Bob

Kids upstairs from us are 6 and 10.

It costs their folks $650 a year a kid for them to do ice hockey for the ice time plus a couple hundred bucks on gear because the school doesn't provide it and where we are, tournament travel is as far out as upstate New York, about 2-3 hours drive away, so if a tournament goes all day, that's potentially a hotels night stay on top, plus $20 a match.

It's pretty similar for the football, but only a few hundred bucks for coach/training time instead, but you can't play for the school unless you've done the pre-season training.

For the highschool kids the costs are the same, but they've also got golf, swim and ski team events in winter, which all cost similar amounts of money for time on premises and equipment.

In the last town we lived in the school bus was $400 a year per kid extra.

Sally Redux

Registration day alone involves shelling out a few hundred, although it's not all compulsory. Off the top of my head, PFC fee, membership of the student body, yearbook, notebook and workbooks, PE kit, photos. When my daughter did dance at school they had to donate quite a lot, I got off lightly though because music, acting and sports are much more expensive. Constant general donation drives. Senior year gets really expensive with graduation activities.

kodokan

Are those compulsory sport activities, Bob? If so, that's horrifically steep. My 7th grader has just finished a semester of PE, and all I had to provide was gym shorts and a T shirt, either school-purchased kit (at about $20-25 dollars for the set) or something similar and plain in black, white or grey.

My son doesn't do any of the afterschool sports, such as flag football, baseball, etc (he does karate instead, elsewhere), so I don't know how much they cost. I haven't heard any of the other parents inhaling sharply, so it can't be too bad. Karate works out at $100 a month, including all equipment: suit, gloves, pads, weapons, etc, which is now seeming VERY reasonable!

Bob

No...but considering there's no PE other wise, well to the point of not really having any, about 30 mins a week I think the mum said and the cost of childcare is even more expensive, parents tend to have their kids signed up for something or other after school and around here at least, very little of it is free/cheap.

The older kid was doing baseball program too last year, to fill in the rest of the week as they got a discount as the mother was a teacher at the school but she's now moved to another district so doesn't get a discount so they couldn't afford to keep that up.

Stuff like soccer and athletics are about the only cheap sports, mostly because shin pads and studs don't cost to much for footie and the school provides the rest of the gear for those sports.

AmerLisa

You have public elementary schools that do competitive sports? Or are these leagues that parents sign their kids up to that have nothing to do with schools? My neighbors have their daughter signed up to these leagues, fastpitch and volleyball, their other daughter does dance. It's mindboggling what they pay and how much time it takes up! But it has nothing to do with their school. Their older daughter does do sports for her school, volleyball and cheer (now that costs a fortune!) but the prices are nothing compared to those leagues!

Yes, high schools are where the money starts coming into play, certainly if you want to do anything sports minded....

Bob

These were all school/county/state based leagues.

The younger kid only had the option of touch footie, soccer, softball and hockey mind, but yeah, school teams in leagues, all after school.

Mostly because it's do that instead of childcare or have no sports at all because the classes are only 45 mins here and half of that is spent getting into and out of PE gear when they have PE, once a week and it's athletic type stuff in the summer and basketball in winter being pretty much it for boys.

MarylandNed

Actually after school activities is one of the best deals around when you compare with what you would pay for it outside of school e.g. private music lessons or club sports fees. My son pays a nominal fee of $30 per year to participate in high school sports. The only equipment he had to buy were soccer cleats (boots) and shin guards. The rest of his soccer uniform (shirts, shorts, socks) and the coaching was provided free of charge. He also plays high school lacrosse and again all equipment and coaching was provided (except for footwear).

Playing those sports outside of school is much more expensive. My son also plays on a club soccer team where the fees (club, coaching, uniforms, tournaments, etc) simply dwarf the school fees.

kodokan

My elementary does PE twice a week for, I think 45 mins a time - no changing required. They don't offer any afterschool sports programs, although there are a lot going on locally that are non-school affiliated.

The middle school does this weird feast-or-famine scheduling where my son has just finished doing an hour or so period of PE every day for the whole semester. They changed for this, and did a different sport/ activity each week - basketball, swimming, football, etc - along with fitness training, improving their speed over a mile round the track, etc. This is all very lovely; trouble is he now doesn't have PE at ALL this semester, as his scheduling now puts him in daily Art instead. Bonkers system.

rsuzie

Thanks for all the advice, I guess we are in quite early stages and I need to locate the actual area we are going to live in based on the public schools. Planning on doing a trip in next few weeks and suspect I will have a few more questions then but in the mean time, I will check out the websites that have been suggested. My OH will be commuting to NYC so we need to have good links.

