Moving to Memphis with a school going kid (Winchester: groceries, store)

[Tigertate]

Germantown and Bartlett are certainly the best two options when you consider the commute to work.

[knucklehead_vol]

Originally Posted by zellballen

Currently I am considering areas like Bartlett, Germantown and Collierville. Can any one provide a link of attendance zones for elementary schools of Shelby County?

Most on here have no idea what they are talking about, here's a link for Snowden. A great school down the street from UT, by two great neighborhoods.

Parent Reviews of Snowden School - Memphis, Tennessee - TN

Also, no one is mentioning the traffic. These drive times would increase greatly.

[Tigertate]

Originally Posted by knucklehead_vol

Most on here have no idea what they are talking about, here's a link for Snowden. A great school down the street from UT, by two great neighborhoods.

Parent Reviews of Snowden School - Memphis, Tennessee - TN

Also, no one is mentioning the traffic. These drive times would increase greatly.

I am not trying to come at you the wrong way, but I think you are the one who does not know what you are talking about. No one ever said that Snowden was not a good school, but the facts pointed out by the Tennessee Department of Education web site speak for themself.

http://edu.reportcard.state.tn.us/pls/apex/f?p=200:30:4176768773214223::NO


While Snowden is a good school when comparing it to other Memphis City schools, it is still a B, C school as far as achievement (check the link). Snowden is a B, C school even with its great optional program. When comparing Snowden with Farmington (and many other Shelby County Schools for that matter), Snowden falls short as far as achievement. Farmington is a straight A school with average TCAP scores above 70 in all subject areas. Snowden's TCAP scores hover around 50. Snowden is also K-8, which some parents do not like because of the large age difference between kids in the school. So before you talk about people "not knowing what they are talking about" try doing a little research yourself to be sure you know what you are talking about.

[zellballen]

Thank you guys for this information. I am certainly looking a good elementary school and according to reportcards, it seems that schools in Germantown/Bartlett are doing much better than good Memphis schools. Is there any less expensive good private elementary schools in Mud Island or UT areas?

[DubbleT]

Originally Posted by Tigertate

While Snowden is a good school when comparing it to other Memphis City schools, it is still a B, C school as far as achievement (check the link). Snowden is a B, C school even with its great optional program. When comparing Snowden with Farmington (and many other Shelby County Schools for that matter), Snowden falls short as far as achievement.

Comparing a city 'school within a school' setup to a county school, or even with an all optional or all traditional city school is like comparing apples to oranges.

Snowden and Grahamwood and any of the other 'school within a school' designs that house both traditional and optional programs are going to have skewed results on TCAP and other test results, and on the TN report card.
They don't break out the results for each program separately, so you have the results from the higher achieving students lumped in with the results from the regular students. You get a great optional program together with an average or worse traditional program, and on paper it appears as if the entire school is just average. (If the typical optional student at Grahamwood tests at the 85th percentile or above, yet the school only scores in the fifties on the TN report card, what does that say about their traditional program?) Looking at the available statistics on these schools is pretty much useless since they don't paint an accurate picture of either program IMO.

MCS does not make it easy to compare the different programs at the different schools, you really have to do some research beyond what's available online. If someone wanted to get a better picture of the optional program in any particular school I'd contact the school board optional division, or the principal of the school. They should have the statistics on just the optional programs, at least they used to when my kids were students.

[Tigertate]

Originally Posted by DubbleT

Comparing a city 'school within a school' setup to a county school, or even with an all optional or all traditional city school is like comparing apples to oranges.

Snowden and Grahamwood and any of the other 'school within a school' designs that house both traditional and optional programs are going to have skewed results on TCAP and other test results, and on the TN report card.
They don't break out the results for each program separately, so you have the results from the higher achieving students lumped in with the results from the regular students. You get a great optional program together with an average or worse traditional program, and on paper it appears as if the entire school is just average. (If the typical optional student at Grahamwood tests at the 85th percentile or above, yet the school only scores in the fifties on the TN report card, what does that say about their traditional program?) Looking at the available statistics on these schools is pretty much useless since they don't paint an accurate picture of either program IMO.

MCS does not make it easy to compare the different programs at the different schools, you really have to do some research beyond what's available online. If someone wanted to get a better picture of the optional program in any particular school I'd contact the school board optional division, or the principal of the school. They should have the statistics on just the optional programs, at least they used to when my kids were students.

I agree with what you are saying and I wish the city would abandon the "school within a school" concept for that very reason. I think MCS needs more optional only schools so that exceptional students and teachers can stand out. I think more parents would consider MCS if there were more optional only schools that catered to families who are serious about their children's education. The optional program is great being the only magnet type program we have in the county, but I think it could be improved. Once your kid hits middle school do you really want them in that "school within a school" optional program when some of the traditional kids may be verrrrrrrry bad kids? I know the school system tries to limit interaction between optional kids and traditional kids, but they still have to share the same building and will inevitably run into each other. For me this would be a serious concern especially in high school since some MCS high school "students" may already be veteran criminals.

[zellballen]

In another thread someone told that the county school districts are in the process of being redrawn to meet US Federal court desegregation requirements. Can someone explain wether it affects quality of Shelby county schools eg. schools of Germantown/Bartlett?

[Tigertate]

The county system is no longer under federal deseg. orders. The districts are being re-drawn because of school overcrowding and traffic patterns in the northern portion of the county (i.e. Bartlett, Lakeland, and Arlington). From my understanding this is more of a high school issue where too many kids are sent to Arlington High and not enough are being sent to Bartlett High and Bolton High, but someone else may have more info on this.

[thomasloganinman]

I like Germantown and they have pretty good private schools but Tipton County to the north has great schools and is about 30 minutes from down-town. We have friends that live in Brighton and have two kids that go to Brighton High School while they travel to Arlington and Downtown for work. They say that it's a pretty reasonable drive and you get that "small-town" feel while being close to Memphis life. We live in Atoka and it's nice and quiet and we drive pretty often to Memphis for the restaurants and to see the Grizzly games.

[one opinion]

Originally Posted by thomasloganinman

I like Germantown and they have pretty good private schools but Tipton County to the north has great schools and is about 30 minutes from down-town. We have friends that live in Brighton and have two kids that go to Brighton High School while they travel to Arlington and Downtown for work. They say that it's a pretty reasonable drive and you get that "small-town" feel while being close to Memphis life. We live in Atoka and it's nice and quiet and we drive pretty often to Memphis for the restaurants and to see the Grizzly games.

While I can admire your enthusiasm for your community, I think you are mistaken if you are implying that the Tipton county schools are better than the public elementary schools in Germantown (Dogwood, Farmington, etc.). The public schools are what is best about Germantown; the best private schools (MUS and St Mary's by far) are in East Memphis...