Help--Compare and Contrast Stonewall Jackson and Lakewood Elementary (Dallas: to rent, houses)

[rbtcm11]

Hi. We are moving to Dallas mid-August and planning to rent for a year or so til we get our bearings, but in the meantime we have narrowed our search to houses sending kids to either Lakewood Elementary or Stonewall Jackson Elementary. I was hoping for some information about the differences between the two schools. Our 10 year old son (going into 5th grade) has attended a small, liberal Montessori influenced private school in Ohio. I have gotten the impression from some of the threads that Lakewood is pretty intensely "by the book"? Is Stonewall Jackson less so? Are there other differences in the school cultures? Does one spend more time/energy on testing?
Is transferring from one to the other do-able? One house we are especially interested in is on the (Lakewood) corner of Abrams.

thanks so much--this is a fantastic forum!

Robin

[Lakewooder]

I would say Stonewall is more what you may be used to - I went to Lakewood so I know it better. I don't know too much about the current testing but I have heard that Lakewood spends more time on it - not sure if that is true. Stonewall also has the deaf education classes, some international focus and gardening project which add a few layers that Lakewood does not have. Lakewood might be a bit better for art and music and definitely better for math.

Stonewall is smaller and draws from more of a middle to-upper middle class base, whereas Lakewood has those but also has some very rich old and new money folks. Lakewood is very much like a small town and very family oriented, whereas there may be more singles, singles with kids and childless couples in the Stonewall district.

In Lakewood you may feel like you are more a member of a club - this is good and bad, but I would say the good outweighs the bad. Most of the Lakewood kids go all through school together and many times on to the same colleges. They are very tight.

Please go to the parade Saturday if at all possible - lakewoodparade.com -- it will give you very good look.

[FarNorthDallas]

I thought Stonewall lost the gardening project to budget cuts.

[theloneranger]

Originally Posted by FarNorthDallas

I thought Stonewall lost the gardening project to budget cuts.

I was under the impression that happened as well--I thought that the teacher moved on to St. Mark's where they were willing to pay him for his talents rather than forcing him to teach classroom science only.

[pathfinder3726]

I'm a parent at Stonewall and I can tell you for a fact that the school still has its science garden and it is thriving. I don't know about Lakewood but Stonewall has an extraordinarily dynamic PTA, which incidentally worked to ensure the garden teacher was retained. Many of my child's science classes take place in the garden and we even get to eat organic produce planted by the kids at the end of the school year.

Addressing an earlier answer, I don't get the sense that Stonewall's math program is in any way inferior. I come from a country whose students consistently come out first or second in international math and science tests, so I always check my child's work against that country's math and science curriculum. It is absolutely comparable.

Stonewall has other challenges. The school facilities are a little run down (though they did some sprucing up this past summer) and many classes are held in so-called 'portables.' They don't have a lot of computers. Teachers are fantastic but the administration is not always responsive to the needs of individual students.