Starwood, Frisco vs West Plano area schools path? (Houston, Dallas: 2013, HOA)

[LFC74]

I will be relocating to the area soon and will be working in the Legacy/DNT area. I am currently searching for property listings in the Starwood subdivision, Frisco, in the west Plano area (north of Park/west of Preston) and possibly in the Castle Hills area, Lewisville. My question is regarding the specific school path in these areas and which would be better and why as all are well rated on GreatSchools and each of the school districts are ranked high. I will have a third and eighth grader attending in the fall:

Centennial/Brinker/Barksdale-Renner-Shepton-Plano West

Spears-Hunt-Frisco

Castle Hills-Killian-Hebron

Any feedback on the schools and relevant areas would be appreciated....

Cheers!

[stephwin]

What's your budget? I'm assuming if you're looking in Starwood you have a decent budget. I've heard their HOA is expensive, though. I would choose west Plano just based on the list you have. Most people say their schools are rated more highly than Frisco and Lewisville ISDs (which I think is what Castle Hills is). Plus if you choose Plano, your commute would be nice.

[LFC74]

Thanks stephwin....

I'm looking to buy at around $800K-1M. Schools are #1 and all seem reasonably good for commute purposes but we want to be close to restaurants, golf, and my eldest son plays select soccer so we'd need to be close to highway access for wherever he ends up.

From reading other threads I know the Plano schools are consistently strong but I get a little confused with Renner and Shepton only being 'academically acceptable' as well as the recent zoning issues and also the size of Plano West is a little concern as my sons would be coming from smaller schools in Wisconsin.

[Big G]

All those areas are minutes away from Legacy/ DNT.

Me personally, I'd rule out Starwood just on Frisco ISD, no matter how nice the homes.

Plano ISD is going to be the most highly regarded.

Castle Hills might be a strong contender, though. Everyone seems to loves Castle Hills El., and Hebron High has improved by leaps and bounds the last several years. Your value for money will be a lot higher than in PISD, and the area is less "set" than Plano - might be a bit easier to become quickly integrated into the community.

Edit: If your kid has plans to play HS soccer, Frisco might be the way to go. 4A sized schools will mean greater opportunity on the team.

[Johnhw2]

W Plano hands down. Very diverse neighbors in my WP neighborhood and less set than some might think, we were welcomed 2 years ago when we moved up from Houston. Schools are great and location is convenient to things most of us suburban dwellers like. Welcome to Plano and to Texas! If you want a newish homes my neighborhood was built between 1999 and 2003 or 2004, so new enough for my needs and needs.

TurtleCreek poster knows a lot about the schools, search for some of her posts for a full explanation. Basically her data focuses on number of national merit finalists or semi finalist as % of graduating class and over all SAT scores over the Texas ratings you referred to below.

Good luck and again welcome to Tx

[LFC74]

Big G,
I've read a couple of threads on this forum that seem to suggest that from the schools feeding into Plano West, Robinson MS and Rice MS - Jasper HS seems to be a stronger educational path than Renner MS -Shepton HS. How would the latter compare in your opinion to Hebron HS purely academically speaking? I ask this as I can't find any test scores for Shepton HS and only see that it gets an 'academically acceptable' rating which is a little disconcerting even though everything I read suggests that Plano ISD is so highly regarded. It gets a little more confusing to me when I see Frisco HS rated as Recognized.......is there something I'm missing here that you'd personally rule out Frisco ISD so quickly?

[Big G]

Frisco has superior economic demographics to Plano, yet underperforms Plano significantly by academic measures.

I don't know enough about Hebron to compare it to Shepton. I believe they run a 9th grade center and a 10-12 campus, so it's an apples to mangos comparison, anyway - the only common grade is 10th. But Hebron kids are showing on science fair winner lists and NMSF lists in far larger numbers than in, say, 2005. Much improved athletics, too.

[PISDstudent]

I don't put too much into the TEA ratings (Exemplary/recognized/acceptable...) because they're based solely on the state adminstered TAKS/STARR tests, which are pretty awful measures of academic preparation. (And trust me, I know a lot about TAKS tests...more than I would like to. ). FYI, I believe that this is also what Greatschools rankings are based on.

What you should look at are average SAT/ACT scores as well as National Merit numbers. (This webiste can be pretty helpful; Dallas, Texas Area School Information: 2013 National Merit Semifinalists). You can see how Frisco doesn't get anywhere close to PISD.

I went to both Renner and Shepton, and had great experiences at both. As BigG stated, its hard to compare the schools on the numbers alone. That having been said, Shepton has PISD's "culture of success", and Plano West has such a large lead over Hebron as far as numbers are concerned, that I would definitely put Shepton ahead of Hebron, at least when looking at the AP/Honors program. I would think there's less of a difference if you're only taking non-honors/ap classes.

The one piece of data I can give you is that about 3% (24/800) of my class (current seniors) at Shepton went on to be Merit Semifinalists; only 1.6% of current seniors at Hebron made semifinalists.

[fndmom]

I dont fully understand the accountability ratings either, but my understanding is that the rating given is based on the lowest performing subgroup. Many of the groups may rate at exemplary or recognized, but if one is acceptable the whole school is rated acceptable. You can look at the AEIS and other performance reports (found on the District website) to see the breakdowns by subgroups. I think that the Plano schools are generally better regarded. You might also want to include the Jasper feeders as well and some are just as close to Legacy.

[LFC74]

Thanks all for your feedback. The picture is beginning to become a little clearer. My family and I did enjoy visiting downtown and the Park Cities areas when we visited over the holidays and west Plano would provide quite easy access to them as well on the tollway.

PISDstudent: What are the average student to teacher ratio in Renner, Shepton and Plano West approximately when you attended?