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Just wondering what the public schools are like in the Buckhead area of Atlanta. Any input? I have been told this is an upscale area of Atlanta. Are certain zip codes in Buckhead better than others? Any I should stay away from? Please, and info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
The best public schools in Buckhead are in VERY expensive areas. Warren T. Jackson Elementary serves West Buckhead from the zip 30327 with a couple of hundred homes from 30342 and 30305 as well. The school has the IB program at the elementary level and IMHO is the second best public school in the state, next to Kittredge. Statistically it is ranked in the top five. Zip 30327 has a medium home value of $964,000 and each year homes get more expensive in the area. Note that if you look up homes in zip 30327 online many homes will be in Sandy Springs's Heards Ferry Elem. district which is no where near on Jackson's level. While that section of sandy Springs is nice I think most parents there start sendng their kids to private schools at the Kindergarten level whereas alot of Buckhead parents wait until grade six.
Sarah Smith is the best elementary school in the city of Atlanta based off test scores. It serves the North Buckhead community(zips 30342 and 30326). You can rent a three bedroom apartment in the district off Roswell Road for $1200 to $1700 a month. Two bedroom condos can be as cheap as $250,000but would probably be fixer uppers. Morris Brandon (serving the rest of 30327 and the western fringe of 30305) is also a top notch school and has also intstituted the elementary version of the IB program. I think the average home price in Brandon's district is now in the upper 600s.
E. Rivers and Garden Hills, the other two Buckhead public schools are average in comparrsion to the other three mentioned above but are still superior to most of Atlanta's suburban public elementary schools. The Garden Hills district is the most afordable in Buckhead with homes ranging from the 400s to the 700s and it is the most diverse.
Sutton Middle Shool also has the IB program and the kids are separated according to grade level there. There is a sixth grade academy housed in the new wing of the school, intended to make transition into middle school years a smooth one without the crackling of the older students. The seventh and eighth grade wings tend to be on the 2nd and third levels. Lunches times are slotted according to grade level too. IMHO, the acdademic offerings there are excellent, surpassing private schools like Holy Innocents' and The Galloway School. Prestigeous Buckhead private schools like Westminster, Lovett, and Pace tend to outshine Sutton and its high school counter part North Atlanta though, for now. Many parents opt for private school by the middle school level because Sutton draws many of its students fom the southside based on a lottery. As such, the school is extreemly diverse. Some Buckhad parents want their kids to be in a socially privaleged environment (the Buckhead Bubble where the world is perfect and their kids never have to encounter anyone outside their economic bracket) so they opt for private school more for prestige most times than for a better education for their children.
North Atlanta High School is home to Atlanta's International Bacalaurate Program(IB). The IB Program is the most challenging, rigerous curriculum a student can go through in the country and its offered at thousands of schools as magnet programs accorss the country. There is a VERY competitive admissions process to get into the program. Many of the students who get into the program come from Atlanta's less privaleged southside looking for a better education than the one their neighorhoods can provide. The Atlanta International Scool (private) offers IB K-12 and now with Jackson and Brandon Elem. and Sutton Middle offering the program, Buckhead parents have a true alternative to private school education.
The rest of North Atlanta is not so stellar. Because the overwhelming majority of single family dwellers in Buckhead opt for private schools, North Atlanta has had to expand it's distric in order to stay open. It now draws kids from two other middle schools, Usher and Carson, which draws students from the low income neighborhoods like Bankhead. As a result, the schools already low test scores plummeted and even more Buckhead residents withdrew their children from the school; some of my fiends are included and many of them couldn't afford private school but had to tweak their budgets to make it work. They are now struggling and frushtrated that outside of the IB program, their kids have no viable public high school option in Buckhead. The students elligible for HOPE (those who have earned a 3.0 or higher) is at a bismally low level and some of the schools in South Dekalb and South Fulton have higher percentages, which should how bad the problem has gotten there.
If you can't afford private school, my suggestion is not to move to Buckhead. While there are great options for the elementary and middle school level, you are kind of left out to dry by the time your child reaches the high school level, unless they get into the IB Program, which by the way is alienated from the rest of the school, giving it more of a private school feel, which in my opinion is a good thing. There are much better schools in more affordable areas in terms of pregnancy rates, dropout rates, SAT scores, disciplinarian issues, the percentage of students who take and PASS AP/IB tests and the percentage of HOPE elligible students. These factors are what I use to determine if a school is good or bad. Test scores alone are certainly not enough.
Well, if IB is your thing and your kid is in elementary school, you might want to check out City of Decatur schools. Decatur is not as upscale as Buckhead, but I'd say it's in second place along with Virginia Highland and Inman Park.
City of Decatur Schools are becoming a charter system and probably will be approved by May so that they are no longer subject to some of the inane state regs that plague public schools. They also are in the process becoming IB schools (about two years from completion for grades 4-10 - Grades 11 and 12 are probably 3-4 years off.
We have a mix of kids... about 39% minority and about 25% free lunch, about 28% gifted... but everyone seems to get along well.
The best public schools in Buckhead are in VERY expensive areas. Warren T. Jackson Elementary serves West Buckhead from the zip 30327 with a couple of hundred homes from 30342 and 30305 as well. The school has the IB program at the elementary level and IMHO is the second best public school in the state, next to Kittredge. Statistically it is ranked in the top five. Zip 30327 has a medium home value of $964,000 and each year homes get more expensive in the area. Note that if you look up homes in zip 30327 online many homes will be in Sandy Springs's Heards Ferry Elem. district which is no where near on Jackson's level. While that section of sandy Springs is nice I think most parents there start sendng their kids to private schools at the Kindergarten level whereas alot of Buckhead parents wait until grade six.
