Teacher moving to GA - suggestions on best districts - teacher's perspective?? (Atlanta: home, transfer)

[njbookgirl]

I live in Northern NJ where I teach in an excellent school district. I have my MA in education. The high school I teach in has been rated in the top 100 schools in Newsweek a few times in the last few years.

I say all this because, it's important to stress that I love my job - I'm simply losing my patience with NJ.

I've been told Gwinnett and Cobb county are great - Are there any teachers out there that could shed some light?

A lot of times when I talk about leaving NJ I hear about the union. I know NJ has a strong teacher's union and all... I don't want to get into that discussion, I really want to work in a school that has a good working environment and good (I'd really like great) administration.

Can I get some help?

[DisgustaTruth]

Your best districts and the ones with the highest pay are going to be in North metro Atlanta. Gwinnett, Cobb, Cherokee, North Fulton, and Forsythe counties are all great systems. I would concentrate on those. Atlanta also has a few magnet schools which are great.

[detoni]

Columbus High School was rated again as the 1# High School in the state of Georgia. It is a very competive magnet school and it is in a historic area of Columbus near several parks. Columbus also has a new high school named Northside. The city has a great deal of fortune 500's , but if you want Atlanta the northern suburbs have good, but huge schools.

[PSWP]

I went from a school in northern monmouth county to a school in Gwinnett county....let me tell you that I am someone that has never had a use for the NJEA and thought that usually they hurt my interactions with the kids as far as spending extra time with them etc. BUT a fair amount of administrators in GA take complete advantage of their teachers and there is nothing to stick up for you. You may have to take your prep before school starts. You probably have to do a lunch duty and a before or after school duty. You'll have meetings most days of the week and if you are special ed -forget about it -NO CST -you are the CST which means you do all the IEPs,paperwork, set up meetings and NO EXTRA TIME for a job that takes a team of people here. I would be at work for hours every night. Even if you are not sped. it's no picnic for general ed either. Being back in Jersey feels like heaven on earth

[SaraSatin]

I went to two high schools in Gwinnett County. Brookwood, which has a reputation as being one of the better schools in Gwinnett, and North Gwinnett. At Brokwood the teachers worked hard, from what I could tell, and they often took their own time after school and such to prepare, tutor, and meet with parents if necessary. However, they were more stressed that most teachers I see and that may have come from the pressure of being the higher rated school in the county. It's in an area where a lot of the students have a lot of money and (at least when I went there) the parents expected a lot from them.

When I transfered to North Gwinnett it just so happens that the Vice Principal of Brookwood came there as well because he was promoted to Principal. That school was a lot better for me as a student. The teachers were less stressed out because the pressure didn't seem to be put on them as much, but my schooling experience was actually better than at Brookwood. Because the teachers were more laid back it seemed like the students were too, which made for a great teaching and learning environment. Also, when the students got out of hand the faculty definitely handled it with more patience than at Brookwood.

This is just a student's point of view, but if I were a high school teacher I would go to North Gwinnett. However, you might also want to check out a website I found recently with parent reviews for their children's schools. It might help you find a place where parents are saying that the administration and the faculty are similar to where you are now. The website is GreatSchools.net.

Good Luck!

[bgnzsavnh]

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[KSnewbie]

I am so glad that someone started this thread. I am also lookig at relocating to Georgia next year. I was also interested in fiding out what the best counties. I was looking at rockdale, henry and greene. Does anyone have any opinions on these?

[GP2]

Any Houston county school or Monroe county school.....

[sellersandbuyersga]

I recommend the Dept of Education website, Georgia Department of Education. Cobb and Gwinnett are in Area 4, which is Metro RESA. You can click on the individual county sites from there. The DOE site also has an area called Education Support and Improvement. Click on Learning Support from there and there is a way to view top performing and award winning schools. Also, Georgia Public Policy Foundation - www.gppf.org has a report card for Spring 2007 of top performing schools. Here is a link to the document, http://www.gppf.org/pub/education/reportcard_high2007.pdf (broken link). Several Cobb and Gwinnett schools show up in the top 50. Their site may have more useful information for you under education on their home page.

[ATLian1]

East Cobb High Schools are ranked top in the nation. Gwinnett is growing like crazy and will be building some brand new high school's soon. North Fulton has good schools too. Henry and Rockdale and Cherokee are pretty good. South Fulton and Dekalb and the Atlanta area the schools are a little more challenging to teach at probobly. There are alot of private schools in these areas though that are good. As far as top 10 Public Highschools in Metro area
1) Walton (East Cobb)
2) Lassiter (East Cobb)
3) Brookwood (Gwinnett)
4) Chattahoochee (North Fulton)
5) Pope (East Cobb)
6) Parkview ( Gwinnett)
7) Centennial (north Fulton
8) McEachern(west cobb)
9) Harrison (west cobb)
10) Marietta (middle Cobb)

those are just the top 10 out of my head. As far as teachers unions im not sure they are as big down here as they are up in the Northeast but im not a teacher. The teachers seem to be pretty happy in these areas though.