CCISD High Schools (Houston, Pasadena, Sugar Land: fit in, apartments, lawyers)

[cjulian214]

Does anyone on here have opinions regarding CCISD high schools? We will be moving to the area next summer and have one kid who will be starting 8th grade next fall (the others will be in elementary), so we are very concerned about finding a good high school. I know Clear Lake High School has exceptional reviews based on test scores, but I am hoping to hear about people's actual opinions. My son is kind of an odd duck, and he has done well in the small town we currently live in in terms of making friends and finding his niche. I worry that a school like Clear Lake High is very competitive with a lot of emphasis placed on testing, achieving high SAT scores, etc and I have also heard it may be more "clique-y" than average. My son does have an all A average at the moment (it fluctuates!) but he isn't what you would call a high achiever, and he doesn't tend to fit into traditional cliques, although he does love band. What are people's opinions on the other high schools in the area?

[tstone]

I live in the area zoned to "Lake" but only with firsthand experience with the elementary. Yes, Lake is a competitive school, not really any different than the other top high schools in the Houston area. I wouldn't say the emphasis is placed on testing as much as class rank. Which means loading up with GT & AP coursework to the breaking point, and making 100 averages in all of those. This makes it very difficult to fall in the top 10% of the class. You may be familiar with this law:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_House_Bill_588

Socially I think the school gets its reputation because it is divided between the haves and have nots. On one hand the school draws from one of the top 3 zip codes in the entire Houston area for income. (The kids' parents are engineers, doctors, lawyers, professors, etc and old money.) On the other hand it draws from almost all of the apartments in Clear Lake, some of which have been in decline over the past 4 or 5 years. I don't think there is very much middle ground. Consequently an average student at Lake may be excellent somewhere else.

Some people are really turned off by the above but there must be a lot of people who think it's a good thing, considering home value appreciation and how fast they move. I used to live in the area zoned to Brook, which was #2 behind Lake for a long time. However it has been in decline for several years and seems to make the news once a year for violence. (However they do like to brag a lot about their diversity.)

We moved from that area when my oldest was in preschool to get established before Kindergarten. I heard & read the stories about Lake and it sounded just like my "cliquish, competitive" high school in Sugar Land over 20 yrs ago. I enjoyed it thoroughly. There's a problem if you can't make some friends out of 2,500 other kids. I'd say sticking with Band would be a good thing. Lake takes their music very seriously BTW, and their orchestra is incredible.

[Houston parent]

Clear Springs High School on the north side of 518, west of I-45 is relatively new but is a good option as well. Several nice subdivisions feed into it.

[MAROON79]

I think the rank would be:

Lake
Springs
Creek
Falls
Brook

I'm a Creek Alumnus and have h.s. friends who still live down there and send their kids to Creek. They all love the school.

I know Brook has always been considered the weakest of the schools.

[tstone]

Originally Posted by MAROON79

I think the rank would be:

Lake
Springs
Creek
Falls
Brook

I'm a Creek Alumnus and have h.s. friends who still live down there and send their kids to Creek. They all love the school.

I know Brook has always been considered the weakest of the schools.

That has been the perception as long as I've lived in this area, but the #'s I've seen have never supported it. And this says nowadays they are virtually equal, next to each other on the bottom by a good margin if I'm reading this correctly:

Clear Brook High School in Friendswood TX - SchoolDigger.com

Clear Creek High School in League City TX - SchoolDigger.com

I used to work close to Creek 10 years ago, and there were a lot of extremely ass-backwards people around there. It was something that you couldn't find in Sugar Land 25 years ago.

On the other hand I don't think there are any high schools in CCISD that are less than decent.

[shortel]

I would rather go to clearcreek, friendswood,pearland then any other school district in that area. nothing else even comes close.

Pasadena, la marque, Galveston, hisd, schools are beyond terrible.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by shortel

I would rather go to clearcreek, friendswood,pearland then any other school district in that area. nothing else even comes close.

Pasadena, la marque, Galveston, hisd, schools are beyond terrible.

Many people consider Deer Park ISD to be OK.

[cjulian214]

tstone- I was not aware of that law. We are moving from NM. Does that mean that for kids not in the top ten percent it is harder to get into college? Even if grades/SAT scores are good?

What kind of ass-backward people, would you say? And how are you liking the elementary schools?

There are some good homes in our price range in the Clear Springs high school area, but my husband is worried about being on the other side of I45 for his commute. He will be at the Chevron Phillips Plant in Pasadena. It looks like taxes may be higher over there too...MUD taxes I think? Lots for me to learn!

[ilikeme]

Originally Posted by shortel

I would rather go to clearcreek, friendswood,pearland then any other school district in that area. nothing else even comes close.

Pasadena, la marque, Galveston, hisd, schools are beyond terrible.

Really depends on the individual school, not necessarily the district. There are some schools in HISD that are among the best in the area, and HISD also has some that are close to the worst. Same with Fort Bend. Many of the Fort Bend schools are among the best, but there are a few that are not so great.

[tstone]

Originally Posted by cjulian214

tstone- I was not aware of that law. We are moving from NM. Does that mean that for kids not in the top ten percent it is harder to get into college? Even if grades/SAT scores are good?

What kind of ass-backward people, would you say? And how are you liking the elementary schools?

There are some good homes in our price range in the Clear Springs high school area, but my husband is worried about being on the other side of I45 for his commute. He will be at the Chevron Phillips Plant in Pasadena. It looks like taxes may be higher over there too...MUD taxes I think? Lots for me to learn!

I don't have any complaints about the elementary school. The start of Kindergarten was testing but afterwards it has fine. There is a lot of parental involvement which is the #1 key I think.

The top 10% rule generally applies to kids trying to get into the flagship state schools, UT and A&M. And nowadays so many kids want to go there that the universities cut it off at top 8%. So in a school like Lake, someone who is honors/GT/AP (regardless of SAT scores) won't necessarily make the cutoff and won't be accepted to UT or A&M, forcing them to a lower tier school or private. On the other hand, someone from a low performing school who is in the top 8% will be accepted unconditionally.

League City was a small, relatively isolated town until Houston swallowed it up. There used to be a lot of people stuck way in the past over there. I know it has grown by leaps and bounds over the past decade though.

As far as commute if that is the plant off of 225 I wouldn't live anywhere south of Bay Area Blvd. Even better if you're close to Clear Lake City Blvd.