Let's talk schools

Salleybelle · January 2013

I know I am jumping WAY ahead of myself here, but let's talk schools for a moment. We are looking to buy a house maybe later this year, with doing so, I am wanting to pick our location based on schools because I know we will be there for a long while. This may be a stupid question, but is there a website that shows school rankings in my area? I grew up in a very small town... we didn't have private schools, only one elementary school, one middle and one high. So with that being said, the town I am in now offers private schools (I believe?). So, public or private? I am sorry, I am work so this may be a post and run.... but I will be back later to check in. I would love your thoughts and opinions! Hope everyone is having a great Monday BTW!

MarisaKathleen · January 2013

https://www.schooldigger.com/

We found this helpful. It's not the "best" but helped us until we could meet some locals in our area. Also, we had a lot of luck at the Y. The Y in my town is full of people who live and work in our area, so we found it helpful to talk to them.

Good luck!

hmp1 · January 2013

Our house is zoned for the "best" public schools in our area but we are still going to have the boys apply for two of the magnet schools because they are actually the top rated. I am concerned that DS1 will get accepted and DS2 won't, then we have to decide if we pull DS1 out so the boys go to the same school.

You can try greatschools.org. IMO, there is a lot more than just test scores that go into making a school desirable. If you are using a good Realtor, they will be able to talk to you about the desirable schools in your area. I also find talking to teachers to be very helpful. That is how we found out about one of the magnet schools. The other school we know about because one of the neighborhood kids that plays in our cul de sac goes to that school.

ETA: regarding private schools. I am not against sending my kids to private schools but the "good" ones around here are very religious based and I am not interested in my kids getting that type of education from school.

Flamingemu · January 2013

Not to be totally mean, but have you tried to Google the information? Do you have a county website? I was able to find our local information on our county website, but I can find it through Google for other areas that I don't know their sites.

And, not dumb at all, we moved into our house coming on 4 years now (2 before TTC) and we chose it based on school system.

MommaP12 · January 2013

I'm doing the same thing. House shopping based on neighborhood/public schools. I also use greatschools.com to see ratings and student/parent reviews of schools. Good luck!

Par13 · January 2013

I second the Realtor help. They should know a lot about the area [schools, parks, etc] so I would ask around for a good Realtor recommendation.

Kris2011RN · January 2013

Could you ask other parents? If you go to a church you could ask the parents with older children. Or maybe at work you can ask the parents what they think of their schools.

We are doing private school, if we can afford it, at least until he gets through elementary school.

MeatballEsq · January 2013

Our state has a website that ranks them. I would try Googling it.

terri_doula2010 · January 2013

Not sure what part of GA you are in, but Cochran (Bleckley County) has a fantastic school system. It isn't a dumb question at all...GA is ranked pretty low overall (8th lowest state last I checked).

I didn't go to Cochran, but my best friend is from there and her mom teaches there still.

melody921 · January 2013

We did the same thing. We knew when we bought our house that we'd be in the same place when DS starts school, and good schools were important to me. I looked at greatschools.org, the department of ed's website for our state and local newspapers when they did their school rankings. I already had a general idea though, from living in the area, which schools had good reputations. I wanted strong public schools so that we didn't have to do private school unless we wanted to.

Hyaline · January 2013

I'm probably in the minority on this, but I feel that picking a location solely on the schools like you say you want to is a little one-sided. Yes, you want to make sure there are decent schools in the area, but I think you can get too hung up on that one detail--in most areas, the difference between Town A's school and Town B's is not going to be so terribly significant. If it is, yes, it's a big deal--but often the difference might not mean more to you than, say, the personality of the community or if there's a church you want to attend or the affordability of a house big enough for your family other important lifestyle choices.

I would do what you can to talk to parents in the area. I think it would be more meaningful to do that than it would be to use the school rating websites that are out there. When we bought our house I used one of the ratings websites (I can't remember which) to just get a basic gauge...there seemed to be very little difference in our area from one district to another, and the information online wasn't terribly meaningful beyond weeding out truly underperforming schools.

Our town has one elementary, one middle, and one high school. There is a nearby private school for elementary, but it's a Lutheran school that doesn't seem much "better" beyond the benefit of a religious education if that's what you want. Once I figured out that the schools in our area are fine--not bad, not stellar, but fine--we picked the house and town based on falling in love with a house and loving this particular small town's dynamic and community and didn't give another thought to schools. To a great degree, I think that parents influence how much a kid gets out of his or her education, and DH and I are committed to that with DD no matter how good the school she goes to is.

jussagirl02 · January 2013

DH and I are doing the same thing right now. A lot of school districts post their "report cards" online now. If it's not online you can call the district office to get schools in the districts "grade." As a teacher, my biggest advice would be to get recommendations from families you know. A school may be an exceeding school based on standardized tests but may not be quite in line with what you are looking for.

rarazz · January 2013

Find out where the teachers in your area send there kids, that is going to be the best school. That is what it tends to be in our area.

If we still live in this area when LO starts school, she will go to the private school in town. Never thought I would send my kids to private school but DH went to this school and there are some MAJOR issues in my towns public schools right now that haven't been addressed.

damabo80 · January 2013

intheflowers:
I like to browse around the forums at citydata.com. Also test scores help a little, I just want to see schools that are above the state average. And, unfortunately but realistically, the socioeconomic status of the area is a good indicator not with magnet schools though.nbsp;The best elementary school in my town is also the one with the wealthiest neighborhoods sending their kids there. The least desirable school is the one that encompasses neighborhoods with a larger renting population transient residents and lower SES. I'm sure there are exceptions but yah.nbsp;

True here, too. Teachers can only go so far. You need parental involvement too. And it's going to happen more frequently when you have wealthy parents, or sah parents who have the time to help out in the classroom a lot. The three job working single mother usually doesn't have those extra resources.

We looked at the percentages of students on free/assisted lunch. This info is avail online. If you have 2 percent of free lunches vs 70 percent free lunches, I'm going to guess that the 2 percent school is going to be better, on average.

And yes I know there are exceptions. But we're going with averages here.

ladyjenna13 · January 2013

My wife has been a school psychologist in a large urban school district, so we know we are not going that route. I am hesitant about public schools in general, but there are some brights spots few and far between. My concern is more in getting our kids prepared for college at as early an age as possible, and we do not see that happening at a rate we feel comfortable with in a public school environment.

I went to private, Catholic K-12. I was more than prepared for college as a result. Both of my parents were in public education, and they saw better opportunities for me in a private school setting.

With the cost that daycare is, it makes total sense to send our kids to private school....it is actually cheaper than daycare!!

danabsd · January 2013

ladyjenna13:
I went to private, Catholic K12. I was more than prepared for college as a result. Both of my parents were in public education, and they saw better opportunities for me in a private school setting.
With the cost that daycare is, it makes total sense to send our kids to private school....it is actually cheaper than daycare!!

I went to public school and it had absolutely nothing to do with finances. I went onto a 4 year university and I did not find myself any less prepared than someone who graduated from a private school.

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