School choice, diversity, to Vaughn Elementary/Harrison in West Cobb from Varner/McEachern (Atlanta: new house)

[netdragon]

We built a half million dollar house in McEachern/Varner school district and I have to say Varner is a really good school, and McEachern seems good academically too with a generally wealthy black population. However, I like diversity and find our daughter to be a minority because she's white and I think that affects her somewhat socially. For elementary school, it seems manageable, especially since Varner is still relatively diverse. However, I'm thinking about her being in a high school in the future that's only 10-15% white and I don't think it'll be a good environment for her because she'll be singled out in some cases (some people are racist and teach their kids to be racist). I think diversity goes both ways, and I think races should be equally represented. 70% black is just as non-diverse as 70% white. Wtf is the issue with GA, lol. Too bad Smyrna isn't more affordable with better schools or I would have stayed there. It is adequately diverse. Marietta High seems like the only other option. I don't like East Cobb because of the traffic with the river creating a barrier in one direction.

Additionally, a lot of our daughter's friends from sports are in Harrison and Hillgrove.

Hillgrove has grown more diverse, and Still/Lovinggood/Hillgrove is pretty close to where we live, however Hillgrove's problem is that it's overcrowded and about to become chronically overcrowded. I hear tons more parents naively say "we'll be moving to Hillgrove because yada yada" and there's lots of new developments going in. I suspect all the predictions of population growth for Hillgrove are gross underestimates.

I don't like how Harrison is less diverse the other way (mostly white) and hope that changes over time the way Hillgrove has started to change, and I figure it will. It'll probably be at least a sizeable Asian population by the time she goes to it, and I figure more black than it is now simply because metro Atlanta is becoming more black, and many black people can afford to live in the Harrison district and nothing will stop them. So it'll become more diverse.

I've complained to Cobb Schools about the way school districts are broken up in West Cobb. Due to lawsuits from the mess Erhart created they can't fix it even if they wanted to, short of building a new high school so they have an excuse to change feeding and bussing patterns and what-not (which may happen anyway but I have to plan based on that not happening). Also, McEachern will probably eventually start becoming more diverse since it can't get more un-diverse than it currently is, however no idea of the timetable for that.

Another consideration I have is that with the HOT lane going in, I believe that the Harrison part of West Cobb will grow faster in value long-term for the same reason that Walton did in East Cobb. People just move to the "best schools". You guys all steer them there from City Data too lol.

So I guess in 5 years or so I'll be building a new house up near Harrison around Due West center and moving up there. For now, however, we're just getting her into the school there since we'll be moving out there some day anyway. Next, I'll probably acquire the land in advance.