Moving to northern area with kids....all advice taken please (Burke: townhouse, neighborhoods)

[dcbound2007]

Hello All,
I am thrilled to have found this board. Anyway, my husband has taken a job in Lorton, va and is alread there as a matter of fact. We have 3 girls ages 14, 11, and 3 so we need a lot of answers. We are moving from Tampa, FL and have never moved before..ugg! We are excited and petrified all in one...well my 14 year old probably has a few more thoughts then that. Anyway, I am looking for a newer area in Fairfax county, but am open to suggestions. There are so many areas and it is hard to determine where to go. My husband will be working as I said in Lorton, so looking for a reasonable work drive of course. Even more important than that though are the schools. My older two are in the IB program, and Fairfax has a lot of IB schools but anyone that has any info on the best one combined with the best area would be great. Also, my girls love the entire drama/performing scene so any imput on that would be appreciated. Our family would prefer a newer area of town, and like the communities that have the pool, gym, park, etc built in. A townhouse is fine as affording a newer house I am sure will not occur. I just really would like the newest area combined with the good schools. Thanks in advance for ALL imput.

[dullnboring]

I would recommend trying to find someplace within the school boundaries of Robinson Secondary School. It's a terrific school and the closest school to Lorton that has an IB program. It actually has the largest IB program in the U.S. if I'm not mistaken. The school is huge, both in size and the number of students enrolled, but this is something found in almost all schools in Fairfax County, although the crushing load of students may take some getting used to for your children, depending on what they're accustomed to in Tampa.

Fairfax County's school boundaries are really screwy and at times nonsensical where some kids live practically next door to one high school but go to one further away. I don't entirely understand it, and I think they've been trying to "smooth" the boundaries more in recent years. As such, I'm not entirely certain of the specific neighborhoods that feed into Robinson, but it's generally the Burke and Fairfax region (not in the city of Fairfax, but the Fairfax postal code, southeast of the city). Two other schools in the same general vicinity are Woodson and Lake Braddock, both terrific schools as well. Most every school in Fairfax County is terrific.

As far as the specific neighborhoods, they're all fairly new and largely upper-middle class in this area. Single family homes I would say start at over 500K, but the average home you can expect to be priced somewhere in the 600s. I would say that townhomes will start in the upper 300s but most probably in the low to mid 400s. The area is suburban in character, with all the typical suburban amenities; residential with single family homes, townhomes, and strip malls and the like. Depending on where you settle, within this general area, I'd say you'd be within some 6-12 miles of Lorton, which can still be a pretty brutal commute in this area (although truthfully, I'm not familiar with that particular area and it's roads at rush hour) but it's not horrific by any means. While it depends on the individual and their tolerance level for commuting, I've always held to the belief that in this area, you should live no further than 10 miles from where you work.