Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: "Good" schools and urban cohousing

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Feb 21, 2017, at 6:24 PM, John Richmond <johnrichmond50 [at] hotmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> Sharon: followup question - have you had parents decide not to move in due to 
> the school zones in comparison to, say, Eastern Village in Montgomery County?

Two households have moved to Montgomery County because they have such good 
schools as Jessie explained  It’s a large district and offers many options.

But both the households moved out of cohousing - one to a larger apartment and 
the other to a house with a garden and a finished basement.

Eastern Village is very different from Takoma Village so I think most  people 
would choose one or the other community. One household that ended up here had 
looked at a unit in Eastern Village and been told by the owner that Eastern 
Village wasn’t cohousing. I know many people there do consider it cohousing but 
they have a wider range of participating and non-participating than we do. 
Jesse can tell us if this is changing.

I love what Eastern Village has done in renovating a large office building, 
creating very interesting units with things like lofts and sunken living rooms. 
Small libraries with a lamp and a chair in nooks in the hallways, and a 
“distributed” CH with facilities on different floors instead of all on the 
first floor, for example. Nice art on the walls. A roof garden and playground.

If all other things were equal, I do think households with children would 
choose Eastern Village if they planned to send children to public schools. 
Unlike smaller towns where almost all the children go to public schools, there 
are lots of options in DC. That probably contributes to the low expectations in 
the public schools. The parents with the means to step in and fix the schools, 
flee instead.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org