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Old 01-02-2014, 12:03 PM
 
Location: Grand Rapids Metro, MI
6 posts, read 14,000 times
Reputation: 10

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Hi there, we have lived in GR metro for a few years and would love to transfer to the Forest Hills District. We are African American and our boys are 8 and 6 (3rd & 1st grade).

#1 Is Forest Hills Northern comparable to Eastern & Central in terms of Academics, especially for kids who are high achievers and thrive when they are challenged? A friend of mine who lives in central says she hears FHC is best for "gifted" children. Would you agree with this analysis, or would you say they are all comparable?

#2 Anyone have any experience with Collins Elementary? Meadow Brook Elementary? Good or Bad experiences? Which school would challenge our kids more do you think? Quality After school programs? Are they warm, friendly, fun? Open to new kids, especially minorities?

#3 Our preferred price range is $200k - $300k. We can go a little higher if absolutely needed, but we would much rather stay under 300k. Our boys are 8 and 6. Any recommendations for neighborhoods where my kids could play outside with other elementary aged kids? With sidewalks so they can ride their bikes and we can go for walks. I looked on grar.com and saw some homes under 300k in "The Vineyards", "The Orchards". Also saw some in Kentwood surprisingly, which feed into FHN (eg "Creekside Estates, Shiloh Hills"). Are these areas any good? Any iffy areas we should avoid? Any bad things to look out for?


Thanks for taking the time to read. I look forward to hearing back. We do plan on touring both schools once schools are back in session. Just wondering if anyone had some insight and anything else to share. Most of the people we know here live in either EGR, Kentwood, GR, Wyoming, Byron Center, even Sparta & Outside GR... everywhere but Forest Hills! lol. Thanks again!
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Old 01-02-2014, 08:02 PM
 
Location: Grand Rapids Metro
8,882 posts, read 19,764,020 times
Reputation: 3920
Quote:
Originally Posted by StarB View Post
Hi there, we have lived in GR metro for a few years and would love to transfer to the Forest Hills District. We are African American and our boys are 8 and 6 (3rd & 1st grade).

#1 Is Forest Hills Northern comparable to Eastern & Central in terms of Academics, especially for kids who are high achievers and thrive when they are challenged? A friend of mine who lives in central says she hears FHC is best for "gifted" children. Would you agree with this analysis, or would you say they are all comparable?

#2 Anyone have any experience with Collins Elementary? Meadow Brook Elementary? Good or Bad experiences? Which school would challenge our kids more do you think? Quality After school programs? Are they warm, friendly, fun? Open to new kids, especially minorities?

#3 Our preferred price range is $200k - $300k. We can go a little higher if absolutely needed, but we would much rather stay under 300k. Our boys are 8 and 6. Any recommendations for neighborhoods where my kids could play outside with other elementary aged kids? With sidewalks so they can ride their bikes and we can go for walks. I looked on grar.com and saw some homes under 300k in "The Vineyards", "The Orchards". Also saw some in Kentwood surprisingly, which feed into FHN (eg "Creekside Estates, Shiloh Hills"). Are these areas any good? Any iffy areas we should avoid? Any bad things to look out for?


Thanks for taking the time to read. I look forward to hearing back. We do plan on touring both schools once schools are back in session. Just wondering if anyone had some insight and anything else to share. Most of the people we know here live in either EGR, Kentwood, GR, Wyoming, Byron Center, even Sparta & Outside GR... everywhere but Forest Hills! lol. Thanks again!
Northern is a great school. Even though Kentwood does cross over into the FH school district, you'll probably see a better return on your money in Grand Rapids Township, Cascade or Ada Township. You might try FH Eastern too. Both Northern and Eastern high schools are far smaller than Central, which has advantages and disadvantages (ie sports are bigger at Central for instance).

Eastern, Central and Northern are all in the higher rungs of best in the State:

http://www.usnews.com/education/best...ngs?int=c0b4c1
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Old 01-02-2014, 08:51 PM
 
Location: Grand Rapids Metro, MI
6 posts, read 14,000 times
Reputation: 10
Default Thank you ~

Quote:
Originally Posted by magellan View Post
Northern is a great school. Even though Kentwood does cross over into the FH school district, you'll probably see a better return on your money in Grand Rapids Township, Cascade or Ada Township. You might try FH Eastern too. Both Northern and Eastern high schools are far smaller than Central, which has advantages and disadvantages (ie sports are bigger at Central for instance).

