Family of 6 Relo from NJ (Atlanta, Sandy Springs: how much, house, neighborhoods)

[SO2ATL_MOM]

Looking for suggestions on neighborhoods to relo my family of 6 from a pretty progressive and diverse area in NJ just outside of NYC.

Top priorities are school district elementary through high school, walkability, and diversity. Thus far top on our list is City of Decatur but looking for more info on diversity in the schools (are they really diverse racially and socioeconomically), also considering Virginia Highlands, Smyrna (concerns about walkability), and Dunwoody/Sandy Springs. Any others I am missing and should be looking for?

[jeoff]

Originally Posted by SO2ATL_MOM

Looking for suggestions on neighborhoods to relo my family of 6 from a pretty progressive and diverse area in NJ just outside of NYC.

Top priorities are school district elementary through high school, walkability, and diversity. Thus far top on our list is City of Decatur but looking for more info on diversity in the schools (are they really diverse racially and socioeconomically), also considering Virginia Highlands, Smyrna (concerns about walkability), and Dunwoody/Sandy Springs. Any others I am missing and should be looking for?

The highly rated elementary schools aren’t going to be that diverse in the city, but the middle and high schools will be, at least for Atlanta Public Schools. For diversity and highly rated schools—really there are parts of the eastern and western suburbs that do better.
If both VaHi and City of Decatur both work for you for location, school and budget, then you probably should also look at the three top tier elementary schools that feed into Grady and Inman (Virginia Highland’s high school and middle school).

Mary Lin elementary covers Inman Park, Candler Park and Lake Claire—Candler Park and Lake Claire are very family oriented neighborhoods, and probably have a higher percentage of kids staying in APS K-12 than other Grady neighborhoods—(FYI it is where I live, we really like the elementary school—most welcoming to our kids of the 3 highly rated public elementary schools that our kids have attended).
Springdale Park or SPARK Elementary includes Virginia Highland, Poncy-Highland, Midtown, and part of Druid Hills.
Morningside Elementary includes Morningside, Ansley Park, and other nearby neighborhoods on the north end of the Grady cluster.
All of these neighborhoods (including Decatur) are relatively expensive for metro-Atlanta, so they are not economically diverse. Most of the folks living in these neighborhoods would probably consider themselves progressive, and would be very welcoming to anyone that can afford to live in their neighborhoods (only a little bit of snark intended).
Most of the neighborhoods have walkable parts—you probably should evaluate that on a house-by-house basis.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by SO2ATL_MOM

Looking for suggestions on neighborhoods to relo my family of 6 from a pretty progressive and diverse area in NJ just outside of NYC.

Top priorities are school district elementary through high school, walkability, and diversity. Thus far top on our list is City of Decatur but looking for more info on diversity in the schools (are they really diverse racially and socioeconomically), also considering Virginia Highlands, Smyrna (concerns about walkability), and Dunwoody/Sandy Springs. Any others I am missing and should be looking for?

One important factor that seems to be missing from your search early on is where in the Atlanta metropolitan area (what city, town or zip code) the working adults in the household will be commuting to and from for work each day.

The Atlanta metropolitan area and its North Georgia suburbs and exurbs do not have anywhere near the same multimodal transportation apparatus that an area like North New Jersey and the greater NYC metro area/region has, particularly when it comes to the widespread availability of rail and bus transit service.

Like jeoff noted, many neighborhoods (most notably inside of the I-285 Perimeter), will have some walkable parts.

But for the most part, many places that one will be commuting and traveling to (and from) in the Atlanta metropolitan area will often have to be accessed by automobile.

Closer-in metro Atlanta neighborhoods (like the City of Decatur proper, Virginia Highland, Dunwoody, Sandy Springs) will generally have more access to mass transit (MARTA), relatively speaking, than farther outlying areas beyond the I-285 Perimeter.

But the transit offerings (and the walkability you seem to be desiring) generally will be nothing close to the scale that you might currently experience in the North New Jersey/NYC area.

