Waconia ? (Andover, Chaska, Rosemount: appointed, schools, university)

[ASL terp]

Hi, I am new to the whole posting thing. We live in CA and are moving back to MN next summer and I can't figure out where to post a new thread.

Does anyone know about schools in Waconia MN? I see there are great schools in Andover and Chaska, but the big size freaks me out. I have two boys - one excells in music (drums) and sports - one in academics - way ahead and likes drama/writing.

Any help would be great. Do I need to look for small school size. Seems kids would get lost at big schools and have a harder time making any kind of team.

[golfgal]

Waconia schools are good. The issue is how far out the town is. Do you know where you will be working? You might be disappointed with the music programs there. As for making sports teams, it all depends on the sport and the school. Sometimes you find in the smaller schools like Waconia they have more kids go out for a team because you find many multi-sport athletes vs a larger school where kids tend to play one sport year round. Also, larger schools have more offerings for kids so that is a bonus. We were in a smaller school, smaller then Waconia, and worried about our kids getting lost in the big school but it hasn't been an issue at all.

[ASL terp]

So it sounds like you have been in both. From your experience you would prefer the bigger school? Can you expand on that? Where would be a few you would recommend. We do not have a location for my husbands work - he is retiring from the Marine Corps after 23 years. I work all over as a freelance ASL interpreter, so we look at the map and can go anywhere... feels a little overwhelming after being told where to go for 23 years. Ha!

[golfgal]

Obviously there are pros and cons for both but I think overall the availability of courses in a larger school wins out. My kids have about 500 kids in their grade, not huge but big enough. If you get much under 300 in a grade the variety of courses offered becomes more limited. I know in our old town they offered Chemistry one year, Physics the next. Here they have several sections of both each year, and have AP and honors level options for both.

Since you have one that likes drama, often you find limited opportunities for that in smaller schools, especially with budget cuts.

Another thing to consider with a larger school is that the variety of kids that attend and the options for friends increases. If you are in a school of 800 kids and someone doesn't like you, it is hard to get away from that.

For the smaller school it was nice knowing everyone and everyone's parents! Now that the kids are older that isn't as much of a concern as when they were little but still is there. The kids have done a good job finding good friends so we have been lucky there.

We looked at Waconia when we relocated to the cities but it was just too far out to commute each day for DH. It is a great town though.

How serious is your child about band--wanting to go into something band related for a career? If that is something he wants to do-performance/teach etc. you might want to look to Rosemount. They have the top rated band program in the state. They also have a good pipeline with the connections the band directors have to various colleges with good music programs. Many, many kids that graduated from Rosemount go on to careers in music in some manner. If you look at the all-state band selections about 1/2 of them are from Rosemount.

If you want a great small town in MN with a good music and drama department look into Marshall (where we used to live). It is about 3 hours from the Twin Cities but there is a state university there that is a very popular school for handicapped students and ASL would be something in high demand in the area through the college, schools and hospital there. Just another option to consider.

[10,000Lakes]

On greatschools.com all the schools in Waconia were rated 9 and 10s..

Greatschools.net Search: waconia