Taxes Give Rise To Questions of Home and Heart

I n three years, Vic and Linda Curtis will have paid off theirplace in Croom in southeastern Prince George's County. After threedecades, they still love their five acres tucked behind a 100-acrefarm. "We've got it the way we like it," Vic says. "I have no sewer,no water lines, no police, no cable, no Internet access, and I loveit. I can see the stars come up at night, and I can hear a dog bark amile away."

But the Curtises don't really live in Prince George's anymore.It's just their bedroom.

Every time the tax bill arrives, more of the Curtises' neighbors,just like yours and mine, sit down at the kitchen table to have TheConversation. Can we afford to stay in this house? Or, conversely,with prices soaring so high, are we stuck here forever?

The direct result of those anguished exchanges is a convoy ofmoving vans -- usually heading farther out toward the cheaper realestate, meaning longer commutes and lost countryside. Neighborhoodschange, friendships fade, lives evolve.

Over the past few years, as development pressure has extended tothe southern and eastern reaches of Prince George's and new houseshave sprung up and the county's schools have struggled and housingvalues have yanked taxes up with them, the Curtis family has acquiredlots of new neighbors. The Curtises moved, too -- sort of. "Ourhearts and souls and minds are in Charles County, but we sleep andpay taxes in P.G.," Vic says.

Vic and Linda -- he's an electronic warfare engineer for the NavalResearch Laboratory and she's a Realtor -- concluded that theirschools simply were not safe enough for their kids; they heard thisnot only from friends, but from teachers and others who work in theschools. Vic and Linda kept hearing great things about the publicschools down the road, in Charles County. Sure enough, the testscores at Matthew Henson Middle School in Indian Head were 20 pointshigher in math than at the Curtises' local middle school, Gwynn Parkin Brandywine.

"I said, I get one shot at educating my child, and that's nothappening at Gwynn Park," Vic recalls. "All of our neighbors weremoving. My wife has helped sell some of our friends' homes so theycan educate their kids."

So Vic applied for admission to the Charles public schools for histwo sons -- a process he must repeat every year -- and he shelledout $5,000 per child each year. Six years later, one boy is off tocollege and the other is in 10th grade at Thomas Stone High inWaldorf.

"People ask why you would pay private school money for publicschool, and well, at Stone, I have a jazz band, symphonic orchestra,concert band, guest artists -- the kids make CDs every year," Vicsays.

Soon, the parents found their lives shifting south. Vic gotinvolved in the high school jazz band, and now he's raising $20,000 ayear as a band booster. He also spends Thursday evenings volunteeringat a Charles County teen court, works at Red Cross shelters in LaPlata, runs the bingo game for the Jaycees in Waldorf and hangs outwith fellow ham radio operators in Charles.

"We pay taxes and moan and groan about the politics and lack ofservices in P.G., and then we drive south to see our friends and liveour lives," he says.

From the start, Vic, who is white, knew that some people would seehis inner migration as a piece of the white flight that has played apart in transforming Prince George's. "I asked myself: Am I beingbigoted? Am I bad?"

After all, he was moving his kids from a middle school that hasseen half its white students vanish in a decade -- Gwynn Park wentfrom 30 percent white to 12 percent white in that time -- to a schoolthat is 58 percent white.

Curtis approached black staffers at his kids' elementary schoolfor advice. One teacher responded: "Honey, do you think I'm going tolet my kids go to Gwynn Park?" That teacher soon moved herself -- toCharles County.

The school decision reshaped the family's lives more than they hadexpected it might. "You follow your kids and you developrelationships with other people who are like-minded," Curtis says."And boom, you wake up and you've moved your social life 12 miles tothe south."

This week, as assessment notices arrive, The Conversation beginsanew in a house near you.

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