What would you give up for great schools?

[waltworks]

Our family is faced with a dilemma regarding school. Essentially, we have (just like everyone else who posts here) very bright kids (6th/4th graders) who are identified as GT and are several grade levels ahead of their peers in basically every subject.

Which is great, and basically expected as my wife and I are both ubernerds who were the same way when we were kids.

We live at a ski resort, because we love to ski and mountain bike and we can live anywhere we want. Problem is, the county has a very crappy school system which is rapidly getting crappier (along with declining enrollment and serious problems retaining/hiring staff). There's basically nothing in terms of after school clubs, advanced courses for middle/high school, etc. The state of Colorado also funds the schools at a really minimal level (CO is ranked 48th in the nation for teacher pay which is just awful) which means there's not much that the district can do to turn things around.

So our kids are pretty bored in their classes and our oldest has zero friends - because there are no other nerdy/smart kids to hang out with, really, and he's not enough of a social butterfly to, say, go befriend some jocks.

We have the opportunity to move back to my old hometown, which has the best public schools in the United States, probably. You can't throw a rock without hitting some dork who got a 1540 on her SAT and has her nose buried in a D&D manual, or someone who's into poetry and juggling and plays in a death metal band with a name that's a science pun, or a gaggle of kids from the chess/debate/science bowl/etc teams. The schools are funded better, and the teachers are all basically giant nerds like my wife and I. We've visited the schools and know some of the teachers personally so we're confident the school system is just as fantastic as it was when I was a kid.

The town itself is far from the ski resort life we're used to, but there are still plenty of fun outdoor activities to do. It's also (by our standards) cheap to live there. We could buy any house in town a couple times over for the cost of our cheapest-in-the-neighborhood ski town place (though we'd probably not sell our ski house, just to leave our options open).

Seems like a no-brainer, right?

The problem is that we already moved the kids once (from another ski town) because of similar school issues. We'd be moving them again, and starting everything over again. We'd be moving to a place with 2-3 months of winter instead of 5-6 (we all love winter). If everyone hated it we'd have to move AGAIN. I feel like at some point the lack of stability is going to cause problems for the kids (it already has, though to only a limited extent). The kids also like skiing and mountain biking and they might be pretty bummed at the much more limited options.

Our kids will be "fine" anywhere. They're not in terrible danger of flunking out of school and living in a van down by the river smoking doobies. Or at least not because of the town. But we'd like them to have friends and thrive socially and academically, which doesn't seem likely to happen here.

We do also have a 3 year old, but she's young enough that I'm not worried about her adjusting to a new town.

What would you do?

-W

[waltworks]

Jobs are not an issue here, we are FI and both only work very part time.

Maybe I should make a poll...

-W

[Freedomin5]

Definitely move. Intellectually, they’re not in danger of flunking, but if they have no friends and are bullied by their peers and feel like there’s no one around them who are like them and they’re the odd one out, it can EASILY turn to “I’m not like the others. There’s something wrong with me.” Which then turns to anxiety/depression/low self-esteem. You know what the research says about GT kids, right? Higher incidence of depression and more at risk for adjustment problems. Check out Davidson Institute and SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) for research and resources.

[Cranky]

I think it’s pretty hard to define “great schools”. If you are looking at test scores, that’s pretty much a function of family income, not of the school itself.

I had 3 extremely smart kids who went to just good enough schools, but who certainly did have plenty of friends and activities, many of which I spent time making happen. Schools are happy to offer extracurricular activities if you’re happy to show up and coach them.

What do your kids think about moving?

[waltworks]

I think it’s pretty hard to define “great schools”. If you are looking at test scores, that’s pretty much a function of family income, not of the school itself.

I had 3 extremely smart kids who went to just good enough schools, but who certainly did have plenty of friends and activities, many of which I spent time making happen. Schools are happy to offer extracurricular activities if you’re happy to show up and coach them.

What do your kids think about moving?

This is not purely a test scores thing. As I said, there is a vibrant intellectual atmosphere at the schools with a TON of extracurricular activities and amazing, enthusiastic teachers (as well as involved parents). The school district is also quite diverse with anglo, hispanic, asian/south asian, jewish, and native kids all well represented.

It's hard to get a read on our kids, to be honest. If they were gung ho about one option or another, that would make things much easier.

-W

[Michael in ABQ]

Any decent private options available? I'm not thrilled with where we live, and the public schools are not very good. But our kids go to a Catholic School that is really good. Small classes, good teachers, great curriculum and lots of other good kids who are interested in the same things.


I would lean towards moving. Academically your kids will probably be fine wherever they are, but looking at another 6-8 years of always being on the outside looking in because there are no other smart motivated kids they can be friends with will be hard. Also, the friends you have in elementary school as a kid are not necessarily the same ones you will have in middle school and high school. When I was growing up in a small city there were eight elementary schools feeding into two middle schools feeding into one high school. Out of my group of 5-6 close friends in high school only one of those was someone I knew from elementary school. The rest I met in middle school or high school. Before your kids go into middle school or high school is probably the best time to make the change - and it sounds like they're not necessarily going to be leaving behind a large group of close friends.

[Villanelle]

I'm a military kid, and a military spouse now so most of my closest friends (with kids) are mil families as well.  I think much of this is how you frame it for the kids.  For kids who think moving is normal, it just feels like part of life.  That said, it is easier on some kids than others.  I struggled more than my sister, because she's much more social and extroverted, especially as we got older. 

