From Maine to Athens (Watkinsville, Bogart: low income, rental, house)

[DVMAMA]

Anything anyone can tell us about relocating from central Maine to Athens with 2 small children? Are there any housing areas to avoid? We will be renting a house for a while under 1300 a month, would that get us anything good?

Thanks for your help!
DVMAMA

[hal2814]

When you mention children, how small are we talking? Personally, I wouldn't send my kids to Clarke County schools. My wife worked for Clarke County for 7 years as a teacher and administrator. She saw gang issues, drug issues, and even once or twice had to handle cases of prostitution on school grounds and those were all at a middle school. There are great private schools in the area but with a $1300/month rent budget I imagine private school is off the table. If you decide you really want to live in Clarke County, Barnett Shoals and Timothy are probably the best elementary schools. There is no good middle school option.

And the public school situation is really a shame because living in Athens proper is such a great experience otherwise. Oconee is a nice school district with homes 10-15 minutes from Athens but property values are higher because of it so rent will be higher as well.

[DVMAMA]

Thanks Hal,

We were looking at some new builds off Tahalasee road (sp) supposedly not near the low income housing but who knows without seeing it. We have a 4yo and a 8month old baby. He wouldn't start school until the following year. We make good money, but I think its a complete shame to waste it on rent when I could be saving more for a home. What about Bogart? Is this a good area? We have looked into the private Catholic school for our children. My husband works in science for the USDA-ARS, so I want him to live closer to work for his convenience

thanks for your help,
DVMAMA

[hal2814]

I used to work in Bogart. That's a nice area with plenty of access to shopping and the parts of it in Oconee County have good schools. Watkinsville is also a nice town in that area.

I'm assuming your husband is working in the office off of College Station. If so and I were in your situation, I'd rent a house over on the east side of Athens (Gaines School Rd area). Your husband would be 5-10 minutes from work, you can find a nice rental house cheap on that side of town, and you can get a feel for the area in the year you're there and make a better informed decision by the time your oldest starts school.

Speaking of school, the state of Georgia has a lottery-funded Pre-K program for 4-year-olds. I know Oconee is already full since they do a private program and entry is very competitive (I had to camp out overnight to get my daughter a spot), but Clarke does a public program that may or may not already be full. It's worth looking into if you're interested. Search for "Bright from the Start" for more info.

[DVMAMA]

Thanks, I will be calling! The house we are interested in is off whitehead and tallassee road in the brookfield village subdivision. 30606 zip. Is this a bad area, we may have to pull the trigger on a house before I can see the area and any help would be appreciated!

[hal2814]

I wouldn't buy a house over there. Nice neighborhoods, terrible school. That intersection and everything around it puts you at Whitehead Elementary. Their standardized testing scores are not terrible but far from good, it's 85% economically disadvantaged, and 21% of the kids have limited English proficiency. The thing that gets me is that I don't know where the poorer kids in that school are coming from. I guess that school reaches out and gets kids in the north end of Clarke. If you want to be in that general area, look around the intersection of GA316 and Loop 10. Everything outside the loop (and a few things inside) there is Oconee County. And at worst case even if you ended up in Clarke in that area, you'd feed into Timothy Elementary. But don't talk yourself into anything over off of Tallassee for anything other than a rental until your kids start school.