Elementary schools in Royal Oaks or Troy? (Detroit, Southfield: credit, house)

[dakwilk]

Can you give me information about the public and private schools in Royal Oaks or Troy? I'm looking for good schools that are racially diverse. How far is the commute to Detroit from these cities?

[Coldjensens]

I cannot tell you about the schools, but having gone through the process of selecting a community to live in based on schools, I can tell you what we learned.

First look on the internet. there are a lot of different groups that rate the schools, look at several, they use different criteria and often rank them very differently. You may have to pay a small fee for one of the better sites, it is worth it.

Once you have a short list of schools, visit them. This is incredibly important. If you can get away with it, just show up and look around before you go identify yourself to the principal. They will give you the rose colored glasses tour, but you will still get some information.

Go to a nearby store or just go knock on a likely looking house and ask. this is nerve wracking, but if you want a true picture of the schools, you need to talk to parents, preferably parents who have had kids in other districts so tehy have something to compare to. Remember from parents you will get slanted views. They either want to demonstrate (even to themselves) that they made the best choice for their kids, or they may have "sour grapes" syndrome because their kids underperformed, or a particular teacher made them angry. You need to talk to several parents and sort out the actual facts.

Visit a pta or pto meeting. Here you can learn about the accomplishments and perceived problems of the school. You can also find parents to talk to. Remember at these meetings are almost entirely parents who like the school.

We have a lot of kids and we have had them in a lot of different schools. We have learned about what makes a school good or bad. We have seen good schools go bad and mediochre schools become good. In our experience is the principal. If the principal is active and gets out of their office so that they are aware of everything that is going on and what the teachers are doing, you generally have a better school. When an active principal is replaced by a principal who sits in their office, the school invariably takes a downward dive. All schools have some good teachers and some mediocre or bad ones. All schools have good and bad students. For a while, our kids went to a decent school
in a terrible district. There were lot of bad kids, the area was generally impoverished and mostly illegal immigrants, many of whom did not speak English. However, they had some good teachers and an excellent principal. At the end of Elementary school our kids were testing in the top 90th percentile nationally. A lot of credit for that goes to my wife, but a lo of credit goes to the quality of the education due to the principal keeping control of her school.

[Dexterguy]

I know that both of these school districts are very good, Royal Oak is a closer community to Detroit. While Troy would be more of a longer commute.
One thing that I think that I picked up from one of the other threads was that Royal Oak Schools are having a hard time to pass a bond for a basic thing like new carpet in the schools.

[B-bear]

Troy would be a longer commute but not by much. They also have much better schools that would be more racially diverse. Now when I state racially diverse I mean there is a larger influx of Indians, Asians. Probably not a whole lot of African-Americans in either school district other than a token amount. I live in Royal Oak and have never heard of anyone who has moved here for the schools. I do know people who have moved though so their kids do not have to attend the schools here. From what I understand, the schools here aren't horrible but have lost a lot of students over the years. The reason is because the people who move into Royal Oak usually are younger and do not have kids. In order to make up for the loss of students, Royal Oak was a "school of choice" where kids from neighboring cities such as Oak Park, Southfield, Ferndale, etc. began enrolling. This from what I hear sort of went over like a lead balloon and they have since stopped this practice by consolidating their schools which has led to some improvement. If good schools is your main priority, Troy is without a doubt the better option of the two.

[dakwilk]

These replies were so helpful. Thanks. Does anyone know how long the commute it from RO and Troy to Detroit...in traffic?