Another thing that seems worth mentioning is that those 1540 dorks might be under incredible pressure.  Don't forget to factor that into your decision. Challenging coursework is great.  One of our moves landed me in a special school for GATE (or whatever that's called today) kids.  Had to IQ test plus have an interview to get in, though it was a public school.  (Not the one I was zoned for.  Maybe a charter program, if they had such a thing back then?  I didn't know the details.)  It was an amazing experience and I learned more on those 2 years than any other in phase of my education.  So I get needing and wanting to be challenged. But I also see what high school and even junior high/middle school kids are enduring these days, and it is intense and in many cases, soul-crushing.  So consider whether the pressure to succeed and excel at the potential new school is healthy, or might be too much.  Challenging them academically is great only if it doesn't come with too much pressure and a zero defect mentality WRT grades and academics, IM(non-parent)O.

[waltworks]

The academic pressure thing is a great point. Neither my wife or I care about GPA or taking every possible AP class or playing 3 instruments to make sure your Princeton application looks good, but there are plenty of parents there who do. My instinct is that our kids would enjoy being around other smart kids, but probably wouldn't care about competing to be the best of the best (and to be fair, they'd have no chance even if they did - I went off to a fancy college at age 16 and wasn't considered one of the smarter kids at the school when I was there).

I could see how too much pressure on kids who are high achieving could be bad. My experience was that you could always find someone to hang out with or talk to who had interesting ideas or was building a potato cannon in their yard or was writing their senior paper on their time being an apprentice river guide over the summer, etc. There were also some kids who were desperately polishing their college applications and were probably miserable.

Here there are neither, really. Which sucks.

-W

[lhamo]

Definitely move. Intellectually, they’re not in danger of flunking, but if they have no friends and are bullied by their peers and feel like there’s no one around them who are like them and they’re the odd one out, it can EASILY turn to “I’m not like the others. There’s something wrong with me.” Which then turns to anxiety/depression/low self-esteem. You know what the research says about GT kids, right? Higher incidence of depression and more at risk for adjustment problems. Check out Davidson Institute and SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) for research and resources.

These were some of the concerns I had about my kids (especially DS) when it was obvious the relatively affordable private school we had them in in Beijing was not meeting their academic needs.  We ended up putting them in a more expensive/challenging school that offered the IB, which was much better, but even a few weeks in his teachers were saying they weren't sure how they were going to be able to keep him adequately challenged for 6 years.  At roughly $50-60k out of pocket cost --which was pretty much my take home pay at the time -- it didn't seem to be a good investment.  DS ended up applying to/getting admitted to the early entrance program at the University of Washington so he and I moved back to Seattle for the "boot camp" year and then the rest of the family followed once he was properly admitted to the undergraduate program.  He ended up getting into computer science as he wanted, and is now in a PhD program at Berkeley.  DD had a slightly rough transition back to the US but has done well subsequently and is now gearing up to start as an engineering pre-major at the UW herself in the fall.  So things ended up working out for our kids, but we did make some pretty major life choices to enable it.  Thankfully the sale of our Beijing apartment funded our FIRE, so it was all feasible.

If you look into the Davidson resources think about whether Reno might be an option -- I know housing is much more expensive there now due to Tesla, but that also means there is a big concentration of geeky folk in addition to the ones that were already drawn there by the Davidson programs.  If DS hadn't gotten admitted to the UW EEP it was on my radar as a place we might consider moving to.

But do also keep in mind that the situation is not necessarily totally dire.  I grew up in an area east of Seattle that used to be primarily logging/farming based -- my parents were on the leading edge of the suburbanization of the area (dad was an engineer at Boeing).  I was horribly out of place and eventually transferred to a different suburban district to escape severe bullying and get better academics.  That still wasn't enough to scratch my itch, though, so I ended up getting a UWC scholarship and completing the IB/my high school career in the UK.  That was sufficiently challenging that undergrad at the UW was ridiculously easy for me. 

[reeshau]

I am pro-move.  If your kids were already in high school and/or had a core group of friends, I might be more reluctant.  But being in elementary & middle school, they will already face the dislocation of a school transition.  Might as well make it worth something.

The missed winter could be made up with some focus on weekends and school holidays.

Re: listening to your kids.  Yes, you should, although you have said that they aren't pulling either way.  I'd make a bet that once you commit, they throw a hissy fit about the change.  Our next door neighbors have high school daughters.  They moved across town, but different school district, too far to be with old friends regularly, etc.  They were so against the move that they stayed behind for two weeks in protest.  Now, one year later, they are often in the pool late into the evening with all their news friends.

Kids hardly have any history under their belt.  This makes them blow any change, heck any experience, out of proportion.  They'll get over it.

[charis]

I would frame the question as a matter of school fit, not bad vs good school district.  I went to a "good" private school and was friends with those in "great" public districts, and the jocks were still ran those places and nerds were still bullied and othered.  My concern would be moving to the new school and finding out that my child is still struggling socially, and it wasn't just about whether there were other nerds at the school.  I have a neurodivergent child who is smart and nerdy and still struggles with smart and nerdy friends because they are more skilled at picking up on social cues and situational nuance.  I think looking for a better school fit is a good step, but also looking for other reasons why your child may have difficulty making friends is important too.

[waltworks]

He is neurotypical and had friends in our previous failing (but not quite so badly failing) school district. They were the nerdy kids.

So I'm not worried about him making friends. TBH I would not have been friends with any of the 5th grade kids at his school either (and I know the class/school intimately since I taught there almost 50 days this school year). I also taught a decent number of days at the middle school to check it out and was... not impressed.

-W

[waltworks]

That Davidson place in Reno is cool, but we're not city people. Biggest place we've lived is about 20,000 people and we'd like to keep it that way.

I also tend to doubt our kids would get into it (I wouldn't have either), 99.9th percentile minimum cutoff for admission is no joke! They are way ahead at basically everything but they're not geniuses.

Our kids despise all forms of online learning so remote GT stuff is a no-go, but I could see how that place would be an amazing option for a lot of kids.

-W

[MMMarbleheader]

Move around Burlington, VT great schools to choose from and skiing.

A plug for all of New England is that we don't have counties. ALL government is administered from the town level with smaller towns combining to form a regional school district. Makes for much more local control in schooling decisions, good and bad haha. Plus town meeting day is always a fun event/spectacle of direct democracy.

