New Yorkers who moved to NC (Charlotte, Mooresville: fit in, neighborhood, top school)

[bpoerio]

How do you find the change in the education department? I have heard there are major differences . Thanks

[car421]

I feel that the schools are better than NY.

[tbertz]

We just relocated from a top school district on LI. Prior to the move we were told how horrible the CMS schools were and that we would have to send our children to private schools. We have been very pleasantly surprised with the CMS schools. The diversity, the commitment of the parents, the school grounds and the general academic culture. My wife has been tutoring and the elementary school our daughters go to school. The curriculum is highly structured and the teachers push the students. My wife commented to me that our 1st grader's curriculum is more advanced than the curriculum her older sister had up on LI. One thing to comment on. There is a clear difference in budget/funding of the schools here in CMS vs. the school district we left up in LI. There are far less teacher aides/assistants, they rely heavily on parent support, both financial and through volunteer assistance. However, I am also paying less than half the school taxes I was paying on LI,

[shirlgirl71]

Thanks for the insight tbertz! I currently live on LI but will be relocating this summer to the Charlotte area. Glad to hear your experience with the schools have been positive.

[BxRosie]

My son went to a small Catholic school in NY from PreK until 8th grade. We moved to Mooresville 2 days prior to his starting freshman year at Mooresville HS. Can't say enough good things about MHS & the teachers there. IMHO it was a much better school & a much better experience all around for him. The teachers there are very caring, dedicated & involved with their students.

[tbertz]

Originally Posted by shirlgirl71

Thanks for the insight tbertz! I currently live on LI but will be relocating this summer to the Charlotte area. Glad to hear your experience with the schools have been positive.

Also, you are accustom to LI districts, which are very local, small and well funded, which also makes them expensive to run, i.e., your school taxes are very high. For example, we lived in the Rockville Centre school district, which is run by a local school board elected and funded predominantly by Rockville Centre residents. Residents can clearly see the fruits of their taxes, participation, etc., through the property values, success of neighborhood students (you hear little Billy is going to Harvard, Sally got a volley ball scholarship to UCLA) and school success. Residents have more direct involvement in the political process and are very proud of their schools. In addition, local districts are far easier to run and the board has leverage over the residents to keep the funding coming in. RVC had roughly 3K students with 17 or 18 students per teacher. Administrators were well paid. Here in NC however, the school districts are very large, county wide districts, and run by a central board. There are about 300K students in CMS and the student teacher ratio is something like 25. In general residents care more about their taxes than the quality of education that is unless you have kids in the CMS schools. People who do not have children in the schools are disconnected. That is in part due to the large penetration of private schools that have been entrenched since busing was introduced in the 70s. Middle class and up families were scared out of the public schools. Many white, middle/upper middle class families are returning and have been very pleasantly surprised with the public schools. More and more families are donating time and money to the local school their kids attend. Truthfully, even with my donation, I am still paying half what I paid up in NY. I know I rambled a bit. Hopefully, this makes sense.

[MikeyKid]

Have to love LI the land of the unsustainable tax burden - yes, I moved down from there and know it well. I'd agree with much of what tbertz said here except maybe for the "well funded" part of the small LI districts. It's getting to the point of tax base revolt up there and the cuts will end up going deep, deep, deep - they have no choice as district after district is implementing tax hike limits. My sister is an asst principal for a LI middle school and she's very concerned about the future. They're being forced to close schools and cut way back on staff. Gone are the days of the cushy public service jobs up there - the quality is going to suffer.

You'll get various opinions on "change" and "major differences" between the public schools here vs. LI. More often then not you'll hear the detractors of public schools outside of LI bash away with all sorts of info... The classic comment will typically involve something along the lines of "kids are year(s) behind LI schools in NC schools". Meanwhile nobody argues the high quality of the secondary education of the NC state college system - which is highly regarded nationally. Kids are "year(s) behind" in NC during public schools... so what do they do? Start these nationally recognized college classes at the 9th grade level? I mean seriously.

[Fugie1979]

Originally Posted by tbertz

We just relocated from a top school district on LI. Prior to the move we were told how horrible the CMS schools were and that we would have to send our children to private schools. We have been very pleasantly surprised with the CMS schools. The diversity, the commitment of the parents, the school grounds and the general academic culture. My wife has been tutoring and the elementary school our daughters go to school. The curriculum is highly structured and the teachers push the students. My wife commented to me that our 1st grader's curriculum is more advanced than the curriculum her older sister had up on LI. One thing to comment on. There is a clear difference in budget/funding of the schools here in CMS vs. the school district we left up in LI. There are far less teacher aides/assistants, they rely heavily on parent support, both financial and through volunteer assistance. However, I am also paying less than half the school taxes I was paying on LI,

Hello,
I am considering moving my family to the Cornelius, Davidson or Mooresville area with my company. I currently live in Syosset. The school district is viewed as "one of the best" on LI, but I feel that there is alot of smoke and mirrors when selling school districts on Long Island. Can you share with me your experiences with the schools, and what the adjustment was like coming from Long Island and living in the Charlotte area? My biggest concern is my ability to "fit in" although I understand that many New Yorkers, including alot of Long Islanders have moved to that area and adjusted very well. I have lived on Long Island my whole life as did my wife and we would love to have another Long Islanders perspective on a move like this. I really am happy here but with two very young children and taxes and costs spiriling out of control moving is very attractive to us.

[Comfort Food]

Here is my two cents.

Among the factors that define quality of schools, the type of population served is by far the most important factor. If your school district or zone is primarily composed of affluent suburbs, it's going to score well on nearly all the metrics that are used to categorize schools. No rocket science involved in that. Parental involvement and education attainment, expectations for the kids, etc. are, in my opinion, far more important than funding. You only need to look at the per pupil funding of the the CMS schools to see that the poorest performing schools are funded at almost twice the rate as the higher performing schools in the affluent suburbs.

So, when you have school districts in areas like Long Island, the northern suburbs of NJ, etc. of course they will score well. There you have vast areas of affluent suburbs and school districts that are smaller and less diverse economically. When you look at CMS, which is an integrated urban/suburban district, the picture is much different.

Personally my opinion is that education quality in CMS and the surrounding districts will be just about as good as anywhere else, unless your child attends a school where behavioral issues distract significantly from attention (and there are several of those). While a school like East Mecklenburg HS may not look good statistically, if your child attends the IB program there I would expect the quality of education to be about as good as anywhere. Same would be said for the CMS schools such as Providence, Hough, etc. that primarily draw from the affluent suburbs, or the other districts surrounding CMS with similar populations as those schools, and which score well.

I suppose I should add the disclaimer that I was educated from 3rd grade through high school in CMS....

[Reggie4417]

Moved to Charlotte from Lindenhurst 5 years ago. Did a ton of research on the schools and chose to move the Cabarrus County portion of Highland Creek, thus allowing my kids to attend Cabarrus County schools. We think the schools are great, although they are a bit crowded as of late. The bottom line is that school taxes are much more affordable, but as another post indicated - you are expected as a parent to take a much more active role in the school activities - i.e. donate juice boxes for a class party, or volunteer to help out in the classroom around the holidays. I actually enjoy that part. I use my volunteer time from work to read to the class as often as I can - which is a lot of fun. Pros and cons to everything, but for our family - you can't beat the schools. Just my 2 cents.