Need advice about relocating near Oak Park! I'm a recent college graduate.

[janetp]

I love Berwyn! It's close to everything, and still very affordable! It's like a diamond in the rough! You have the peace and quiet and friendliness of a smaller community, but you can get to so many places from here within minutes if you want some good resturants and shopping.There are some really good places in Berwyn for eats, and the park district is great! No place has everything.....
If no one ever had to travel outside their "zone" to get to somewhere that wasn't in their area, we would have no need for cars or public transportation!

[ahava]

Originally Posted by janetp

My daughter is a teacher in Berwyn, and the school she is at is awesome. She's subbed at other schools in the area, and thinks they all are pretty well on the ball. Since she graduated from DePaul with highest honors in early education, I think we can assume she knows what she talks about.

If the schools are so great, why don't their test scores reflect that?

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by ahava

If the schools are so great, why don't their test scores reflect that?

The elementary schools actually do relatively well, better than many people give credit for. Trouble is that it starts declining in middle school and Morton West high school? Not so much. A high % of Berwyn parents with money put their kids in private schools, which doesn't help the overall scores.

Our kids are going to private schools (we'd do that even if we lived in Naperville) but the schools definitely need to improve. I think the best hope for this is for the demographics to continue to change. There's a also a drive to break Morton West away from Dist. 201 (shared with Cicero) and into a unit district with all Berwyn schools. That would be a great move.

And of course, there's the old saying, "you get out of it what you put into it." Plenty of very bright kids have graduated from MW, including last year's valedictorian, who's now at MIT. But on the whole, improvement is needed, absolutely.

[Chinolala]

Look into Elmwood Park. It borders Oak Park at North Avenue and Harlem. It will be your most affordable option. From North and Harlem you can either take the 318 Pace bus for 10 minutes right into downtown Oak Park and from there you can get on the Green Line to the city. Elmwood Park is clean, safe and has tons of good restaurants on North Avenue. It's not as trendy as Oak Park, but is only 2 miles north of it. A really easy bike ride or walk in or short drive in winter. Parking is plentiful, something that is a major hassle in Oak Park. It also has an awesome community pool for residents, a new library, a post office and some of the best Itlalian delis in all of Chicagoland. It's a nice suburb with a population of 25,000 but it feels like a city neighborhood. There's lots of apartments and condo rentals. If you want to ever take Metra downtown from Elmwood Park, the parking at Metra is free.