Crete & Seward (Lincoln: crime, house, neighborhoods)

[TMMLJ5]

Hello! We are currently house hunting. Right now we live in Lincoln. We do like it along with LPS and are looking for a house here as well as Crete or Seward. I'm looking for any and all information on both areas. We are a little bit familiar with Seward but not much. We drove through Crete the other day and liked what we saw and plan to do a drive through of Seward tonight.

One of our concerns though is whether or not they are too "small town" or not. On paper the numbers (population) seems alright. We would not want to go any smaller though. (this will be a big enough adjustment from Lincoln for us) We know we wouldn't be happy in an ultra conservative area where everyone knows every single thing about you. Does this make sense? If not I'm happy to try to clarify. We are just the average family of 5 with small kids who wants a safe and nice place for them to grow up.

The bigger things I'm looking for is information on the school systems. Are there after school clubs? Do you have to buy all of your own school supplies? Are the fees for sports and band expensive? What is the crime like in the schools and neighborhoods? Are people typically accepting of newcomers to the area? I'm sure I'll have more questions later. Thanks ahead of time for any help you can give me.