Eastern, Central and Northern are all in the higher rungs of best in the State:

Search Michigan High Schools | US News

Wonderful! Thank you so very much! That's very useful to hear re Kentwood/FH schools. Will stick to the townships! And thank you very much for sharing the link! How funny to see that of the 3, Eastern ranked highest, Northern 2nd, Central 3rd in this case. Guess that means they are all great schools! I imagine the ranking will probably change from year to year. I will look into Eastern too. Was just drawn to Northern because I heard it's the most diverse of the 3.

So looking forward to the move, and hoping we love it as much as we think we will!

Thanks again, much appreciated!
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Old 01-03-2014, 08:24 AM
 
Location: Grand Rapids Metro
8,882 posts, read 19,764,020 times
Reputation: 3920
Quote:
Originally Posted by StarB View Post
Wonderful! Thank you so very much! That's very useful to hear re Kentwood/FH schools. Will stick to the townships! And thank you very much for sharing the link! How funny to see that of the 3, Eastern ranked highest, Northern 2nd, Central 3rd in this case. Guess that means they are all great schools! I imagine the ranking will probably change from year to year. I will look into Eastern too. Was just drawn to Northern because I heard it's the most diverse of the 3.

So looking forward to the move, and hoping we love it as much as we think we will!

Thanks again, much appreciated!
No problem, good luck! You might be right about the diversity, but don't know the stats.

If you have more questions about FH, post away. We've had kids in the district for 10 years now.
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Old 01-03-2014, 08:55 AM
 
Location: Grand Rapids Metro, MI
6 posts, read 14,000 times
Reputation: 10
Quote:
Originally Posted by magellan View Post
No problem, good luck! You might be right about the diversity, but don't know the stats.

If you have more questions about FH, post away. We've had kids in the district for 10 years now.
Thank you so very much!!!

Which district are you in - Eastern, Central or Northern? I notice Eastern schools are K-6 while Northern & Central are K-4, with 5-6 in a separate school. Any advantages or disadvantages that you know of with either setup? My older son will be going into 4th grade when we move, younger will be going into 2nd. So I wonder if it might be better to consider a K-6 (Eastern) instead of a K-4 (Northern), to lessen the impact of the move? But maybe that's not such a big deal if most of the same kids tend to move from K-4 to 5-6 even though they are different schools... Hmm. I am just hoping the boys settle down quickly and make new friends. Do you see people moving in all the time? Any tips for new comers? I am a little nervous about the move (since we love the kids' current school) but we're hoping to take advantage of low prices & interest rates now since we now know FH is where we want to end up for middle & high school. Also think it will be nice to get the kids settled in the new district sooner than later.

If you know of any other differences between Eastern & Northern in general could you kindly share? I think we will end up at one of those 2. Looking at the district map they will work best for us in terms of my husband's commute anyway. I work from home so I'm good=). Other than the K-6 vs K-4, I noticed the Orchard Hills (Eastern) website talked about reinforcing Honor, Achievement, Good Manners, Kindness, Safety, etc. That's great! I didn't see anything like that on the other sites though. Our current school is a charter school and "moral focus" is very big here, they constantly reinforce these moral virtues and have award ceremonies for kids who have demonstrated Integrity, Respect, Compassion, Gratitude, and so on. We absolutely love that, wish we could bring it with us lol! Do they have anything like that in the FH schools?

Thank you Thank you Thank you once again!!
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Old 01-03-2014, 09:40 AM
 
Location: Grand Rapids Metro
8,882 posts, read 19,764,020 times
Reputation: 3920
Quote:
Originally Posted by StarB View Post
Thank you so very much!!!

Which district are you in - Eastern, Central or Northern? I notice Eastern schools are K-6 while Northern & Central are K-4, with 5-6 in a separate school. Any advantages or disadvantages that you know of with either setup? My older son will be going into 4th grade when we move, younger will be going into 2nd. So I wonder if it might be better to consider a K-6 (Eastern) instead of a K-4 (Northern), to lessen the impact of the move? But maybe that's not such a big deal if most of the same kids tend to move from K-4 to 5-6 even though they are different schools... Hmm. I am just hoping the boys settle down quickly and make new friends. Do you see people moving in all the time? Any tips for new comers? I am a little nervous about the move (since we love the kids' current school) but we're hoping to take advantage of low prices & interest rates now since we now know FH is where we want to end up for middle & high school. Also think it will be nice to get the kids settled in the new district sooner than later.

