Southlake, Trophy Club, Colleyville? (Dallas, Fort Worth: HOA, house, school districts)

[katesmommy]

Hello...I am relocating to the Dallas area with my family. We are actively researching towns close to the airport for information regarding schools, home prices, and proximity to restaurants/shopping. However, this task has proven to be quite overwhelming. While on paper Southlake appears to be the best choice, we feel that financially and socially it is a bit more than what we want. Searching areas close to Southlake, we have become interested in Trophy Club, Colleyville, and Grapevine. My husband is meeting with a realtor this coming week, and we were hoping to get some feedback regarding Trophy Club and how it would compare to other surrounding towns in terms of schools, convenience to shopping/restaurants, and airport commute. As an educator, schools/school districts will primarily drive my home search. However, I realize that one cannot determine a school's success primarily on TAKS scores. We want our daughter to go to a good school and be challenged, but we do not want her to feel extreme pressure to keep up with other students academically and socially. If anyone has any advice as to where to look, we would appreciate it. Thank you!

[loves2read]

Obviously your daughter's age, her learning capability, and your/her general attitude to school and in general have something to do with whether or not she will feel pressured to keep up with other students...

public schools in the areas you mention ARE competitive and feel great deal of pressure to deliver test scores and other results that prove they are doing the best job of educating students--most parents are demanding it--so I don't know that you could be in any of those ISDs and not feel that there is pressure to "measure up" so to speak...these are not Montressori schools...

Trophy Club is more isolated (check out a Google map) than Southlake or Colleyville since you have only one street for entering/leaving the development and then you have one freeway/114 to feed yourself into other areas--
114 is a divided freeway at certain points with truly separate median between E/W bound lanes ---that freeway can be VERY congested since there is really only one main entrance/get-off lane--(Trophy Club Drive)

in the afternoon--it backs up pretty far--some people leave 114 an exit early (Kirkwood or Trophy Lake Dr) and drive on the access road just so they can ensure they will actually be in the right spot to make the turn into Trophy Club...you have to leave the development to find real shopping/ restaurants/ medical (some of them are along the access road but most are in Southlake or other towns)
Frankly Northwest ISD ( Trophy Club and other towns like Haslet/Justin and as far south as FTW itself)
Google Maps - Northwest ISD Campuses
has seen growth spurt due to development west of 377 (tract developments for most part under 500K)--Trophy Club itself has been pretty stagnant except for some very high dollar development around the Knoll part in past few years--it was built out in the 90s for the most part--now there is another development outside the original Trophy Club by tract builder--forget which one but homes are listed in MLS

airport commute from Trophy Club would be straight 114 E to airport N entrance--could take as few as 10-20 min from the time you get on 114 and as much as 50 depending on time of day/traffic/home location--getting from your home TO 114 could take 10-15 minutes within Trophy Club and there are school zones to go through inside Trophy Club

there is supposed to be enlarging of 114/Grapevine traffic corridor within the next few years that will be real boondoggle and people will be learning all sorts of alternate routes but for now that is your route...
Northwest does not have the same caliber of ISD that Southlake or GCISD or some of the other area districts have IMO--check out the number of National Merit scholars it has produced over the past ten years--pretty low numbers----it was a rural district for the most part with majority anglo student body--fairly heterogeneous but more blue collar/agricultural demographics--(this year there were 47 first place winners at the Fort Worth Stock Show by NWISD students so it is still pretty rural/ag)

now there are people moving in to the district who expect it to be better than Southlake Carroll--when it is basically avg (mediocre sounds so negative)
that is lot to overcome in short period of time...Northwest ISD | 2008 TEA Accountability Ratings | Southlake, TX Schools | Trophy Club, TX Schools | MLS Listings Northwest ISD
it was basically a forgotten district for a long time when people talked about the top ISDs in the DFW area...one reason being it had no 5A size HS--so it was not in same football/UIL ranking as other ISDs but Byron Nelson is a 5A school now...and it has hired a new football coach to bring luster to its rep

one thing I do like about Trophy Club is that the developers kept the trees--and there is a varied topography--not flat land...but lots are small and most of the homes are more than 25 yrs old--many of them with dated floorplans/decor so you often have to put money into the house to get what you want....there is a golf course there and some homes back to it which some people might like and some want to avoid...
Trophy Club is like Flower Mound in that they are both kind of landlocked but Flower Mound has more retail/entertainment available within its boundaries and better ISD (again IMO)
some reasons that Trophy Club has gotten on the radar is that homes were fairly inexpensive until a year or so ago when people began to see it as a bargain, and close to Southlake shopping, DFW airport, and the Fidelity headquarters

[ChristieP]

What is your price range? There is a big difference between these cities and the average home prices. All three ISDs (Carroll, Grapevine-Colleyville and Northwest) are very well-regarded.

[nmnita]

All the areas you mentioned are good with good schools. Trophy club is more of a planned community with more restrictions, or is used to be. The trees make it really nice, but if you don't like rules and regulations you may want to find out about that, plus as mentioned the traffic can be a little rough and the area is more isolated. Depending on your price range I really would lean toward Grapevine. They have good schools, good shopping, a direct connection to DFW and are very middle class. Yes, Southlake is on the pricey side to say the least.

Nita

[loves2read]

there are homes in Southlake in her price range--maybe older/dated but there--
think that any HOA can be a real pain--and I know that many of them do enforce their rules/regs pretty efficiently--not just in Trophy Club but yes--checking on the HOA rules should be something that sellers are required to produce with the disclosure documents IMO...

[5stones]

also look in Keller propper.
I really loved the look of Trophy club but it does seem a bit isolated (don't know why, but it just feels that way) Also Trophy club had some flooding issues on the main street a while ago. The main thing I didn't like was that there was just one main road that winds through it, traffic can get messy and watch the police...