Seriously though I would move. Best think money can buy is your kids friends.

[Laura33]

Move. 

Not because the old school is overrun with 1540 SATs.  Because your kids don't have a peer group where you live now, and because the current school district has no options that will allow them to continue to grow and develop and challenge themselves.

I would divorce the choice of moving from the decision to move back to your own town.  IMO, your current situation is not great for your kids.  Sure, now, they're fine, and with parents like you, they'd probably get through no problem.  But being the odd one out is hard -- particularly being the nerdy odd one out, as those kinds tend to get bullied (AMHIK).  And kids who are smart need to be challenged, both to develop their own potential and to keep them from going off the rails.  You know the old cartoon saying, "if only he'd used his powers for good"?  Yeah.  Smart kids are going to find a way to use their smarts, and everyone's a lot happier if that smart kid is given some way to put those smarts to good use. 

And it's particularly good when that productive way of using smarts comes from someone other than the parents by the time the kid hits adolescence, because that's the time when parents suddenly become stupid and parental ideas are summarily rejected as stupid and out of touch.  It can come from a teacher, from a coach, from a youth group/club leader, or a hundred of other ways; you never know what and who is going to click with your kid until it does.  Which goes back to why smart teens typically do best in an environment surrounded by people and options that are good and healthy, vs. negative and destructive.  There are no guarantees anywhere; too much pressure can be just as harmful as too little.  But when you surround yourself and your kids with their tribe, and give them opportunities to grow, you are giving them their best chance to use their not-inconsiderable powers for good.

IMO, the 1540 SAT thing is infinitely less important than how you've described the people there.  Those are your kids' people.  The school itself is almost immaterial at that point, as long as it has at least some academic choices that will challenge your kids -- doesn't need to be the best school in the state, doesn't need to have only brilliant kids, just needs to have a path that the smart kids can follow to develop themselves and their interests.  IOW, it doesn't need to be a great school, just a good enough one; it's the people in it and around it who matter most.

[Just_Me]

As the lone "no" at this point I figured I'd share my perspective. It seems like you're worried about something that hasn't happened yet.

I put a lot of weight on the happiness of the family unit and the individual happiness of the children before considering something so drastic for the children when it may not be needed.

For smart kids, the tell tale signs of being under challenged are anxiety and perfectionism. Are they showing abnormal signs of these two? Are they showing any other behavioral issues? If you are dealing with significant behavioral issues it would certainly push the conversation with more immediacy. Then something like a cross country move to resolve an immediate behavioral issue seems more rational than one that you're worried about manifesting.

Who knows, maybe the stress from a preemptive move to this community opens the door to confidence issues, as in they don't intellectually feel like they fit in. Staying together now may open the door to be a closer knit family in the long run as you may partake in more of their hobbies with them than say another friend group in another town would. 

Either way, you asking this question shows you care for the kids and will find a way to support them no matter what shows up. As long as you remember this you won't make a bad choice.

On the pursuit of academic merit... The meritocracy trap is worth a read.

My kids are younger (<6) so take that for what it's worth.

[Laura33]

For smart kids, the tell tale signs of being under challenged are anxiety and perfectionism.

Or depression.  Sometimes they just withdraw slowly, over time, and lose interest in things they used to like.  And it can be hard to tell the difference between depression and generic teenage sulkiness/changing interests.  (again, AMHIK)

The thing that I always worried about is that anxious/depressed kids often self-medicate, and sometimes it can be hard to tell if that's happening even if you're looking for it.  The irony is that my bounce-off-the-walls everything-all-the-time ADHD kid, who I worried about every day, sailed through just fine, while my mellow, easygoing, sweet kid fell so far into depression and anxiety that he literally couldn't face going to school and seeing friends/teachers.  And to this day I can't tell you if he was self-medicating, because his sweetness makes him a very effective liar.  And that scared me more than anything. 

Not disagreeing with the general concept that things are fine right now for Walt's kids, and they'll probably be fine regardless.  It's just that part of my "move now" advice comes from my own experience of not even realizing things had gone off the rails until my kid had been sucked pretty deep.  And IME, once you're in the middle of something like that, you can't even think about moving; it's hard enough to find therapists and get the right meds and figure out what the hell you're going to do with school and just love your kid through it all without adding the stress of a move on top of it.  So IMO better to have everything set up for success while things are going well, so you're in the best position if things do go into the shitter.

[Dancin'Dog]

What do your kids want to do?  I'd have really enjoyed living in a ski town & being the smartest kid around, versus moving to a place where everybody is competing to be the smartest.  Maybe you could help them learn to socialize a bit better.  Pizza & movie night at the Waltworks or something similar?


I always enjoyed hanging out with the "smart kids".  They had cool ideas. 

[Kathryn K.]

So our kids are pretty bored in their classes and our oldest has zero friends - because there are no other nerdy/smart kids to hang out with, really, and he's not enough of a social butterfly to, say, go befriend some jocks.

<snip>

The problem is that we already moved the kids once (from another ski town) because of similar school issues. We'd be moving them again, and starting everything over again.

I'm also a 'no'. You already did a similar move which didn't work out, so to be blunt you don't have a great track record of picking school districts at this point.

And it doesn't sound like you have done much to help your kids find friends outside of school? My three siblings and I were all the 'smart kids' in our very mediocre public school but we all had at least a few good friends in school as well as interests and friendships out of school that were very important to keeping us happy and healthy.

Even if a kid is 'smart and nerdy' that doesn't mean all their friends need to be as well. Aren't there any groups or clubs outside of school, whether outdoors-related or otherwise? Something like Scouts (know that not everyone is a fan) or since you're in a rural area, 4-H? (Not sure what 4-H is like in CO, but in the Midwest it can offer a lot to kids and certainly did to me.)