The Atlanta metropolitan area has a notable dearth of road transportation infrastructure for a large major metro area/region of its size that is so entirely dependent on the mode of automobile transportation for individual mobility.

Because of the lack of multimodal transportation infrastructure for a large major metro area of its size (and how it often negatively affects traffic), newcomers are often strongly encouraged to place a strong emphasis on looking for high-quality housing and good schools in areas that will be geographically convenient to where the working adults in the household will be commuting to (and from) their jobs on a daily basis.

… This is so that the working adults in the household will be able to minimize the amount of time that they will have to spend sitting in Atlanta's challenging peak-hour metropolitan traffic... Traffic that is often made worse by a notable lack of road and transit infrastructure in some of metro Atlanta's most heavily developed and populated areas.

You will likely be best served to keep in mind where the working adults in your household will be commuting to and from for work each day, and then looking for good schools and housing in areas that will provide the working adults in the household with relatively short commutes that limit their time in Atlanta's challenging peak-hour traffic.

[CMMom]

Need your housing budget to make better determination. City of Decatur is $$$$.

[SO2ATL_MOM]

Adding that both of us will be commuting to/from midtown. Also considering Brookhaven in the areas that are zoned for Montgomery and Ashford Park elementary schools.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by SO2ATL_MOM

Adding that both of us will be commuting to/from midtown. Also considering Brookhaven in the areas that are zoned for Montgomery and Ashford Park elementary schools.

Then all of the areas that you cited an interest in are okay.

Though, with the often severe traffic congestion on the Northside (both in the specific area along the I-285 Top End Perimeter and north of I-20 in the Atlanta metro area in general), you both will probably want to make frequent use of MARTA Heavy Rail Transit service if you choose to move into areas like Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Brookhaven or the City of Decatur proper.

[ATLTJL]

Decatur city schools are excellent. Based on how small the district there is and how much money it costs to live there, my hunch is you're going to find practically zero socioeconomic diversity in the school. Of course, you don't have to go very far outside the small district to find plenty of it whenever you like.

If you want a house capable of housing a family of 6 in the Decatur city school district, you better have serious money... unless you plan to shack the kids up Brady Bunch style!

Just beware when you are looking, many homes have a Decatur mailing address, but are NOT in Decatur city schools. They must be within the actual incorporated city of Decatur limits to qualify. Double check everything, but it should be pretty easy to determine based on the price differential between homes in the city and outside of it.

Coming from metro NYC in NJ, the trade-off between either spending a ton of money or living in pretty cramped quarters will be nothing new to you. I really see two types of people from your area:

1) The ones who are used to it, and either spend a lot money or live in small homes.
2) The ones who are sick of it and move out to the burbs and are shocked by what a huge house in a great area they can afford for a tiny price (but they give up some of the core things you are looking for).

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Decatur city schools are excellent. Based on how small the district there is and how much money it costs to live there, my hunch is you're going to find practically zero socioeconomic diversity in the school. Of course, you don't have to go very far outside the small district to find plenty of it whenever you like.

While there are not as many middle and lower-income in the system as there were in the past, there is still at least a noticeable, if not modest, amount of socioeconomic diversity in Decatur City Schools, where low-income students were reported to make up just over 11 percent of the students in the system at the start of the 2018-2019 school year.

But even with the rapidly rising level of affluence in the Decatur City Schools system, racial and ethnic minorities still make up over 35 percent of the student population at the start of the 2018-2019 school year.

[red92s]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

While there are not as many middle and lower-income in the system as there were in the past, there is still at least a noticeable, if not modest, amount of socioeconomic diversity in Decatur City Schools, where low-income students were reported to make up just over 11 percent of the students in the system at the start of the 2018-2019 school year.

I suspect the number trends lower in the lower grades, and higher as you move into high school.

[SO2ATL_MOM]

I've also recently started looking at the schools in Smyrna but the greatschools rankings aren't that great. Are they pretty accurate? I'm also attracted to Lithonia - great schools and pretty diverse, but am concerned it's in the middle of nothing. Any thoughts?