Small School Districts (Dallas, Plano, Mesquite: how much, homes, landscaping)

[Livindoll]

Hi everyone, I'm interested to know about the smaller school districts in the Dallas area. I've been checking out Plano, but I read on these threads that it is a huge district. Academically it has to be tops, but I would prefer a smaller high school...Any suggestions? Allen? Frisco? Colleyville? We have two young daughters and would like to be in a family friendly neighborhood not too far away from the shopping! I don't mind the cookie cutter homes, but no HOA's. Trees, mature landscaping...older homes OK.

Thanks!

[FarNorthDallas]

Allen's high school is massive and it, like the Plano high schools are 5A which is the largest group. Frisco's high schools are 4A the next smallest group, as is Highland Park and JJ Pearce in Richardson. Actually the majority of the high schools in the Dallas area are 4A and 5A.

3A high schools are Celina, Prosper, Sanger, Anna, Carrollton Creekview, Crandall, Lovejoy.

2A high schools are Gunter, Melissa, and some others.

[karlajo4]

I live and work as a Realtor in Celina. There are several smaller school districts in the area. Celina and Melissa especially have excellent schools. I would also suggest looking in to Anna, Gunter and Prosper. This is a fast growing area with low teacher to student ratios.

[backtotx]

Being new to the US school education, I was wondering what the 5A, 4A etc means. Thanks.

[momof2dfw]

Originally Posted by backtotx

Being new to the US school education, I was wondering what the 5A, 4A etc means. Thanks.

It is used only in the State of Texas as a means to classify the size of school.

University Interscholastic League - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

UIL: Media (http://www.uil.utexas.edu/media/index.html - broken link)

[momof2dfw]

Where will you be working first? You could live in somewhere like Colleyville but work completely on the other side of the Dallas Metroplex which would make for a pretty horrific commute. It is VERY possible to live w/in the same city you work in here in the Dallas area and still have a good school system.

Yes, Allen is a HUGE high school. They have no intentions of building another. They are the Plano of the 80's and 90's where they had such a LARGE student body they could gaurantee a win in every area of competition because of such. The average student does not have much of a chance to participate when the odds are stacked against them. Plano still only has 3 high schools and will not build any more either.

[backtotx]

Thanks for that, I'd always wondered what it meant.

[5stones]

yes, please include 2 very important stats so people here can help you.
#1 Where is work (and how long are you willing to commute...time wise)
#2 How much do you want to spend on a home.

That way the posters here can steer you in the right direction.

[walty_14]

I'm not sure of where you are working but one of the very good small school districts is Sunnyvale. It used to always carry a caveat because their HS merged into Mesquite schools but now they are building their own HS.

[bookworm2768]

Consider Carrollton. Despite some of the opinions you will find here it is a great little suburb and has an exceptional school system. Its very family friendly, has an excellent park system and has been very highly rated as a family friendly town. You can check out the individual school ratings at Greatschools.com. I'm not sure quite how huge the high schools are since our only concern was finding a program for profoundly gifted children (Carrollton is the only one for profoundly gifted kids). Again, Greatschools.com will have school sizes, class sizes, ethnic and finanical breakdowns, averages for test scores and any other info you might want to look at.