HappyinHK

Hello all,

I'm looking for a bit of advice on where to live and what schools to choose near New York.

My husband will spend quite a lot of time travelling, so will not be subject to a daily commute; therefore we don't mind living slightly further out. I will probably be working (office near Grand Central Station) but only part time and some of it from home. If possible I'd like to live in an attractive town/suburb with lots of green space. I'd prefer something on the water because we're keen sailors. It's important to me that we are in a fairly international community, so I'd like to live somewhere close to other expats/immigrants. From what I've seen on the web, places like Westport and Darien look gorgeous, but I'm not sure whether they're very international. Can someone advise me? (I know these areas are costly, but for the moment I'm not worried about cost, I just want to understand the options).

My other question is about schools. I must admit that we're in a pretty fortunate position in that my husband's company will pay for private schooling should we want it. Is private schooling better than public in places like Fairfield County or Westchester? If we eventually intend to go to the UK (or back to Hong Kong, which is where we have lived for the past 8 years) will the children be at a disadvantage for having been educated in the US?

Thanks in advance for all tips!

IceBrit

I've been asking similar questions and I've been given great advice on here.

We're going to go for Westchester as it's been recommended by a lot of people who live there or nearby. Schools are meant to be good although we don't need them just yet as our little one is only two. It does look like a lovely family friendly place.

We're going over on the 25th and we have 3 days to find the perfect place. Let me know if you're interested in some feedback!

Good luck finding the right spot.

HappyinHK

Hi Icebrit,

Thanks for your reply. The responses to your questions have been useful, certainly. I'm still interested in knowing where the Brits are (I guess I want to be surrounded to a certain extent by People Like Me!).

I'd love to hear back from you after your field trip and will look out for your posts.

It's pretty difficult making these kinds of decisions from half way round the world, isn't it? And with kids there's so much riding on it...

H

(I'm going to try an icon --- )

IceBrit

This is by far the hardest thing I've done so far. I've not even been to the US before so I have no idea what to expect

I agree with you, it would be really nice to be surrounded by other brits for comfort but I think we'll choose the best place for us to live and then I'll just have to make the effort and travel the distance to find the "friendlies". I'm a stay at home mum so I rely on friends quite a bit to pass the time in the week, fingers crossed I'll find a few over there.

It sounds to me that there are lots of friendly Brits in NJ.

I'll keep you posted on my return.

Jerseygirl

Use the search facility located in the pink bar at the top of the page. Go to advanced search...search for threads by Englishmum in the USA/Trailer Park forums.

You should find some very good information about living in NJ and working in NYC...including info on schools, transportation etc.

If you have a problem locating her threads give me a shout.

Welcome to BE HappyinHK.

Bob

Welcome to BE

There's a recent thread on Westchester and a bunch of other places...though I suppose the budget which can't be to bad would be one of the main considerations along with schooling.

Englishmum

You're going to miss the vibe of Hong Kong soooo much after moving to the States....the suburbs will be desperately dull (unless you're currently living somewhere like the New Territories) and your family may get a huge culture shock.

I think for your sanity you will need to live in a lively area and you're so lucky to have the luxury of being able to send your children to private schools.

I was in NYC last Friday and helped a Canadian lady take her sleeping child in a stroller up the subway steps. We were going in the same direction and had a long chat as she was collecting her elder daughter from the "Dalton School". Fees are $30,000 per year per pupil. Also check the Brearley school - I think it's where Gwyneth Paltrow was a pupil. Also there is the "Little Red School House"

http://www.dalton.org/Default.asp?bhcp=1 (co-ed)

http://www.lrei.org/ (co-ed)

http://www.brearley.org/ (girls)

http://www.unis.org/

http://www.thehudsonschool.org/frame.html (co-ed, Hoboken)

Personally if I was moving from Honkers I'd try to live in Manhattan or Hoboken.....I think that a nice large cookie-cutter house in a suburban town where no-one walks and everyone drives directly into and out of their garages and it's all Stepford Wives might be a bit soul-destroying for you.

Hoboken - very international - faces the Manhatten skyline in NJ (just across the Hudson River from NYC with PATH subway trains and ferries to Manhatten) and neighbouring Newport/Jersey City may be attractive to you if you like to go sailing as there is a sailing club on the waterfront and a marina. Also Newark international & domestic airport is very easy to get to with daily flights to Asia & Europe - which is good if your spouse will be travelling all the time - and less hassle than JFK. Otherwise check out slightly bohemian DUMBO (Down Under Manhatten Bridge) in Brooklyn for apartments and lofts.

