School registration comments and a question. (Harlem, Harlem Heights: transplants, home, school district) - Fort Myers - Cape Coral area - Florida (FL) -Lee County - City-Data Forum

paulapoo · 01-11-2011, 07:25 PM

We are relocating to Ft. Myers in June. We will be registering our two girls for elementary school in February when my husband can travel down there to do it in person. We have already bought a house, so we can show proof of residency. I have doubts about being able to get our girls in the school(s) we'd like, since school choice seems to be a total crapshoot. We have relatives that relocated to Ft. Myers in 2001 and had no trouble with school choice when registering their son. We'll just have to wait and see how it turns out for us.

I have a question about registration requirements. One of the requirements for registering a child for the first time is proof of a health exam within the last 12 months. Does that exam have to be from a Florida doctor/clinic? Our kids' had health exams here in Missouri. I am guessing that the exams can be from any state, but I really don't want my husband to travel down there to register the girls only to find out that he wasted his time. And then we'd have to scramble to get the kids down there for health exams before the first school enrollment period is over. What's really annoying is that when I called the school assignment office, I was never given the option to speak to a human being to ask my question!

Our main glitch so far-- we were in Ft. Myers in late December and decided to get our kids' immunization records to the health department so we could get their FL blue immunization certificates (which is a requirement for registering your child for school the first time). Mapquest, Yahoo maps, and our Nuvi GPS system all sent us to a dead-end street instead of the health dept office. The address is 3920 Michigan Avenue. We tried it with the posted zip code(33916) and without, and got nowhere. Use Google if you need directions. It was the only one that was correct. We tried calling the office and was put on hold, then was hung up on before we could speak to a live human being(yet another useless phone call!). Argh. The office is on the same street as the dead end. You just turn left onto that street instead of right.

hiknapster · 01-11-2011, 07:45 PM

3920 Michigan Avenue is not on a dead-end street. I had to go there before we moved away, in order to register my child in TN schools, back in 2005. I pulled up Google maps and it doesn't show it on a dead-end street, either.

paulapoo · 01-11-2011, 10:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hiknapster

3920 Michigan Avenue is not on a dead-end street. I had to go there before we moved away, in order to register my child in TN schools, back in 2005. I pulled up Google maps and it doesn't show it on a dead-end street, either.

Michigan avenue breaks off into a y on the eastern end of it. One part continues to be called Michigan Avenue and it dead-ends around the Michigan Montessori International Academy. There is a canal to the east of that area. The other branch of the Y is called Michigan Avenue Link. When we drove northbound on Michigan Avenue Link, our GPS told us to turn right onto Michigan Ave.(eastbound), NOT continue on Michigan Link as it curves off to the west which takes you to the right location. And yes, Google Maps gives the correct location. I said that in my post. I said that Mapquest, Yahoo maps, and our GPS gave us the incorrect location. It placed us at the Michigan Montessori location.

hiknapster · 01-12-2011, 11:14 AM

sigh. So you actually know where the health department is, now? You drove right by it. Just trying to help...

paulapoo · 01-12-2011, 01:46 PM

Yep we found the health department while we were down there after consulting Google maps... sorry if you misunderstood hiknapster! The question I had in my post was not about that, it was in the paragraph about school registration requirements, specifically about proof of the health exam. Can the proof of a health exam be from another state? I was wondering if any recent transplants might know.

hiknapster · 01-12-2011, 02:09 PM

They don't make it very clear, do they? Lee County schools are very difficult to navigate. They don't specifically say a Florida physician, though.

Perhaps try (239) 337-8244 (student health services) or student services (239) 337-8181.

I hope this helps!

jillbeachbound · 01-16-2011, 06:08 PM

Curious where you are relocating to in FM....we are currently looking into FM and CC. We have a 9 year old and are concerned about "school choice" as well.

paulapoo · 01-16-2011, 11:01 PM

We bought a home in the newish Venetian Village community, off A&W Bulb Road. It is in the southwestern area of South Ft. Myers. That puts us in Zone S-1.

I've been obsessed with ranking the schools lately. The closest elementary school to us is Heights, which used to not be good at all. Harlem Heights is right to the south of Gladiolus from the school. However, that school has gotten a million-dollar facelift and has since been getting an "A" rating by the state of FL and has an IB curriculum. I was thinking of ranking that one high up in my choices, and also Tanglewood and Orangewood. If Heights hadn't been improved, I wouldn't put it anywhere near the top. My husband is going to try to tour that school when he goes down there in Feb. to see if it really is better than it used to be.

The rest of the schools in the zone I really don't know what to do with. I have all the pluses and minuses of those schools written down(uniforms or not, distance from the house, greatschools.org ratings, FL rating). Does anyone have any input?

Since I am obsessed with this, I could ramble on forever about it, lol! So I'll stop now to keep this short.

hiknapster · 01-16-2011, 11:58 PM

Please visit every school before you rank. Or have your husband visit. These websites can be very good, and I find this one to be dead-on regarding our local schools: GreatSchools - Public and Private School Ratings, Reviews and Parent Community.

But I found surprises with Lee County, like how many behavioral problems were in the school that they put our daughter in. And how many kids didn't speak English. That was a huge problem because the teacher was not bilingual. The teacher simply wasn't able to teach due to these issues. It was a mess. And this was in a "nice" area.

Personally go and look. At least you have the school in session to determine what is going on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulapoo

We bought a home in the newish Venetian Village community, off A&W Bulb Road. It is in the southwestern area of South Ft. Myers. That puts us in Zone S-1.

I've been obsessed with ranking the schools lately. The closest elementary school to us is Heights, which used to not be good at all. Harlem Heights is right to the south of Gladiolus from the school. However, that school has gotten a million-dollar facelift and has since been getting an "A" rating by the state of FL and has an IB curriculum. I was thinking of ranking that one high up in my choices, and also Tanglewood and Orangewood. If Heights hadn't been improved, I wouldn't put it anywhere near the top. My husband is going to try to tour that school when he goes down there in Feb. to see if it really is better than it used to be.

The rest of the schools in the zone I really don't know what to do with. I have all the pluses and minuses of those schools written down(uniforms or not, distance from the house, greatschools.org ratings, FL rating). Does anyone have any input?

Since I am obsessed with this, I could ramble on forever about it, lol! So I'll stop now to keep this short.

paulapoo · 01-18-2011, 07:37 AM

Thanks for the great advice hiknapster! I bet the non-english-speaking kids are a big issue in many of the schools in the area. Looking at the demographics of each school, it looks that way. As for behavioral problems, I think one of the biggest worries of newcomers to any school district is the behavioral problems of kids already attending the school and how the school's staff handle them. It's just so hard to tell without knowing any parents from the school beforehand.

There was an article yesterday about the opening of Batch 1 school choice for the upcoming school year. It had some helpful info about the registration procedure:
Lee County school choice Batch 1 opens | news-press.com | The News-Press

One useful thing I learned from the article -- if your top choice happens to be within two miles of your home, your child will get preference over others(it has to be your number one choice; not ranked any lower).

Quote:

Originally Posted by hiknapster

Please visit every school before you rank. Or have your husband visit. These websites can be very good, and I find this one to be dead-on regarding our local schools: GreatSchools - Public and Private School Ratings, Reviews and Parent Community.

But I found surprises with Lee County, like how many behavioral problems were in the school that they put our daughter in. And how many kids didn't speak English. That was a huge problem because the teacher was not bilingual. The teacher simply wasn't able to teach due to these issues. It was a mess. And this was in a "nice" area.

Personally go and look. At least you have the school in session to determine what is going on.