Sarah Smith is the best elementary school in the city of Atlanta based off test scores. It serves the North Buckhead community(zips 30342 and 30326). You can rent a three bedroom apartment in the district off Roswell Road for $1200 to $1700 a month. Two bedroom condos can be as cheap as $250,000but would probably be fixer uppers. Morris Brandon (serving the rest of 30327 and the western fringe of 30305) is also a top notch school and has also intstituted the elementary version of the IB program. I think the average home price in Brandon's district is now in the upper 600s.
E. Rivers and Garden Hills, the other two Buckhead public schools are average in comparrsion to the other three mentioned above but are still superior to most of Atlanta's suburban public elementary schools. The Garden Hills district is the most afordable in Buckhead with homes ranging from the 400s to the 700s and it is the most diverse.
Sutton Middle Shool also has the IB program and the kids are separated according to grade level there. There is a sixth grade academy housed in the new wing of the school, intended to make transition into middle school years a smooth one without the crackling of the older students. The seventh and eighth grade wings tend to be on the 2nd and third levels. Lunches times are slotted according to grade level too. IMHO, the acdademic offerings there are excellent, surpassing private schools like Holy Innocents' and The Galloway School. Prestigeous Buckhead private schools like Westminster, Lovett, and Pace tend to outshine Sutton and its high school counter part North Atlanta though, for now. Many parents opt for private school by the middle school level because Sutton draws many of its students fom the southside based on a lottery. As such, the school is extreemly diverse. Some Buckhad parents want their kids to be in a socially privaleged environment (the Buckhead Bubble where the world is perfect and their kids never have to encounter anyone outside their economic bracket) so they opt for private school more for prestige most times than for a better education for their children.
North Atlanta High School is home to Atlanta's International Bacalaurate Program(IB). The IB Program is the most challenging, rigerous curriculum a student can go through in the country and its offered at thousands of schools as magnet programs accorss the country. There is a VERY competitive admissions process to get into the program. Many of the students who get into the program come from Atlanta's less privaleged southside looking for a better education than the one their neighorhoods can provide. The Atlanta International Scool (private) offers IB K-12 and now with Jackson and Brandon Elem. and Sutton Middle offering the program, Buckhead parents have a true alternative to private school education.
The rest of North Atlanta is not so stellar. Because the overwhelming majority of single family dwellers in Buckhead opt for private schools, North Atlanta has had to expand it's distric in order to stay open. It now draws kids from two other middle schools, Usher and Carson, which draws students from the low income neighborhoods like Bankhead. As a result, the schools already low test scores plummeted and even more Buckhead residents withdrew their children from the school; some of my fiends are included and many of them couldn't afford private school but had to tweak their budgets to make it work. They are now struggling and frushtrated that outside of the IB program, their kids have no viable public high school option in Buckhead. The students elligible for HOPE (those who have earned a 3.0 or higher) is at a bismally low level and some of the schools in South Dekalb and South Fulton have higher percentages, which should how bad the problem has gotten there.
If you can't afford private school, my suggestion is not to move to Buckhead. While there are great options for the elementary and middle school level, you are kind of left out to dry by the time your child reaches the high school level, unless they get into the IB Program, which by the way is alienated from the rest of the school, giving it more of a private school feel, which in my opinion is a good thing. There are much better schools in more affordable areas in terms of pregnancy rates, dropout rates, SAT scores, disciplinarian issues, the percentage of students who take and PASS AP/IB tests and the percentage of HOPE elligible students. These factors are what I use to determine if a school is good or bad. Test scores alone are certainly not enough.
Hope this helps out.
Actually, I think you underestimated E. Rivers Elementary...a fantastic school!
Rivers Elementary is another one of Atlanta's best-kept secrets...it has small population, a strong close-knit community, excellent parental involvment/support, a strong PTA, and top-notch academics.
Plus, Rivers Elementary pulls from a diverse range of neighborhoods...from uber-rich Peachtree Battle and tony Brookwood Hills over to the more moderately priced (for city living) neighborhoods of Loring Heights, Berkeley Park, and Underwood Hills.
More information...Loring Heights, Berkeley Park, and Underwood Hills have some great deals/prices...the neighborhoods have many young families and the area is very family oriented (with strong support for Rivers Elementary!).
FYI, the Fulton County part of Pine Hills feeds into Sarah Smith. The housing in that area is more affordable than most of Buckhead (while literally being less than 5 minutes from it), but it still has a lot of the benefits. Just another idea. Good luck!
If you're looking to teach, any of the Buckhead schools are fine. If you are looking to educate your kids, go private. Both of my kids started at the Speech School. One went public, took all advanced placement classes, and then moved on to another private. The other stayed private. The one who went public made straight "A's" but is struggling now in private. I don't care what people say, you get a better education in private.
We are considering moving to the Buckhead area for our daughter to attend either the Morris Brandon or Warren Jackson elementary school. Does anyone has opinions on which one suits us better? With the rezone we probably will have a chance of going to either one of the two. My husband and I are both teaching at Emory so after school program is a must. I know that Brandon doesn't have such program, so where do working moms send their children for after school? Also since we are foreigners (daughter is American born), which school is more international-friendly?
My children are at the Galloway School and i think it's is fantastic. I think the EL program is one of the best we have ever seen..... PM me if you want more info.
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E. Rivers Elementary