There are *many* brand new loft apartments - many on the waterfront - and waterside town houses -some even with boat docks -so do check out Hoboken (many expats too) Jersey City, Newport/Pavonia, West New York/East Guttenburg. There are private schools in this part of NJ too. I expect that your company will be providing a relocation advisor and realtor to show you around to find you a rental property or properties for sale.

http://www.libertyyachtclub.org/

http://www.sailtruenorth.com/

http://www.offshore-sailing.com/liberty-landing.asp

Scroll down this link for more sailing club/marina info:

http://www.kannekt.com/15/65parks.htm

Typical properties:

http://www.henleyonhudson.com

http://www.adamssquare.com/?gclid=CJ...FT00FQod0jVWug

http://www.newjerseygoldcoast.com/ja...townhomes.html

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...pagewanted=all

Good Luck!
PS: Are you planning to bring your Amah...?

penguinsix

Hi,

It may be comforting to be around fellow Brits, but you should not be expecting an enclave like the Lan Kwai Fong, or the little expat corner of Happy Valley, or the streets off the Escalator (yea, I lived there too). They are generally, like everything in the US, more spread out.

How old are you children? It might be helpful before you leave HK to check the curriculum plan at your school. Some schools in the US have IB programs for older kids, and there are always International Schools that try to mirror the curriculum of schools back home. If you see that children are going to learn XYZ in whatever year in HK but not in the US, you can supplement their education after school with some lessons.

I think if you read through some of the education threads via search you'll find good and bad stories. Some expats end up in areas with bad schools (something that you don't appear to be heading toward) and some end up pleasantly surprised at the quality and scope of education their children are getting here in the US. Some even don't want to send there kids back to the UK. The wiki has a very good section on 'Enrolling Kids in School' that is the culmination of a lot of comments from the message board.

http://britishexpats.com/wiki/What_d...s_in_school%3F

Anyway, good luck with your move. I would recommend your expectations for the US be as similar as your expectations were for moving to HK from the UK--A totally foreign land with just a few similarities. It really is quite different.

p.s. URGENT--Before you leave, get the vaccination records for the children together. VERY important. VERY VERY important.

lapin_windstar

I would recommend you read this: http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=513608

There's no shortage of immigrants or foreigners in the "tri-state area", but there are no neighborhoods filled with "Bunty and Sebastian" ruddy-faced, red-nosed Daily Mail reading what what expats (thank god).

HappyinHK

Wow, everyone. Thank you so much for your replies. You've given me much food for thought (and now I probably won't be able to get back to sleep - it's the middle of the night here and I really shouldn't be awake and checking my emails!).

Thanks for the reality check. I think, coming from HK, I'm rather seduced by pictures of fabulous houses with gourmet kitchens and large gardens, but - let's be honest - I haven't set foot in the kitchen for the past 8 years so I'm not sure why I'll be starting now... yes, maybe somewhere a bit more dynamic and urban would be more appropriate for us.

Needless to say, I'm hoping very much we'll be able to get a visa for our amah. Otherwise I'm sunk.

My children are 6,3 and baby, by the way.

Thanks for the warm welcome.

H

Worsel

hello

i moved my family to nyc 3 years ago. my son went to a private school in the manhattan that my employer paid for. we visited a lot of schools in the city before finding one that we were happy with. BIG caveat here is that private schools in manhattan can be VERY difficult to get in to. we were lucky that some-one left and created a space.

if you are not living in mh, and with 3 kids and wanting a garden you might not want to, then westchester is an ideal location. we moved out last april and bought a house. the public (ie state) schools in westchester are very good so you might not want to send your children to a private school if you are living there. the area we live in now is very international in flavor, my son plays football with french, german, japanese, spanish children and a few americans too.

if you do want help with finding a school i can personally recommend a very good contact. pm me if you want more info.

good luck.

ps
we didn't like the dalton school. my son went to birch wathen lenox, which we found to be a quite excellent school.

Jerseygirl

In my experience all private schools anywhere nr NYC ie NJ and Conn or very expensive. Think $20K+ to $30K+ per year for a day school, plus uniform, athletic fees, school trips and they expect a hefty donation each year.

Englishmum

TBH - It's going to be very difficult to bring your amah into the US to continue working for you (although not impossible). I honestly don't know of any expat whom has managed to do so. Amahs are interviewed seperately at the US Embassy or consulate - the consular officials take the view that if a domestic worker is granted a visa to work in the States, he/she is going to 'do a runner' upon arrival and disappear into their community's 'network'. They don't care if the employer has retained their passport, they would just report it as 'lost' to their embassy. They need to prove that they're not going to sever roots from their home country....difficult to prove when many have already left their own babies and young children with family back home so they can work overseas in other Asian or Middle Eastern countries. Basically the embassy wants to see proof of something like house or land deeds in their home country.