[Just_Me]

For smart kids, the tell tale signs of being under challenged are anxiety and perfectionism.

Or depression.  Sometimes they just withdraw slowly, over time, and lose interest in things they used to like.  And it can be hard to tell the difference between depression and generic teenage sulkiness/changing interests.  (again, AMHIK)

The thing that I always worried about is that anxious/depressed kids often self-medicate, and sometimes it can be hard to tell if that's happening even if you're looking for it.  The irony is that my bounce-off-the-walls everything-all-the-time ADHD kid, who I worried about every day, sailed through just fine, while my mellow, easygoing, sweet kid fell so far into depression and anxiety that he literally couldn't face going to school and seeing friends/teachers.  And to this day I can't tell you if he was self-medicating, because his sweetness makes him a very effective liar.  And that scared me more than anything. 

Not disagreeing with the general concept that things are fine right now for Walt's kids, and they'll probably be fine regardless.  It's just that part of my "move now" advice comes from my own experience of not even realizing things had gone off the rails until my kid had been sucked pretty deep.  And IME, once you're in the middle of something like that, you can't even think about moving; it's hard enough to find therapists and get the right meds and figure out what the hell you're going to do with school and just love your kid through it all without adding the stress of a move on top of it.  So IMO better to have everything set up for success while things are going well, so you're in the best position if things do go into the shitter.

You have a lot of good points which is why this is never an easy choice. What ends up being right for one ends up being wrong for another.

[MaybeBabyMustache]

I also lean towards no. As an aside, @lhamo - we must have grown up near each other (small logging town in the PNW).

You've tried a move before, it didn't work. You all love the general area more than the area you'd move to. I'd work harder at integrating my kids into more activities that will help them find their "posse" so to speak, before I'd be willing to move my family. When we moved, it took one of my less social kids close to four years to find a durable friend group.

There's tons of cool enrichment activities that you can choose to add to their education, even if it's informal. We're all biased, so my own disclaimer is that I grew up as the nerdy "most likely to succeed" kid in a school where the graduation rate was not super great, and I was the only person in my graduating class who went out of state for college. College rate was also in the 20%s or whatever. I now work for a FAANG company, make a f*ckton of money, and those years where I was the smartest person in the room, but totally didn't fit in were pretty important in my development. That experience of not fitting in & becoming confident in who you are, even when you're different? All of that has served me incredibly well.

We currently live in the bay area, and my teens go to a top high school. I hate the competitiveness, the absolute obsession with grades & SAT scores, & college prep. They have a fantastic friend group, but we definitely considered moving during COVID, because we are just not a fan of that much very unnecessary intensity on the kids. My kids are also quite smart, but I find that the intense focus has made school more of a turnoff to them.

[waltworks]

The original move was not to try to find a better school district, it was to escape from persecution, essentially. I detailed that at some point on the forum but I'm too lazy to go find it. Long story short my wife was fired without cause because she publicly criticized (via newspaper op-ed) a decision that was made by the school board. I could go on and on about the disfunction (rising to actual criminal levels, including an ongoing investigation by the Federal office of civil rights) but I'll spare everyone.

So our precious decision to move was made quickly in a sort of "house is on fire" mindset. Not the best move, maybe, but we thought at the time that "good enough" schools would be fine for our kids. That has not proven to be the case.

As for outside activities, the kids do club soccer, ski team, rocketry club (organized by my wife), chess club (which I organized), and the mountain bike club/team. We coach or participate in a few of those, and just drop the kids off for others. None of this has resulted in any friendships being formed, though - in fact quite the opposite on the ski and mountain bike teams, where they were (they both quit skiing)/are bullied.

I feel like we've met 90% of the kids their age in the county so I'm not sure how much more exposure to kids activities is going to help.

-W

[Dancin'Dog]

Do they play musical instruments?  Learning a bit of rock & roll always seemed like a good way for nerds to blossom into cool.  Everybody likes music & hanging out with musicians, and all the best parties had bands playing.  Do you have room at your place for them to practice?  That would let you meet their new friends, and keep an eye on their progress (among other things). 

[jeninco]

Oof, tough decision!

Our kids are now 22 and 19, and our position has been that we want them to have friends who work hard at .... something. Almost anything, really. Serious soccer players? Awesome! Top-tier ski racers? Also excellent. Spend every available minute in the robotics lab, building something for competitions? Definitely great. Serious (in this case, prodigy-level) violinist? Also great. Look, just have friends who are also seriously trying hard at SOMETHING, rather than kids who half-ass everything so they don't have to fail (or work).

But, back to the school issue: our observation is that it's pretty important to have an academic peer group, with major bonus points if there are enough kids (or enough "cool" teacher support) that it's not social suicide to actually work hard at your advanced classes. It's not that test scores have to be stratospheric (which, as has been pointed out, is more evidence of parental SES than much else) but the kids should, ideally, be supporting each other in being curious and learning. Double-bonus points if the school can maintain an environment of cooperation, rather than competition. (Negative bonus points if they try the "c'mon, advanced kid, be unpaid teachers helper for these kids who aren't getting it" which is wrong in so very many ways.)

If you feel like you know the kids in your town, and they're not (and couldn't grow into) the kinds of friends who will encourage your kids to be curious, engaged learners, moving seems like a sensible option. You may need to go someplace bigger though -- we're in that "big" front range college town of around 120,000, and there are enough kids with academic parents that there's a cohort.

[waltworks]

Do they play musical instruments?  Learning a bit of rock & roll always seemed like a good way for nerds to blossom into cool.  Everybody likes music & hanging out with musicians, and all the best parties had bands playing.  Do you have room at your place for them to practice?  That would let you meet their new friends, and keep an eye on their progress (among other things).

