Buying A Home
BBear13
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
How to research schools?
My husband and I don't know if we want to have kids at all (we're in our 20's, and even if we have them it wouldn't be for a few years) Still, we are starting to look at homes, and we'd like to get a home in an area with good schools, but we know nothing about how to find out if the schools are good.
1. Where does one get information about the schools? Are there reliable sites anyone can recommend, and are there specific factors we should be looking for in reviews?
2. How long is that kind of information valid? If we buy a home now, but don't have kids ready to attend until 8 - 10 years from now, would the reviews of schools be somewhat accurate or valid still?
Thanks in advance!
Re: How to research schools?
I really like greatschools.org. They give schools a rating of 1-10. The rating comes from each particular school's test scores in comparison with the test score results from all other schools in the state. They also have a star rating that students and parents can use to review their school.
In addition to the ratings they list specifics of test scores, school activities, teacher:student ratios, number of credentialed teachers and other miscellaneous school information. They will also let you compare schools.
I have used this over the last year when we have considered moving. I was able to look up all schools in my town and then sort them by greatschool.org rating. The school district we are moving in to is the #2 ranked school of the 94 schools in and around our area. It also received 5 stars from the community rating which is better than the #1 rated school (that school received 4 stars).
I have 3 children so this was VERY important to me when looking to buy. However, even if you never have children it can help your resale if you are in a more desireable school ditsrict.
Also, www.schooldigger.com
Holy smokes, I just started checking it out, and I am blown away by how many public elementary schools are in the area! (Northern Virginia/Fairfax County)
I seriously had no idea there were so many here. I guess I just haven't been paying attention since I don't have kids, but I've never even heard of so many of these.