I would love some comments from W. Mt. Airy parents!

I am wondering if some moms and dads could give me a feeling for the young family vibe in West Mt. Airy. Do you feel easily connected to other families in the community? Are people friendly? How easy is it to meet new people? Are new-comers welcomed? Are there a lot of openly advertised playgroups, music classes, etc. with diverse people attending them? Do you walk to stores, restaurants, playgrounds, playgroups, etc.?

I live in University City, and I love that I walk everywhere and pass strollers on nearly every block. I can go to Clark Park nearly any time of the day and know that I will find several other kids around my son's age (14 months) there with their very friendly parents. We have a wonderfully friendly, diverse young family community here, and I will miss it if we move. But, I adore the homes in Mt. Airy, and I really, really want to live near Wissahickon. I am a runner who grew up near a lot of open space and greatly miss having a beautiful place to run every day. I am (nearly) ready for a more suburban lifestyle, but I still want an urban "vibe." And I definitely want to feel connected to the community I live in, and I don't want to have to get in my car for everything I do.

I am also concerned about the schools. I have all the stats in front of me, but I would love to get some comments from parents (with children of any age) who currently live in West Mt. Airy. How do you feel about the PUBLIC schools? (I know there are many wonderful (and pricey) private schools...

Comments on commuting (by regional rail) to Center City (even more helpful would be comments about commuting to Penn). Does anyone bike this route daily?

Thanks so much for your feedback.

Hi! While not a parent, I can tell you a little about some of the items you mentioned. I lived in Mt. Airy for nine years, and if what you're looking for is a suburban, yet urban vibe, you can't do much better than Mt. Airy. I was looking for much the same thing. Growing up in the burbs, I wanted a place that had lots of open space, beautiful old homes and open-minded people. Mt Airy has all three in abundance. I was also looking for something a bit quieter that Center City, but with easy access to the city.

The only thing you may not get is the ability to walk to everything you need - it kind of depends on where in Mt Airy you live. If you want to live close to the Wissahickon, it could be tough. If you live closer to Germantown Avenue, it will be easier. I lived in "Upper East Mt. Airy", which was within walking distance to a pharmacy, a video store, a dry cleaners, a bakery, the Wawa, restaurants, etc. When I lived in WMA (Hortter and Lincoln) it was more challenging to get to things. The good thing is, you won't have to drive far to anything that you need.

As far as commuting into University City (I worked at Penn and CHOP for years), it couldn't be easier. The R7 and R8 go to 30th St., and then you can walk to Penn or get on the LUCY (Loop Through University City) bus. Chances are very good that wherever you live in Mt. Airy, you'll be within walking distance of one of the stations.

Good luck on your move! I moved to San Francisco in June and miss Mt. Airy and Philadelphia (the proof is that I'm on phillyblog pretty regularly!).

The main reason that my wife + I moved to W. Mt. Airy is precisely because it's such a good place to raise a family. And the two local schools - Henry and Houston - are each quite good as Philly public schools go.

Thanks for your helpful responses. Any other thoughts will also be well appreciated!

My wife and I and our two toddler sons live in Mt Airy. I am a life long resident and she moved here from Brooklyn. Our kids go to The Big Backyard Cooperative Preschool at Gowen and Ardleigh, which has a great network of involved parents. We also belong to a babysitting Co-op, which is a cool way to get a sitter without having to spend $50 extra for a dinner and a movie, and to get to know people in the neighborhood

It is a great community and the families are very communicative and the neighbors are neighborly. I strayed to the burbs a couple of times over the years, and found it much different than here. If you want to sit in on one of the babysitting co-op get togethers or one of the preschool functions, to get a feel, let me know.

__________________
Rich McIlhenny
Re/Max Services Inc.
www.Richmachomes.com
Rmac88@aol.com

IDEA:

I wonder if it would help if I erected a website to rate public schools....

(thinking of catchy domain names)

ratemyhighschool.com

or

ismyschoolhotornot.com

or...

doesmyschoolsuck.com

Premise: Students, Faculty, parents and education demagogues fill out and complete voluntary surveys (anwers anonymous) regarding the quality of the system, fairness from administrators.

Additionally, the public, students and parents can file incident reports on the school in question as a seperate "blog" about the school [obviously releasing ME from being the tartget of a SLAPP lawsuit].

To oncurage open dialog and let prospective parents see a glimps of what goes on in the school itself, students and parents are also encouraged to scan in documents the school sends home, from the benign to the controversial--for public inspection.

Prospective parents could ask questions of parents who have children at the school directly w/o having nothing more than test score results to look at--they could also get a searchable archive of "witness testimony".

So... waddya think?

__________________
Buh-bye.

Thanks so much for that information. Those two co-ops sound terrific. I will definitely look into them more as our plans progress.
Thanks!

A lesson in self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will:

Public schools, very often, turn out to be as good as the parents who live in their catchments want them to be. In other words, if parents living around a given school both care about education *and* want their local public school to be good, then sending their kids to that school will make it better, since the best way to improve a school is to load it with kids whose parents give a rat's ass about education.

On the other hand, if most of the kids attending a school- no matter how rich, what color, etc. they are- come from families where the parents don't care about education or aren't involved in their kids' education, then the school is likely to be poor.

If, for instance, every family w/high school-age kids living in the appropriate catchment decided to make Germantown High an excellent school, they could achieve this goal by sending their kids there.

The challenge, of course, is the chicken-and-egg problem: do the aforementioned families wait until a school is good to send their kids there, or take the initiative to send their kids there to make it good.

Something to consider,
-Z

There is a website like that- Greatschools.net, though you're usually lucky to find one or two parent reviews. I love hearing the opinions but wish there was a larger sample.

You don't mention if you currently live in the catchment area for the penn alexander school. If you do, I would think twice about moving because from what I have heard, that school is a lot better than the choices here in Mt. Airy. This is all hearsay, not firsthand experience. That said, Mt. Airy is a truly great place to live and raise children.