There's band/orchestra at the middle school here, but only every other semester (?!? how do you learn to play an instrument that way?) due to funding/staffing problems. Neither of them thus far has shown any interest in music (they both did a pre-piano lesson 3 year program called "let's play music" when they were younger and neither wanted to continue after that). But if they do you can be sure we'll hook them up with whatever materials/space they need.

-W

[sonofsven]

Do they play musical instruments?  Learning a bit of rock & roll always seemed like a good way for nerds to blossom into cool.  Everybody likes music & hanging out with musicians, and all the best parties had bands playing.  Do you have room at your place for them to practice?  That would let you meet their new friends, and keep an eye on their progress (among other things).

There's band/orchestra at the middle school here, but only every other semester (?!? how do you learn to play an instrument that way?) due to funding/staffing problems. Neither of them thus far has shown any interest in music (they both did a pre-piano lesson 3 year program called "let's play music" when they were younger and neither wanted to continue after that). But if they do you can be sure we'll hook them up with whatever materials/space they need.

-W

My suggestion was also to join the school band. Does the high school have a band? I didn't notice how old your kids are.
My geeky smart daughter was in the band and she thrived, then moved into the choir and the drama department, too. That was her tribe.
She went to a tiny school on the coast in a seriously dilapidated building, but the school was actually really solid in the support from the teachers, staff, and community.
If your school doesn't support the arts, which is common, then I'd be apt to move. Sports are great and all, but not for everyone.
Her school had an amazing band teacher who had been there for almost thirty years. He started the kids in middle school to get them ready for the high school band which traveled extensively for performances.
It's a four year high school with about 100 students per class; the concert band had 100 kids in it! A quarter of the school was in the band!

[GhostSaver]

Do they play musical instruments?  Learning a bit of rock & roll always seemed like a good way for nerds to blossom into cool.  Everybody likes music & hanging out with musicians, and all the best parties had bands playing.  Do you have room at your place for them to practice?  That would let you meet their new friends, and keep an eye on their progress (among other things).

There's band/orchestra at the middle school here, but only every other semester (?!? how do you learn to play an instrument that way?) due to funding/staffing problems. Neither of them thus far has shown any interest in music (they both did a pre-piano lesson 3 year program called "let's play music" when they were younger and neither wanted to continue after that). But if they do you can be sure we'll hook them up with whatever materials/space they need.

-W

For my $0.02, dude: I moved around quite a bit growing up and hated the moving. But I had stability through middle school and high school at a top-shelf public high school in MA. I made good friends then who are still my friends now. I was also a nerdy kid who went to fancy college, but you knew that already. My better half went to a similar middle and high school back in MA and hated it. She was also a nerd, killer test scores, etc. but was a brooding visual artist type. If there's a takeaway there, I think it's that your social life and happiness depend more on you than your surroundings. You seem to me like a pretty happy dude. I would've guessed that you were the same in high school even if I knew nothing about it, you know? If your kids aren't thriving with this move, I wouldn't consider another move an obvious fix.

Our family has also talked about moving sometimes. We've got aging family back East, getting some of our home equity liquid would put us a lot closer to FI, etc. But I think our kids would miss some of the outdoor and lifestyle opportunities that the ski town life provides.

Our family's love to yours. We've missed seeing you out on the trails this year!

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk

[Dancin'Dog]

I can relate if they're just not into learning a musical instrument.  I didn't want to when I was a kid either. 


How about learning to tell jokes or stories?  Everybody likes a good joke, and it's a lot easier to learn than a musical instrument.  I don't know which comedians are kid-appropriate, but there are a lot of good videos of famous ones on YouTube.  Even if your kids never get good at telling jokes it's fun to have in your mental vocabulary, whenever you're bored or see something that reminds you of a joke you've heard. 


I've always thought that jokes told by nerds are extra funny, because of the nerdy tone. 


Just another .02


I'm sure whatever you end up choosing to do will be fine in the end, because you obviously care about your kids & give them plenty of attention.  That's the most important thing about raising good kids.

[Villanelle]

If they have all the opportunities available to make friends and it hasn't worked, I'm not sure there's much reason to believe that moving to a different school with smarter/nerdier/more motivated kids is likely to change that. 

I'd focus on trying to talk them through how to make friends.  I'd try to ascertain whether there might be some social anxieties at play.  I'd offer as many opportunities to facilitate friendships (asking if they want to invite a few friends over for a small party, or to go to a movie, or whatever, even if these things means spending money on what feels like frivolities).  Also see if there are activities outside of school they might enjoy.  Local theater group, a week or two of summer camp for a special interest, art or craft groups or classes, whatever.

It sounds like this isn't a "lack of peers" problem, but a "struggling with the skill of making friends" issue. 

[charis]

Oof, tough decision!

Our kids are now 22 and 19, and our position has been that we want them to have friends who work hard at .... something. Almost anything, really. Serious soccer players? Awesome! Top-tier ski racers? Also excellent. Spend every available minute in the robotics lab, building something for competitions? Definitely great. Serious (in this case, prodigy-level) violinist? Also great. Look, just have friends who are also seriously trying hard at SOMETHING, rather than kids who half-ass everything so they don't have to fail (or work).

Your metric for your kids' friends was serious/top athlete, spending every available minute in the robotics lab, prodigy level musician, "seriously trying hard" at something?  You do know that the majority of good and worthy children in the world wouldn't live up to that standard.  And there are not an insignificant number of top athletes/robotics nerds/musicians that wouldn't be great role models?  I'm an attorney now, but I wasn't a serious/top athletic, musician, or academic at any point in my life.  There is a great wonder of people between that and those who half ass so they don't have to fail or work.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

If they have all the opportunities available to make friends and it hasn't worked, I'm not sure there's much reason to believe that moving to a different school with smarter/nerdier/more motivated kids is likely to change that. 