If you know of any other differences between Eastern & Northern in general could you kindly share? I think we will end up at one of those 2. Looking at the district map they will work best for us in terms of my husband's commute anyway. I work from home so I'm good=). Other than the K-6 vs K-4, I noticed the Orchard Hills (Eastern) website talked about reinforcing Honor, Achievement, Good Manners, Kindness, Safety, etc. That's great! I didn't see anything like that on the other sites though. Our current school is a charter school and "moral focus" is very big here, they constantly reinforce these moral virtues and have award ceremonies for kids who have demonstrated Integrity, Respect, Compassion, Gratitude, and so on. We absolutely love that, wish we could bring it with us lol! Do they have anything like that in the FH schools?

Thank you Thank you Thank you once again!!
Our kids go to Eastern (Knapp Forest and now Eastern Middle). The teachers at Knapp Forest are very big on discipline and character. It's also nice because they rotate the kids in smaller groups throughout the day, using the "neighborhood" system in the school. There are also teachers that pair up and then rotate the kids in groups, so that they're exposed to different teaching styles for different subject matters (Meyer-Martin Team is a good example). I think that system has been instituted across the district. It's apparently working.

We live in a newer neighborhood (which there are a lot of in this area) and we're pretty active in our HOA, so I'd guess about 1/3 of the people in the hood are newcomers to the Grand Rapids area. Which is nice because everyone seems to have an openness in getting to know their neighbors. There are a lot of neighborhood social groups, progressives, euchre tournaments, grilling cookoffs, etc.. (I'd rather not say exactly where we live on the forum, but you can message me if you want).

Any of those you mentioned will probably be similar. The Orchards and Vineyards were built by Pulte Homes. They took a hit when Pulte left Grand Rapids but I think they've made some regains in values.

Now's a good time to buy, if you can find a home. In our n'hood they tend to go within a few days of being listed.
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Old 01-03-2014, 09:51 AM
 
Location: Grand Rapids Metro, MI
6 posts, read 14,000 times
Reputation: 10
Quote:
Originally Posted by magellan View Post
Our kids go to Eastern (Knapp Forest and now Eastern Middle). The teachers at Knapp Forest are very big on discipline and character. It's also nice because they rotate the kids in smaller groups throughout the day, using the "neighborhood" system in the school. There are also teachers that pair up and then rotate the kids in groups, so that they're exposed to different teaching styles for different subject matters (Meyer-Martin Team is a good example). I think that system has been instituted across the district. It's apparently working.

We live in a newer neighborhood (which there are a lot of in this area) and we're pretty active in our HOA, so I'd guess about 1/3 of the people in the hood are newcomers to the Grand Rapids area. Which is nice because everyone seems to have an openness in getting to know their neighbors. There are a lot of neighborhood social groups, progressives, euchre tournaments, grilling cookoffs, etc.. (I'd rather not say exactly where we live on the forum, but you can message me if you want).

Any of those you mentioned will probably be similar. The Orchards and Vineyards were built by Pulte Homes. They took a hit when Pulte left Grand Rapids but I think they've made some regains in values.

Now's a good time to buy, if you can find a home. In our n'hood they tend to go within a few days of being listed.
Thank you for the detailed info! I can't wait to tour the schools! Will message you. I am very curious to hear about what neighborhood you live in - sounds great! Yes if we find something good we will definitely be jumping on it! lol! The ones on the market right now are not very attractive (the ones under 300k anyway). The under 300k ones that look great are all "sale pending". So winter or not, if we find something good, we will try to move fast. Any other place we can look besides grar.com?
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Old 01-05-2014, 07:24 AM
 
Location: Grand Rapids Metro, MI
6 posts, read 14,000 times
Reputation: 10
Default Forest Hills Northern Homes

Looking again at Kentwood areas in Forest Hills Northern and I definitely like what I see! Nice and close to the city, and the home values in Kentwood seem to be holding up as far as I can tell from accesskent. I like the Grand Rapids Township/Ada neighborhoods as well, the ones that feed into FHN.

If anyone knows of any homes for sale by owner that are in the Forest Hills Northern district, kindly let me know! I am looking on the MLS, not sure if there are any other places out there I can look.

Thank you very much!
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Old 05-01-2015, 08:12 PM
 
107 posts, read 119,479 times
Reputation: 36
My kids go to Forest Hills Eastern and HATE it. We are transferring them to Northern. Eastern has no racial diversity or socioeconomic diversity. The kids who attend Eastern seem to be very sheltered, spoiled, and have no clue what the real world is like. Northern has more diversity and the kids who attend are much more down to earth. Plus, it is an excellent school academically! I think you would be much happier at Northern.
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