South Bend Schools (Elkhart, Mishawaka, Granger: appointed, how much, homes)

[aebuell]

Hi, I'm looking for opinions on South Bend schools, all public districts, and private schools as well. I'm currently considering homes in the Darden Primary/Clay Middle/Clay High district, and the Nuner Primary/Jefferson Middle/Adams High district.

I'd prefer private schools, however I'm not sure we can afford them. Also I'm not religious so I'm a little uncomfortable with parochial schools, but as there aren't a whole lot of options I guess I'd still prefer them to the public schools.

Thanks!

[domergurl]

You can look up the specific school's test scores, demographics, etc using Indiana's Dept. of Ed website. I have it listed in the thread titled "useful places to look for Indiana information" (or something like that)

[claremarie]

We recently relocated from the DC area to Granger, in the Clay HS District. (I do not understand the whole school boundary thing, but that's a different story). Our kids are in private school. Frankly, we did not even consider the public school option. The public schools in our DC suburb were outstanding, with nearly every graduate going on to college, high SAT scores, etc. The South Bend schools are more like the DC public schools -- extremely high poverty rates (more than 75% free lunch), low graduation rates, awful test scores. The City of Mishawaka has its own school system, with similar demographics.
You are right that there are limited private options, especially if you're not looking for a religious setting. This is especially true at the high school level, where there are NO secular private options of which I'm aware. Have you looked at homes in the Penn HS District? It has a huge high school (more than 3000 students), but the graduation rate, test scores, etc. are all much better than the South Bend and Mishawaka districts.

[domergurl]

I'm also amazed at how much the Northridge & Fairfield school districts have grown since I left the area in the 80's ... I'm assuming that people from SB & Elkhart are contributing to that growth.

The only secular private school in the area are the Culver academies.

[claremarie]

Stanley Clark School in South Bend (south side of town) runs from preK-grade 8.
But it's kind of expensive ($13K+ for grades 1-8).
Culver is a hike from the South Bend area.

[diggitydot]

Originally Posted by aebuell

Hi, I'm looking for opinions on South Bend schools, all public districts, and private schools as well. I'm currently considering homes in the Darden Primary/Clay Middle/Clay High district, and the Nuner Primary/Jefferson Middle/Adams High district.

I'd prefer private schools, however I'm not sure we can afford them. Also I'm not religious so I'm a little uncomfortable with parochial schools, but as there aren't a whole lot of options I guess I'd still prefer them to the public schools.

Thanks!

We faced the same issue when we relocated to SB this last June. We decided to send our kids to the public schools and have not been disappointed. Keep in mind though that we moved from AZ. Completely different universe. AZ schools are some of the worst in the nation.

But our experience has been pretty great. We've been very pleased with our decisions. (We're also in the same area with Darden and Clay.)

If you have some specific details, feel free to PM me. Our relocation is still pretty fresh in the memory.

Good luck!