What are the best elementary schools?

KristinB!

We live in south Austin which I love, but in our current house, our elementary school is not the best so we will almost positively be moving in 2-3 years.  I'm pretty open to moving anywhere in Austin (within budget - i.e. Tarrytown is not an option!) but don't really want to move out of the city limits.

So what are the best districts/elementary schools in town??  I need to narrow my future search!  TIA!

Spanishbeauty

It depends on what statistics you consider make a "best" school.  TAKS scores, socioeconomic status, funding, extra programs, etc.  And don't just think about elementary schools, you also have to think about middle schools and maybe even high schools.  Especially if you want to stay put for a while. 

IMHO, think that middle schools are almost the most important (of course I'm a MS teacher).  Don't get me wrong, elementary is important, but I think it's silly that they make elementary kids take the TAKS test (I'm not a huge standardized test believer).  Unless the elementary school is just atrocious, it wouldn't bother me if they were slightly "low-performing".  Middle school is where they are forming their identity, building stronger friendships, and starting to figure out what they like/dislike as far as subject area or extra curricular interests.  That's just my .02, sorry if it was more than you wanted.

ANYWHO... if TAKS scores is something that's really important to you those are easy to find.  Just google Austin ISD TAKS scores.  It will give you pdf file of all the scores for the entire district.  It will take some weeding through to find the elementaries (you'll have to know the name), but it's all there.

JezcaM

what are your standards? how do you define "best?" how do you know your current school is not the best? that title is very subjective.

having taught at both the "best" and the "worst," i can tell you that it's not so much about the school as it is the teachers. and you never know who the teachers will be by the time your child attends the school, or to which teacher's class your child will be assigned.

kiarox2002

JezcaM:

what are your standards? how do you define "best?" how do you know your current school is not the best? that title is very subjective.

having taught at both the "best" and the "worst," i can tell you that it's not so much about the school as it is the teachers. and you never know who the teachers will be by the time your child attends the school, or to which teacher's class your child will be assigned.

While I agree with this to a point (having also taught at the best and worst) the best schools tend to attract the best teachers.  IMO, it's much easier to teach kids who have school supplies, who ate breakfast and whose parents are around/ give a d@mn enough to encourage them to do their homework.  I spent so much time on discipline at my first school that I had very little time to teach.  I noticed that at my first school, most competent teachers tried to transfer to better schools in the district every year. 

mlf625

I feel your pain - we're happy in our house and with our neighborhood/neighbors, but the elementary school we're zoned to is out of the question bad.  So we'll either need to move in the next few years or do private school, but we're 90% sure we'll move.  *If* we stay south (DH's job is north and it would probably make more sense to move that way, but I really do love south Austin) we're most interested in Circle C.  The schools there are great.

Good luck! 

JezcaM

kiarox2002:

JezcaM:

what are your standards? how do you define "best?" how do you know your current school is not the best? that title is very subjective.

having taught at both the "best" and the "worst," i can tell you that it's not so much about the school as it is the teachers. and you never know who the teachers will be by the time your child attends the school, or to which teacher's class your child will be assigned.

While I agree with this to a point (having also taught at the best and worst) the best schools tend to attract the best teachers.  IMO, it's much easier to teach kids who have school supplies, who ate breakfast and whose parents are around/ give a d@mn enough to encourage them to do their homework.  I spent so much time on discipline at my first school that I had very little time to teach.  I noticed that at my first school, most competent teachers tried to transfer to better schools in the district every year. 

at the poorest school where i taught, the entire student population received free breakfast and lunch AND school supplies... the parents weren't around any more or less than the wealthy school where i often had to talk to the nanny because the parents couldn't be bothered. i don't feel like i transferred from bad schools to good - many other factors drove my decisions to switch schools, like distance from home, the administrators' support of the arts, pay....

i don't like the implication that poor students = bad school. some of my hardest working students were the ones with the most obstacles. 

molliedb

have you checked out greatschools.net?  it will give you the basics on class size, test scores, etc.

 we are south/west and our schools (elementary through highschool) are all 10/10 or 9/10 on their scale.  certainly not the be all end all, but good info and anecdotally we have heard great things from neighbors etc.   our elementaries in the area are kiker and clayton.

kiarox2002

JezcaM:

kiarox2002:

JezcaM:

what are your standards? how do you define "best?" how do you know your current school is not the best? that title is very subjective.

having taught at both the "best" and the "worst," i can tell you that it's not so much about the school as it is the teachers. and you never know who the teachers will be by the time your child attends the school, or to which teacher's class your child will be assigned.

