[NewJeffCT]

Hi - I've been off city-data for a while as this site was suddenly blocked in my office for some reason, plus with moving and selling/buying homes, I was crazy on weekends. Working from home today.

Definitely take a look at East Lyme - the schools are rated at the same level as Madison and the town is generally cheaper overall. Both EL and Madison have nice walkable Main Streets with shops and restaurants. I'd rate the schools a bit better than Old Lyme because the school system is bigger and has more options and variety. (as a qualifier, I used to live in East Lyme, but we looked extensively at Madison, Old Lyme and a few other shoreline towns at the time)

They do have a small children's museum in the Niantic section of East Lyme and a few other places for kid's activities like dance, theater, music lessons (look at Conn College in nearby New London for that as well), etc. The high school pool is open to the public as well and they offer lots of swim lesson options, plus you have the beach at Rocky Neck and McCook's Park.

Westbrook is nice, but agree that the school system is very small - a few years back, Westbrook HS led the state in percentage of students who took and passed AP Tests. Sounds great, but if you dug into the numbers, it was because they had 1 kid take 1 AP test and he or she passed it, so they scored a perfect 100%.

[Northbound 25]

Thanks NewJeffCT, we are taking another look into East Lyme and watching real estate there.


Anyone else have some similar first-hand experience with Old Lyme or Old Saybrook? How do you like the school systems and availability of parks and rec sports/activities in the town for children?


Thanks again.