I'd focus on trying to talk them through how to make friends.  I'd try to ascertain whether there might be some social anxieties at play.  I'd offer as many opportunities to facilitate friendships (asking if they want to invite a few friends over for a small party, or to go to a movie, or whatever, even if these things means spending money on what feels like frivolities).  Also see if there are activities outside of school they might enjoy.  Local theater group, a week or two of summer camp for a special interest, art or craft groups or classes, whatever.

It sounds like this isn't a "lack of peers" problem, but a "struggling with the skill of making friends" issue.

I would echo this, especially the last point. You mention they're being bullied, and that's a separate issue. If it's bad enough and moving is the only option, by all means, move.

I have no idea of the ins and outs of the specific situation, of course. That being said, I believe it's very rare to have an area where there are truly no "nerdy/smart" kids to hang out with. I've seen certain specific classes where this is the case - for example the class of 2023 for a particular high school was a rougher one or your 5th grade example at an elementary school, but I'm struggling with buying it's a whole area overall. I went to middle of nowhere rural schools with less than 200 in my graduating class, and I still had people I could befriend. I didn't necessarily have people that were nerdy like I was (no one would nerd out with me on Star Trek, for example), but I was able to have people who I enjoyed playing video games with and who challenged me academically and overall in positive ways. I also had friends who weren't typical nerds - people who were in agriculture and horticulture classes and the like. They were almost all nice to me, and although we didn't share as many common interests, I feel having that diversity helped me out in the long run.

Hope this doesn't come off as critical, and of course, this is anecdotal from my own experiences. I enjoyed stability in schools, especially once I hit middle school (I doubt leaving before middle school would have been too much of an impact). Admittedly, I only keep in close contact with one couple from high school, but I look back on the overall experience fondly. That being said, as well, my high school experience in no way limited me in developing fun, nerdy friendships, as I was fortunate to be able to do a lot of that in college with a much larger population of peers to befriend from.

[sailinlight]

As for outside activities, the kids do club soccer, ski team, rocketry club (organized by my wife), chess club (which I organized), and the mountain bike club/team. We coach or participate in a few of those, and just drop the kids off for others. None of this has resulted in any friendships being formed, though - in fact quite the opposite on the ski and mountain bike teams, where they were (they both quit skiing)/are bullied.

This seems excessive to me. I'd be exhausted just scheduling taking them to these activities.. maybe they're too tired to make friends after all this. Do they have the opportunity to run around the neighborhood and do what they want with the neighborhood kids?

[Dee18]

I vote go somewhere for a semester and see how it is.  When my daughter was in 6th grade I had a fellowship overseas for a semester.  She attended a private international school where she blossomed.  Her home school was a blue ribbon school with a wide range of activities, good teachers, great college admissions, etc.  it was much like the schools I had grown up in (in another state) and liked.  But my daughter was the only Asian at her home school and upon our return I enrolled her in a diverse private school.  She had a great friend group there and a better academic experience…for her. When she was 13 I was offered a great job in a small New England town where I had taught in the summers. I turned it down because I knew that for my child being in a diverse community was important.  I was also told, by my summer colleagues, that the high school kids there were either attending the tiny local high schools with limited courses and lots of boredom or attending a great high school 20+ miles away in an Ivy League university town where they were treated like second class citizens.  These are tricky decisions because there are so many factors involved.  Since you have already lived in two places and neither has worked, it might even be worth having some discussions with a family counselor. Wherever you think would be good, just rent for the fall and see how it feels for everyone.  As someone else said,  maybe not jump to the idea that your hometown is the solution. Have your kids loved it their on visits?  If you move there and it’s not good, it might be a lot more complicated to leave.

[Finances_With_Purpose]

I'm sending a more detailed PM, but I'm chiming in with the obvious answer here: move to a rental in the new place and try it out for a year or two.  Then you'll know.  (Moving back to the old place is a lot easier than moving to a new one altogether.) 

You said you planned to keep the ski-town place, so do that, and meanwhile, try the new place out, since it seems that that's an option for you financially.  It's also probably a lot cheaper to do that in order to gather more information and to avoid the costly situation of moving and buying/selling if it turns out to be not as great. 

[jeninco]

Oof, tough decision!

Our kids are now 22 and 19, and our position has been that we want them to have friends who work hard at .... something. Almost anything, really. Serious soccer players? Awesome! Top-tier ski racers? Also excellent. Spend every available minute in the robotics lab, building something for competitions? Definitely great. Serious (in this case, prodigy-level) violinist? Also great. Look, just have friends who are also seriously trying hard at SOMETHING, rather than kids who half-ass everything so they don't have to fail (or work).

Your metric for your kids' friends was serious/top athlete, spending every available minute in the robotics lab, prodigy level musician, "seriously trying hard" at something?  You do know that the majority of good and worthy children in the world wouldn't live up to that standard.  And there are not an insignificant number of top athletes/robotics nerds/musicians that wouldn't be great role models?  I'm an attorney now, but I wasn't a serious/top athletic, musician, or academic at any point in my life.  There is a great wonder of people between that and those who half ass so they don't have to fail or work.

No, those were my (hastily and poorly chosen) examples. This is a town full of entitled rich kids, so what we wanted was "work hard at something".  Not necessarily all your hours (in fact, a number of their friends did a variety of things at a variety of levels: not everyone was a travel athlete, and some of the really good athletes were "OK" students), but not just skipping classes and smoking pot behind the high school while making sarcastic comments about the "try hard" kids. (And even the robotics kids did other stuff sometimes... :^). )

[rothwem]

As for outside activities, the kids do club soccer, ski team, rocketry club (organized by my wife), chess club (which I organized), and the mountain bike club/team. We coach or participate in a few of those, and just drop the kids off for others. None of this has resulted in any friendships being formed, though - in fact quite the opposite on the ski and mountain bike teams, where they were (they both quit skiing)/are bullied.

This seems excessive to me. I'd be exhausted just scheduling taking them to these activities.. maybe they're too tired to make friends after all this. Do they have the opportunity to run around the neighborhood and do what they want with the neighborhood kids?