While I agree with this to a point (having also taught at the best and worst) the best schools tend to attract the best teachers.  IMO, it's much easier to teach kids who have school supplies, who ate breakfast and whose parents are around/ give a d@mn enough to encourage them to do their homework.  I spent so much time on discipline at my first school that I had very little time to teach.  I noticed that at my first school, most competent teachers tried to transfer to better schools in the district every year. 

at the poorest school where i taught, the entire student population received free breakfast and lunch AND school supplies... the parents weren't around any more or less than the wealthy school where i often had to talk to the nanny because the parents couldn't be bothered. i don't feel like i transferred from bad schools to good - many other factors drove my decisions to switch schools, like distance from home, the administrators' support of the arts, pay....

i don't like the implication that poor students = bad school. some of my hardest working students were the ones with the most obstacles. 

We have clearly had different experiences but I do want to say that nowhere did I say that poor students = bad students.  My first school was about half low SES and half upper middle class.

I will say that some of my poorest students were my best.  Their parents valued education and the opportunities that it afforded their children.  They also took care of their supplies because they recognized that their parents had worked hard for them.  To be fair though, it was *my* experience that many of these parents were working 2 jobs to support their families and were not around in the evening to help with homework etc.  In fact, several of my middle school students were in charge of dinner/ homework/ bedtime for their younger siblings and this interfered with their own studies.

My problem students were ones whose parents could afford to buy them supplies but were too lazy to get them.  The ones who told me to stop calling them about their child's grades because they didn't care if they were failing.  The one who was selling drugs, the one who went to prison (adult prison).  I could go on and on.

When I taught at a "better" school, I had different sets of problems, mostly over-involved parents who were afraid to give their children a chance to do anything on their own and thought they could do no wrong.  Even so, I would much rather have a parent email me 15 times a day (not exaggerating) than curse at me on the phone for calling about her son's grades because her other son was in jail and she had enough to deal with.

In my experience, wealthier schools are "easier" schools to teach at.  They tend to attract better teachers and administrators because of this.  It seems to be a self-perpetuating cycle.

I debated responding to this post at all because I thought that I might get a response like this.  We will have to agree to disagree. 

AustinAggie

We're south too and the elem we are zoned for is really good.  My niece and nephew also went there, SIL is a teacher (not there) and MIL has an education degree and volunteers with non-profits that are education-driven, she's on the board for a reading program...  All that to say that not just the info found online, but real life people approved of and loved the school, programs, administrators, etc.  I'm also happy with the middle school.  The schools are Cowan and Bailey.  Sometimes I do think it's sad that kids that can SEE Cowan from their houses, have to go to another school just because that's where the lines are drawn.  It seems weird.

There are a lot of great schools South, but there are also some that I (admittedly) wouldn't want my children to attend, even knowing it's the teachers that make the real difference.  Good luck!

Spanishbeauty

AustinAggie:

We're south too and the elem we are zoned for is really good.  My niece and nephew also went there, SIL is a teacher (not there) and MIL has an education degree and volunteers with non-profits that are education-driven, she's on the board for a reading program...  All that to say that not just the info found online, but real life people approved of and loved the school, programs, administrators, etc.  I'm also happy with the middle school.  The schools are Cowan and Bailey.  Sometimes I do think it's sad that kids that can SEE Cowan from their houses, have to go to another school just because that's where the lines are drawn.  It seems weird.

There are a lot of great schools South, but there are also some that I (admittedly) wouldn't want my children to attend, even knowing it's the teachers that make the real difference.  Good luck!

 

I went to Bailey!!  

L L CG

molliedb:

have you checked out greatschools.net?  it will give you the basics on class size, test scores, etc.

 we are south/west and our schools (elementary through highschool) are all 10/10 or 9/10 on their scale.  certainly not the be all end all, but good info and anecdotally we have heard great things from neighbors etc.   our elementaries in the area are kiker and clayton.

Ditto.  I apparently live close to Mollie.  She's president of our neighborhood Swingers Association.

Tiffandmart09

Hutto and Austin rank the same in school districts which is really bad. The best school districts around here are Leander ISD, Round Rock ISD and Pflugerville ISD. We have done alot of research on this recently because we are buying a house. We signed a contract in Hutto and then looked at the school district ranking and it was horrible. Someone had a great idea to look at a website and see where the school ranks.

L L CG

Tiffandmart09:

Hutto and Austin rank the same in school districts which is really bad. The best school districts around here are Leander ISD, Round Rock ISD and Pflugerville ISD. We have done alot of research on this recently because we are buying a house. We signed a contract in Hutto and then looked at the school district ranking and it was horrible. Someone had a great idea to look at a website and see where the school ranks.

Eanes is head and shoulders above all of these.