. You can also go and look at back issues. There is a link at the very bottom of the page.

 

[Kimickey]

I grew up in this area and have known many people who are the product of P.G. county schools, trust me, you'll not be wanting your kids to go to them.

I actually am another "product" of PG county schools. No I'm not ashamed to say it because, it' where I grew up. I have more positive memories than bad. I also have gone to school there all of my life except for one year. No the education is not the greatest, but I feel as if, it's what you and your parents make it. If you have parents that do not care, that is what type of education your kids are going to get. My mother could not afford to send me nor my brother to private schools, but she did insure that we got outside education from the local colleges. I graduated from HS early, went to college and then joined the Air Force & travel the world. I would say this product of PG county schools has turned out to be doing darn well, for being a "product" of PG County. There are lots of folks here such as myself that are doing better than some that are living in the classier parts of MD.

No PG county may not be the poster child for the state of MD, but it does have it's positive sides as well. If all we focus on is the negative, that is what is going to be shown. There a lot of hard working people in PG county but that is not highlighted, the bad is always focused on. I take for example. My DH is from Boston, while growing up he would hear of all of the crime in Washington, DC. It being the murder capital of the world. His total picture of Washington DC on a whole was bad, he was scared to death when he got station here. Now that he's been here for 10 years, he's realized that DC is not bad at all, it just has it's bad sections. PG is the same way, there are sections in each one of our counties in the state of MD that no one in their right mind would dare step foot in. I just think PG just takes the brunt of it, because we borded the DC line. There are sections of NO. VA I would not dare to live is, such as the section closest to the Wilson Bridge. I hear of crime ALL of the time in NO. VA and other parts of MD.

TriciaT, I'm not trying to sell you on anything. I'm just trying to enlighten you on the good and the bad. PG county on a whole is not bad, it's the sections that boarder the DC line that are not preferable. The furhter you move away from the DC line the better the housing. The educational system on a whole is not the greatest and each county has it's problems.

Kim

 

[tkd lisa]

Answering the question about how schools are managed. In Southern Maryland (Calvert, Charles, St. Mary's Counties), there are very very few incorporated towns, so the counties manage the school systems. Calvert and St. Mary's have 3 high schools, Charles has 5. Because the whole area is growing dramatically (which means we also have the DC area traffic, even though it's very rural), the school districts are changing all the time! Many children will have lived in the same house, but changed schools 4 or 5 times by the time they finish middle school.

I think you've already been pushed away from St. Mary's County, but I'll chime in anyway. We live in Southern St. Mary's County. That's probably too far to commute to Landover. Northern St. Mary's might be do-able. There are commuter buses and many park and ride lots. Northern St. Mary's is more rural than Waldorf, but the high school has some problems (Chopticon high school). The overall way of life would be simpler (there is a large population of Amish and Mennonite families on the border between Charles and St. Mary's), but housing prices here are very high too. You probably couldn't find a house for $150. $200 would get you an older home probably without a garage. $250 is the general range for the typical 4 bed, 2 1/2 bath family home.

pm me if you have more specific questions.

 

[Pooh's Pal]

I can not give you advice on Maryland, as we are from Massachusetts. But, we are leaving on Thursday 4/29/04 for a band trip to Baltimore/Annapolis with my dd's high school. While I/we (the parent band booster organization) were doing research in this area to find the schools we will be competing/performing at, I found this web site.

www.greatschools.net
Also this one helped us for the Anne Arundel area we are going to: http://www.aacps.org

(*We are performing at Annapolis High School and I think Chesapeake High School also, on Friday, along with touring the Naval Academy there. Marching in the Crofton's Annual Armed Forces Day parade, starting at Crofton Woods Elementary School on Saturday. Somewhere in that area??? then on to tour D.C.
So, if you're in the area on Friday or Saturday...come cheer Barnstable HS from Massachusetts on!! )

 

[TriciaT]

Thanks for the reality check everyone. I probably would have jumped right into this move thinking any school is as good as another.

I compared the proficiency levels of students in most Maryland schools with our area so that I have some type of guide. Our town's students are over 95% proficient including special ed and I could not find any Maryland public schools over 60%, some were even in the 20's.

I looked around at private schools and couldn't find anything there and a lot of the parental reviews spoke about violence and safety issues at the public schools (middle and high level)

My options at this point are to have dh say he is not interested or go really high in salary and home school my sons.

I really wanted to move closer to Disney too

I appreciate all of your opinions.