If his mountain town is anything like my mountain town, the amount of neighborhood kids to run around with is pretty small or nonexistant.  Resort towns tend to have a lot of poor 20-somethings and a lot of retired/empty nesters, with middle aged parents with school aged kids sparingly sprinkled around. 

Anyways @waltworks, I feel you.  I'm in a similar spot, though my kids are a lot younger than yours.  I really like the recreational opportunities, but I'm not 100% sure I want to raise my kids here.  We found a pretty decent neighborhood where there are more families than the average area, but it feels so...fragile. 

[MaybeBabyMustache]

If they have all the opportunities available to make friends and it hasn't worked, I'm not sure there's much reason to believe that moving to a different school with smarter/nerdier/more motivated kids is likely to change that. 

I'd focus on trying to talk them through how to make friends.  I'd try to ascertain whether there might be some social anxieties at play.  I'd offer as many opportunities to facilitate friendships (asking if they want to invite a few friends over for a small party, or to go to a movie, or whatever, even if these things means spending money on what feels like frivolities).  Also see if there are activities outside of school they might enjoy.  Local theater group, a week or two of summer camp for a special interest, art or craft groups or classes, whatever.

It sounds like this isn't a "lack of peers" problem, but a "struggling with the skill of making friends" issue.

My advice is well intentioned, so I hope it comes off that way, vs judging your kids. When you observe your kids in social settings, how do they do with making friends? Have you spoken to their teachers/coaches/etc about how they integrate into various groups? Like Villanelle noted, if the act of making friends is a challenge, that may be helped somewhat by finding a different peer group, but given how broad of a net you've already cast on type of activities, I'd hate for you to move & then realize that the core issue that needed to be solved was to help them make friends, regardless of area.


Similar to what Wolfpack mentioned, you can find friend groups in widely varied areas, and sometimes it's a really helpful thing to not have the majority of people be like you.

Of course, emotional wellbeing & mental health are critical, so I guess I'd also go by how bothered your kids are by the situation.

[waltworks]

Oh, I agree. My working theory (which is probably obvious, but I'll restate it) is that since the kids had at least a few friends in our old ski town, and all those friends were nerds, the lack of nerds here is the problem, not the kids. DS is pretty shy but does fine interacting in normal ways with his peers at school/activities. He just has no interest in hanging out with those kids as friends. Summer break, which started 2 weeks ago, has really been a problem as now he's lonely/isolated.

DD makes friends easily but has struggled much more here, and based on my experience teaching her class as a substitute, it's also the cohort that's most of the problem.

The unfortunate reality is that DW's experience in our former town was so traumatizing that I don't think we can ever move back. She is still struggling with depression and anxiety (with the help of therapists, before anyone suggests it) from those events 2 years on. If that weren't the case we'd ignore the politics and climate issues (former town is in a very red state) and just move back.

-W

[Jesstache]

As for outside activities, the kids do club soccer, ski team, rocketry club (organized by my wife), chess club (which I organized), and the mountain bike club/team. We coach or participate in a few of those, and just drop the kids off for others. None of this has resulted in any friendships being formed, though - in fact quite the opposite on the ski and mountain bike teams, where they were (they both quit skiing)/are bullied.

This seems excessive to me. I'd be exhausted just scheduling taking them to these activities.. maybe they're too tired to make friends after all this. Do they have the opportunity to run around the neighborhood and do what they want with the neighborhood kids?

If his mountain town is anything like my mountain town, the amount of neighborhood kids to run around with is pretty small or nonexistant.  Resort towns tend to have a lot of poor 20-somethings and a lot of retired/empty nesters, with middle aged parents with school aged kids sparingly sprinkled around. 

Anyways @waltworks, I feel you.  I'm in a similar spot, though my kids are a lot younger than yours.  I really like the recreational opportunities, but I'm not 100% sure I want to raise my kids here.  We found a pretty decent neighborhood where there are more families than the average area, but it feels so...fragile.

If you're looking for a "mountain town" with all the outdoor recreation that goes along with it that's super family friendly and full of high/overachieving kids I'd wholly recommend Bend, OR (where I live).  We gave up a combined $350k in salary in super cheap TX and moved here (not so cheap) for one person making $125k and it was 200% worth it.  Now we've worked our way back up to $250k combined again but will both be FIREing within the next year or so.  You can't throw a rock without hitting kids basically anywhere in the entire town/city.

Both my husband and I are gifted and so are both of our kids and they have tons of like-minded intelligent friends who are into all the same outdoorsy activities and sports. Our daughter is in the TAG class/program that started in Middle School (6th grade) and was able to test out of 6th grade math and into 7th grade before starting this past school year.  At the end of the school year, any student that wants to try can take a math bypass test to skip a grade level.  So our daughter studied the entire 8th grade curriculum in about 2 weeks and met the required score to basically start taking 9th grade high school math courses this coming Fall when she enters 7th grade.  She's extra excited about this because it's being taught at the middle school (grades 6-8) and that means anyone in the 9th grade class will have had to test ahead so it'll most likely be only high achievers like herself. 

My son is in elementary but his teachers and school have been super excellent about grouping the kids by ability and giving the more advanced kids higher level work to keep them challenged.  One of the high schools has an IB program that could be a great extra challenge if my kids were so inclined in high school (and the district is great about inter-district transfers).  Him and his friends formed a Oregon Battle of the Books team this year, which they made it to the final round but lost to older kids and have already read about 80% of the books for next year.  They also ski, mountain bike, play basketball, flag football and baseball together so a really well rounded group and they're super polite and respectful.  When my son was a finalist (top 4) in the 24 challenge at school (a math competition) as a 3rd grader against 4th and 5th graders, his buddies missed recess to cheer him on in the finals (he came in third).  It was awesome how they supported and cheered him on.

