HELP!! Young AA family ISO affordable intown living and good public schools!! (Atlanta: low income, real estate)

[lastminutemom]

The City of Atlanta schools are improving annually, DeKalb remains in a steady decline both as a school system and as a county. If you can at all avoid it, I would avoid DeKalb. I have been a parent in the system for what seems like a lifetime and things generally aren't getting better.

Unlike Atlanta, DCSS hasn't figured out how to address the needs of families like yours who are in neighborhoods that are gentrifying/improving. Ask the folks in Avondale Estates area or the area off Buford Highway.

In a few years, perhaps with better leadership from both the board and a new Superintendent, this may change.

Good luck!

[TJ26]

Wow thanks Pless. As for 30307, Im assuming that is a Candler Park zip with excellent public schools right?

What do people know about Toomer Elem and Coan Middle (my co worker who doesnt have kids thought Toomer made her nervous)? I already know Im fine with Grady High (which is like 10 years from now) but if we did send her there and lived in East Lake, how do the kids get downtown to school?

[plessthanpointohfive]

Originally Posted by TJ26

Wow thanks Pless. As for 30307, Im assuming that is a Candler Park zip with excellent public schools right?

What do people know about Toomer Elem and Coan Middle (my co worker who doesnt have kids thought Toomer made her nervous)? I already know Im fine with Grady High (which is like 10 years from now) but if we did send her there and lived in East Lake, how do the kids get downtown to school?

Hi again, yes 30307 is Candler Park, Inman Park, and Poncey-Highland and zoned for Mary Lin ES, Inman Middle, and Grady High. Our son is in second grade at Mary Lin and we've been very pleased.

Now, if you live in East Lake you should be able to find a house zoned for East Lake Elementary, which is a good school, but I don't think it goes to Grady. I think it goes to Crim and I'm not so sure about that high school.

You could also look into the Medlock Park neighborhood. There you can get zoned for either Fernbank (excellent) or Medlock (very good). Those both go to Shamrock (good) and then Druid Hills High (very good)...and are in the Dekalb system. A friend of mine sent her child from Fernbank to Druid Hills and has been pretty happy.

[SleeplessnATL]

Also, you may want to try the Laurel Ridge school area. . .it seems to be very diverse. And it is also in the Shamrock/Druid Hills cluster.

[cautious-mom]

Originally Posted by TJ26

. . .

Most AA would tell me to live in Cascade, Lithonia or stay where I am (off camp creek BTW) and that I would be foolish to move into a tiny bungalow intown with questionable schools. As my Mom even says " Oh dont do it honey, downtown Atlanta is not quite ready in my opinion."

I guess you can call us crazy but we feel like we want to at least give it a try. I want our daughter to have a wordly perspective like I did and be friends with all types of people. I guess another reason I mentioned our race b/c I rarely see middle to upper class AA families intown for some reason. "Diversity" usually means lower income AA who lived in the neighborhood for dozens of year prior living next door to more affluent caucasion families who have cleaned things up a bit.

Again, I am NOT making any political statements and am not a racist (quite the opposite). Just want to lay it all out there in the hopes of hearing from those who know more than I do.

. . .

You are very astute in your observations about the make-up of intown neighborhoods. It appears that middle-class AA's are less likely to at least try to live intown. I think it has something to do with finally attaining the so-called American Dream: a big house with a big yard. They are not alone, though, as this is apparently something that most Americans want.

Unfortunately, I haven't seen any seriously racially integrated communities intown except for the Oakhurst neighborhood in City of Decatur. And, as you pointed out, there's the whole affluent whites/lower income blacks issue. But at least it IS diverse and a little more affordable than the other neighborhoods in the town, and about 1/3 of the houses on the market there are under $300K.

If you could stretch up to $350K, I think the Candler Park/Lake Claire area might be a good possibility. The elementary school, Mary Lin, is fairly diverse, with about 25% AA's compared to about 33% in CoD.

Interestingly enough, the AA kids at Mary Lin also have better CRCT test scores than CoD.

More significantly, unlike CoD where the overwhelming majority of the AA's are lower income, about half of the AA's with kids at Mary Lin are middle-income or higher. So they've got to be there somewhere!

All my data comes from Greatschools.net.

Good luck to you!

[lastminutemom]

Cautious Mom brings up a good point. In many of DeKalb's close in neighborhoods, AA families are almost always renters and lower income than the Caucasian families using public schools.

[cautious-mom]

Originally Posted by lastminutemom

Cautious Mom brings up a good point. In many of DeKalb's close in neighborhoods, AA families are almost always renters and lower income than the Caucasian families using public schools.

Thanks LLM. Of note, Oak Grove elementary school in Dekalb County comes highly recommended, with scores comparable to Mary Lin. It has about a 10% AA population, virtually ALL of whom are from middle- to upper-class families.

There are no multi-family housing units zoned for the school. The thing is, ten percent translates to 1 or 2 AA kids per classroom. It sure sucks to be the only one in a class.

[lastminutemom]

Originally Posted by cautious-mom

Thanks LLM. Of note, Oak Grove elementary school in Dekalb County comes highly recommended, with scores comparable to Mary Lin. It has about a 10% AA population, virtually ALL of whom are from middle- to upper-class families.

There are no multi-family housing units zoned for the school. The thing is, ten percent translates to 1 or 2 AA kids per classroom. It sure sucks to be the only one in a class.

But at schools like BriarLake, Hawthorne, Evansdale, Henderson Mill, Fernbank, etc, there are multi family complexes, so the school is more diverse but many (certainly not all) of the minority families are lower income and fairly mobile.

Are you currently an Oak Grove family? If not, you should be aware that a fair number of the AA families at Oak Grove are actually children of DCSS employees rather than living in the neighborhood. The Lakeside cluster is a very popular place for DCSS employees to place their children.

[cautious-mom]

Originally Posted by lastminutemom

But at schools like BriarLake, Hawthorne, Evansdale, Henderson Mill, Fernbank, etc, there are multi family complexes, so the school is more diverse but many (certainly not all) of the minority families are lower income and fairly mobile.

Are you currently an Oak Grove family? If not, you should be aware that a fair number of the AA families at Oak Grove are actually children of DCSS employees rather than living in the neighborhood. The Lakeside cluster is a very popular place for DCSS employees to place their children.

Nope, though I hadn't completely ruled it out yet. I know of a handful of AA families living there. Not sure what you mean by "fair number" but it sounds like a good question to ask the school. Of course this is a total side issue since there are few homes available there that fall within the original poster's price range.

[plessthanpointohfive]

As a Mary Lin parent I would say that yes, most of the AA kids there are from middle/upper-middle class families. Several AA kids are the kids of judges and other professionals. I call it diverse because the percentage of AA and other minorities at Mary Lin reflects the national distribution.

However, it is NOT socioeconomically diverse. So, you're not going to get the Urban Experience here. But in our generation I'm just glad for the opportunity to offer my child a racially diverse environment. I didn't have that...