In addition...be prepared to pay a massive wage rise compared to HK! Live in is approx US$400 per week minimum and live out it approx US$600 +

Also you have to show that you intend to only live in the US on an expat posting for a max of 4 years and have this confirmed in writing from your company's HR dept.

This is the info on applying for visas for bringing amahs into the US:

http://hongkong.usconsulate.gov/niv_...c_helpers.html

If you can't or choose not to bring your amah into the States, certainly in the NY metro area there are plenty of live-in and live-out nannies and cleaners of all nationalities to be found (many Filipinas too - a large no. of them live in Newark, NJ). Craigslist always has nanny/housekeeping posts:

http://newyork.craigslist.org/jsy/kid/

Many families prefer to employ au-pairs from Europe & Down Under which is far cheaper (and obviously not as good at housekeeping as an amah LOL ) , but you need to go through an au-pair agency (they arrange for their interviews, visas, health insurance, flights etc.).


I could give links for private schools - but going back to your original post, yes some of the public schools are just as good - if not better - than some private schools; some parochial (religious schools) serve pupils coming from deprived communities and the tuition fees are heavily subsidised by parishioners.

My son was at a British school in the Far East but when we moved to the States the company (British) does not pay school fees and expects expat employees to choose to live in a good public school district; however they did pay most of the school fees when my daughter chose to go to a boarding school in Oxford for her "A" levels. On the other hand when they've brought expats in from say, France, they will pay fees at say, the French Lycee. Our British friends who work for mainland European banks say that their employers pay for school fees in the US.

I therefore did a lot of research on where to live when my spouse was transferred to work in NYC and we live in what is regarded as one of the best public school districts in the US (Millburn, NJ) where many pupils go on to the Ivy League colleges. This is also true of towns like Summit NJ, Chatham NJ, Scarsdale, Rye etc. in Westchester. We eventually chose not to live in Westchester as my husband is always flying off on overseas business trips and it was more desirable to live closer to a major airport - we are just 15-20 minutes from Newark airport and 40 mins by train to NYC.

Just like the UK, property prices are higher for the best school districts....and property taxes (council taxes) are far, far higher in the NY metro area in comparison to properties anywhere in the UK (but unlike the UK, the landlords in the States usually include property taxes in the rental prices as it's usually paid in tandem (escrow) on their mortgage payments). I'm talking tens of thousands of $ in property taxes! Each town pays for its own schools out of local taxes. I was quite shocked when I first moved here when my son made a new friend; the parents have their own very profitable business and live in a huge house with a seperate carriage house in the grounds for their housekeeper. In the UK no way would he have gone to the local state school!

However, I understand that only about 16% of pupils in the States go to private schools and most of those are religious ones....it's just not the culture here really to have a private school education, quite often the public schools are the centre of the community and its not unusual for almost the whole townspeople to turn up to the high school stadium to watch the school's (American) football match!

List of the 'Best' public high schools in the US ('Gold List' is on the left of the page):

http://www.usnews.com/articles/educa...h-schools.html (yes I'm aware that your children are much younger, but families do move into the 'top' public school districts from pre-kindergarten school age as they then go through the local elementary and middle schools which feed into the high schools).

Sorry I've rambled on so long (I was on a roll and spouse is watching sports on TV...boring...).

frrussre

Enlishmum, we had a few friends who had children at the "Little Red House", personally thought it was aptly named. I coached several children on our soccer teams, that attended that school. Think they and there parents were on therapy & the dog. I heard the school was good on teaching, skipping & less good on R R R.
Just my humble opinion, maybe it changed.

City & country, another odd bunch.
The team my son played on & I joint coached with a Turkish friend, mostly attended UNIS. A lot of children of diplomats, children of foreign parents, get 1st dibs.
Reg. Frank R.

Englishmum

That's hysterical about parents, kids and dog in therapy! I can quite believe it - one sees so many stressed out people in this neck of the woods.... (My immediate next-door neighbours are psychiatrists and the wife - whose clients include some celebrities in NYC - told me that I'm the most 'normal' person that she's ever met.....)

I was once seeing my mum off at JFK and her flight was delayed. I got talking to an African family; it turned out that they were diplomats and one of the family was moving out to China for a new posting. They had children in their party and it turned out that they were attending the United Nations school in NYC; oddly enough they didn't rate the school at all! They were thinking of sending the kids to an English-style boarding school as they themselves had an English education back in Africa and thought that the tuition and discipline was far superior to what their children were experiencing at UNIS.