King Gimp

Hi rsuzie, I live in Westport, NYC is easily commutable. Parking at the train station in Westport is $5 per day. Train is an hour or so each way, getting from Westport train station to Weston or Wilton takes 20-30 minutes. The schools are great, I've two boys in the local elementary, it was a fairly painless process getting them in. Westport is a great little town and has great facilities. Not the cheapest place to live but well worth it.

rsuzie

Hi King Gimp,
Thanks so much for this, really useful and reassuring info. Am coming for a look in the next couple of weeks so hopefully will get a better idea. Can I just ask, were your boys at school in UK before you moved out and if so how did they adjust, did they find it ok? Also, the schools seem so big compared to the ones in the UK, how do you manage to keep tabs on everything, arrange playdates, when you don't drop them off and pick them up? Sorry for questions but just can't imagine it.

King Gimp

The boys 'started' school here - they were only of nursery age when we were in the UK - we had them in full time nursery in the UK and they have taken to school very well. The local high school is a massive and modern facility. The elementary schools are similar sized to UK schools with similar class sizes. On the surface it seems very similar to the UK schools - the curriculum if you can call it that is very different, at least from my point of view. Don't be surprised when your young ones coming home yakking away in Spanish...

The school has an online bulletin board/website from which you can manage several aspects of your childs day from dietary requirements/special instructions for pickup/drop off/play dates/after school activities - all the parents have all the other parents names and addresses given to them in a booklet - we get e-invites and messages from the school regarding play dates/birthday parties and whatnot - its easy enough. The school bus is great too - stops right outside the house and seems to be the highlight of the day for the kids. The schools are in much more contact with the parents than I ever remember - We get 2 or 3 emails a day on average and a phone call every other week with updates etc.

Sooyp

Hi RSuzie, I moved to Connecticut 2 months ago from Southampton, Hampshire. I generally find cost of living is less here but Im not factoring in the cost of having children as I have none. I moved here on a working E2 visa for the company I work for in the UK.

Im living maybe an hour from Westchester in Bristol just west of Hartford. So far I find the taxes, cost of housing, buying a car, electronic and electrical goods cheaper that what we endure in England. You will definitely get more bang for buck here. Although this is not true for mobile phone contracts and cable TV - this I found costs a bit more.

Having no credit will be a bit of a nuisance for you if you need to get car finance for instance. Building credit here should be high on your list of priorities. We managed to get a motor but we are paying quite high repayments due to have no credit history ourselves. Be sure to see if you can negiotate some furniture budget with your husbands company or see if you can get them to pay for a hired car for a few months at least.

I've found there arent many paths, a lot of people drive everywhere in CT...everything is spread out and not like the UK. You will need a car!

The areas north of me are quite desirable for families who want to put their children through good schooling. These being Avon, Simsbury and Farmington (home of 50 cent) but they are more expensive areas - you will pay more in housing there.

Some other things to bear in mind, when you get here try and get your social security number asap so you are able open a bank account. You will need a SSN for a lot of other things as well.

Also before you leave the UK get an International Drivers Licence obtained through the Post Office which means you can drive legally for a year in Connecticut as once you are here you wont be able to apply for one. You will need to eventually apply for a Connecticut licence.

Thats all I can think of for now, if I can answer any questions feel free to ask although we are in good company on this forum

Good luck!

Bob

That's not true. It only applies for temporary stays of less than a year, so students for instance wouldn't need to get a license.

You need to get a license within whatever the state says, 30-90 days.

You might not have any issues at first, but you get involved in a accident you could find your insurance is voided for driving while unlicensed, then any accident issues get compounded for driving without a license and driving without insurance.

The IPD is only handy if you only have the old paper license without a photo or the license isn't in English.

kodokan

Our state (Arizona) is even more draconian than that - you have to get an AZ license 'immediately' upon taking up employment, placing kids into school, etc, ie, in any way acting like you live in the US rather than are merely visiting. In reality, of course you don't get it the second you step off the plane - hubby got his about a week in, and I did mine about 6 weeks in, as soon as I got the kids in school (mostly because I would otherwise have had them yabbering away in the back during my test).