Des Moines High Schools? (Cedar Rapids, Sioux City: for sale, rent, houses)

[spursspursspurs]

My family and i are moving to des moines in aug and our 2 kids are starting high school this fall, we were wondering where is a good high school for our kids to attend. We are middle class and want a good mix of cultures in the school. Is there a good school that anyone can suggest thats middle class, and a perfect mix of races, while not being in a bad neighborhood. i would love for them to attend a school like i did, whites blacks etc and middle class maybe even upper

[capitalcityguy]

I'm not a Des Moines native, but I believe Roosevelt High School is what you're looking for.

[pepe1]

Roosevelt.

[Luke9686]

I triple Roosevelt. What you don't want, in your case, is a suburban high school. Good schools, but very vanilla.

[JMsioux]

I now live in Cedar Rapids but Des Moines was one of the cities my wife and I looked at when we wanted to move from Sioux City. In doing the research of Des Moines' schools, neighborhoods, etc, I found that Roosevelt was the school that fit what we wanted for our kids, which seems to mirror what you are looking for. My kids had friends of all colors, incomes, etc in Sioux City and I wanted that to continue wherever we moved to.

[tptvosox]

Another vote for Roosevelt. We moved into that district about 1.5 yrs ago for this reason, but also its proximity to downtown, good neighborhood with great balance of ages and cultures, arts & business minded, good nightlife when you want it, etc. In most cases, you must sacrifice yard, home sq footage and age of homes for this (in relation to the suburbs), though, so you have to do your homework and do some walkthroughs so there are no surprises. We love the area we're in, known as "North of Grand (Ave)", but more specifically, "North of Ingersoll", between streets in the 40's to 35th St (all between Interstate 35 and Grand Ave). We've got a 1913 home, but the previous owners sealed and finished the basement a while ago and the updates they made over the years are very nice! There are pearls to be found in the neighborhood, and I see more For Sale signs going up on what seem to be nicer homes.

Edit - didn't mean to say making "huge" sacrifices in yard and home space. Ours is pretty roomy (1960 sf), we love our big front porch, we have a smaller front yard and a pretty decent-sized back yard (longer than it is wide), and we've got a 2 car garage with additional workspace. So again, you just have to look around. There are very nice homes not as old as ours more in the 40s streets both south and north of I-235 as well off Kingman. There are also wildly expensive homes south of Grand Ave where the kids would go to Roosevelt. You get a good mix. It's worth printing out the district boundaries and driving around to look at your options...everything from bungalow to craftsman 2-stories to modern to art deco to Cape Cod style...it runs the gamut. Fun to look around. The district probably covers housing prices from $80K to $2M+ (with the latter being your south of Grand area). The bulk of homes are in the $140-240K range from what I saw when we were looking to buy.

Will you have an opportunity to visit or rent first as you look for a house?

[annalyta]

I have to go with everyone else and say Roosevelt. I attended about 10 years ago and it was very diverse. I recently moved back into the area (on Kingman Blvd) and it seems about the same.
We like Southwest Drake as a neighborhood as well as North of Grand. The area right around Roosevelt is also very nice. You might also look at the west side of Woodland Heights: its very convenient to Downtown, but the houses tend to be smaller.
If you are planning to spend more on a house South of Grand and Waterbury are nice neighborhoods.

One thing you may want to look into is your children taking some of their classes at Central Campus,near Downtown. Students can take various world languages (ie Chinese, Italian), tech courses (ie fashion design, radio & tv, marine biology). There is also a part day program for high school students that test as gifted.

[capitalcityguy]

Wow…such a refreshing thread!

[DMRyan]

Just to add to the party, I recently moved from the area that they're talking about (on Cottage Grove near 42nd Street) to the SW side of DSM and I miss the area dearly! I don't miss having to mess with bad basements small closets and a more choppy living space, but the neighborhood is a gem. I hope to move back there someday in a house that it hopefully already renovated. Money per sq. ft. of house, you can expect to pay more in these areas than in the burbs, but you sometimes can't put a price on living in such a beautiful walkable neighborhood if you can appreciate older architecture and huge tree lined streets.