All I'm saying is, I would absolutely move my kids if I felt like they had no one to relate to where they are now and I am forever thankful for the place we live and the lifestyle that goes along with it for us and our kids.  My husband and I both grew up in places where it was not cool to try or achieve anything so most of our peers took the easiest course of action and we had to really be confident in the choices we were making. I always felt like no one understood me but just had to believe that someday I would move out of my town and find "my people."  My husband describes growing up feeling the same way.   

[waltworks]

I do love me some Bend!

I haven't been there in quite a while. Back in the day it was dead ender rock climbers (erm, me...) and meth heads. Good to hear it's changed! We'll keep it on the radar!

-W

[Mrs. Randello]

I'd move again in a hot second. I have had a similar experience, my oldest 2 kids just finished 8th and 5th grade and we moved them twice. The first time to Idaho for a job and great camping but the second time was back to our hometown. We primarily moved for a job, but the kids have done so much better in school here. It's more academic, higher standards than ID and the kids have done fantastic. They have a lot of extracurriculars that weren't offered at all back where we used to live. Even though our current town isn't exciting, it's a trade off for the fantastic charter jr/sr high. The funding of our former idaho school district was just deplorable. A lot of the academic issues we had there basically just disappeared once we got DD in an appropriate school. Good luck to you and your family. You can always go back if it doesn't work.

[Chris Pascale]

Any updates?

[LiveLean]

Homeschool. Sounds like you and your spouse have flexible schedules. Or work from home. Or something. Why not educate them yourself in a few hours a day and carry on with your current lives?

What are they going to miss? Social life? Overrated. Participation in sports? Most avid athletes don't bother with high school competition. Club or travel is the emphasis there. An increasing number of folks in your position are going this exact route -- homeschooling. Heck, many folks with elite athletes do this.

I would never give up what's probably an ideal existence to move back somewhere else just so your kids can take five AP classes. You guys can pull this off and probably end up with better results.

[Chris Pascale]

Homeschool. Sounds like you and your spouse have flexible schedules. Or work from home. Or something. Why not educate them yourself in a few hours a day and carry on with your current lives?

What are they going to miss? Social life? Overrated. Participation in sports? Most avid athletes don't bother with high school competition. Club or travel is the emphasis there. An increasing number of folks in your position are going this exact route -- homeschooling. Heck, many folks with elite athletes do this.

I would never give up what's probably an ideal existence to move back somewhere else just so your kids can take five AP classes. You guys can pull this off and probably end up with better results.

Alternative POV:

• As a younger dad I thought of homeschooling, but knew I could never provide in areas like math
• Just as having multiple teachers teaches you about the personalities of multiple bosses, the same could be said for peers
• Travel teams are mostly not what they are cracked up to be. I never played travel sports, but did get a D-I scholarship out of high school. For striving pros, there are specific teams/leagues that are crucial for the sake of getting exposure, but that's generally not done through the leagues available to the average person
• Agreed about the AP classes. They are overrated, and generally not accepted by colleges. I've been saying (based on real experience as a student, parent and teacher) that AP courses are good for prep, but expect for none of those credits to move from high school to college. If you want your kids to have college credits, they should just take classes at a college, like night, weekend or online courses in a real college classroom; not something in high school

[waltworks]

Homeschool. Sounds like you and your spouse have flexible schedules. Or work from home. Or something. Why not educate them yourself in a few hours a day and carry on with your current lives?

What are they going to miss? Social life? Overrated. Participation in sports? Most avid athletes don't bother with high school competition. Club or travel is the emphasis there. An increasing number of folks in your position are going this exact route -- homeschooling. Heck, many folks with elite athletes do this.

I would never give up what's probably an ideal existence to move back somewhere else just so your kids can take five AP classes. You guys can pull this off and probably end up with better results.

Bwahhahaha!

I mean, we have all the time we need, certainly, since we're FI and really only work pretty minimally on flexible schedules (ie coaching mountain biking type stuff).

We have attempted summer homeschooling and let's just say our parent/kid relationships, while great, do not transfer to teacher/student well.

It's like trying to teach your spouse to ski or something. You're better off hiring a professional and keeping your marriage/family happy.

My hat is off to those folks who make it work, you are rock stars.

-W

[waltworks]

Any updates?

Still paralyzed with indecision.

-W

[rothwem]

• Agreed about the AP classes. They are overrated, and generally not accepted by colleges. I've been saying (based on real experience as a student, parent and teacher) that AP courses are good for prep, but expect for none of those credits to move from high school to college. If you want your kids to have college credits, they should just take classes at a college, like a night, weekend or online courses in a real college classroom; not something in high school

Is this a new thing? All of my APs were accepted by the large state school I went to, but that was 20 years ago.

[Dee18]

When my daughter went to college (2015) the AP credits were accepted by the public/state schools, but not by the small liberal arts colleges she applied to.

[charis]

When my daughter went to college (2015) the AP credits were accepted by the public/state schools, but not by the small liberal arts colleges she applied to.

This was my experience at private liberal arts college in early 2000s. They were listed on my college transcript (for some reason) but 0 credit was assigned to them. And I didn't get out of any core classes.  I think we viewed APs as strengthening the value of one's HS gpa, but I really have no idea if they were considered in that way.

[MaybeBabyMustache]

Similar to other posters, APs depend on where you plan to go to school. It's unlikely they will be accepted at most liberal arts schools, and more likely at public universities. It's recommended that kids take them to demonstrate "academic rigor", but my teens are on the fence about even taking the test. You have to pay, study quite a bit, and unclear if they will end up somewhere that accepts them. The high school my kids attend doesn't offer much for grade level classes, it's basically AP or something below grade level. So, they are left with minimal non AP options. Which, is another reason I wasn't super jazzed to have them complete high school in the bay area, but we're approaching the finish line, so here we are.