Burlington job.....live in Browns Summit or Chapel Hill?

[michgc]

You didn't mention your price point for buying a house, but just keep in mind that your property taxes are going to be much higher in Chapel Hill than in Greensboro. So a $400,000 house in Guilford County might be $4,000 in taxes (or less, I'm not sure of their tax rate) while the same priced house in Chapel Hill will be about $6,500. So if you want the same monthly payment, you can buy a higher-priced house in the Greensboro area than in Chapel Hill. My house in Chapel Hill is valued at a bit over $500K and our property taxes are $8500! Not trying to dissuade you, just inform you.

[aldodrake]

Thanks michgc, that information is very useful. I am probably looking in the $500k range. Currently my taxes on a $500k house is ~$10k so pretty similar to Chapel Hill. Does anyone know much about Hillsborough or Summerfield (hope I spelled those right), my wife is currently looking in those areas as well.

[Francois]

Originally Posted by aldodrake

My wife narrowed into these two areas as having the highest rated schools using greatschools.org and NC schools report card while trying to stay within ~30-45 minutes of Burlington.

I wish people's wouldn't take those rating as QUITE the carved-in-stone gospel to base an entire relocation around them. Yes, a school rated 9 is most likely better than a school rated 4, but depending on what threshhold she used ("Only considering schools above an X rating"), there is probably a "margin of leeway" by a point or two, not to mention that ratings (of any kind) are outdated once they've been posted, and new teachers (especially in the last 2 years with all of the upheaval in NC Education) can change the quality of a given student's education from one year to the next. I personally went to great school and "good" ones, but at both I had terrific teachers AND rotten teachers (the latter even at an expensive well-ranked private school).

It makes sense to want a good school, but not as such a major deciding factor in where to live. The quality of life for your kids as well as you will be affected by much more than school. Maybe buy a little smaller house and pick a private school to give more flexibility? I'd be looking at the whole swatch from Guilford to Orange county.

BTW, I have a friend with 2 Masters degrees, very erudite, who lives in Mebane and is very happy with the schools there for her daughter.

[aldodrake]

What you are saying makes sense Francois. Being from Wisconsin and only having lived in the Mid-West, we are truly trying to start and focus on specific areas that we can then visit and get a feel.

[poppydog]

Aldodrake, Hillsborough is a cute town and Orange County schools are pretty good. The make up of the population there is more "country" than Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools. Maybe not quite as country as Southern Alamance High where my kid is currently taking driver's ed and the student parking lot is full of pick up trucks, but you'd definitely have a lot more rural kids than in Chapel Hill High, ECHHS or Carrboro High.

My kids go to Hawbridge, a charter school in Alamance County. Charters are something you might look at, too. Up until recently we have not had many for profit charters in NC. The one my kids go to is a non-profit and not run by one of the corporations making money off education. My older kid has anxiety and we felt like she needed a smaller school environment. I am envious of the classes and opportunities that kids get at Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools, though, which is where we would be going, but I think this school is a better fit for my kid.

I think Guilford County has some very good schools, but I would guess Chapel Hill Carrboro schools are probably more similar to Madison's than Guilford County Schools. CHCCS is smaller than Madison's district (CHCCS is about half the size 12,000; google says Madison's is about 25,000). Guilford County is larger (about 3 times as big at 75,000). Orange County School system (Hillsborough) is smaller than Chapel Hill's (about half the size, 7400 students).

There is a culture of achievement at CHCCS that some kids and parents report can be very stressful to susceptible kids. Certain high-achieving kids can get caught up in grades and class rank, etc., but there are a lot of opportunities available through the school system that you can't get in a lot of other public schools in NC. The high taxes in Chapel Hill and Carrboro mainly go to things like our schools. Highly gifted kids are served pretty well in CHCCS. Some folks report that just average kids can fall through the cracks a little. We have a fairly sizable Latino/a population in the schools and a good number of refugees from Burma. When my kids were in elementary school, Carrboro Elementary, everything was translated into Spanish (it's a dual language school) and at that time there were a lot of refugees from Burma there, too, and everything was also translated into Karen. A new school was built and things have shuffled a bit since my kids were there and and I think most of the Burmese and Karen kids are at another elementary now.

For your kids, they could be in a Spanish or Mandarin dual language program in CHCCS schools. I don't believe Orange County Schools (Hillsborough) offer that. Guilford County Schools, as a bigger system, do have a variety of magnet programs at the elementary level, although I don't know if they offer Mandarin.

Orange County Schools do have a 1 to 1 laptop initiative, where every student 3-12th grade has a laptop and middle and high school students can take it home and to do their school work.

There are also a lot of opportunities in CHCCS like trips to China, Belgium and France, and Costa Rica — all through the middle school my kids would have attended (not that any of that would have worked for my kid with anxiety, but a neighbor kid went to China in 7th grade with her teacher and classmates). The charter we go to is going to Carowinds in Charlotte in May. Just not quite the same.

I think it may come down to how you feel about the different towns. Burlington, Hillsborough, Mebane, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Browns Summit, and Greensboro are all pretty different. Once you get down here and can look around a bit I think you'll start to feel more at home in one place.

You might try just googling the place name and then looking at what google images brings up. I'm a visual person and that helps me kind of get a feel for a place. I'd say what I see when I google the places we've been talking about definitely corresponds to my experience of those places. (BTW, Madison looks really cool when I do that and now I want to go visit!)

[TarHeelNick]

Originally Posted by Francois

I wish people's wouldn't take those rating as QUITE the carved-in-stone gospel to base an entire relocation around them. Yes, a school rated 9 is most likely better than a school rated 4, but depending on what threshhold she used ("Only considering schools above an X rating"), there is probably a "margin of leeway" by a point or two, not to mention that ratings (of any kind) are outdated once they've been posted, and new teachers (especially in the last 2 years with all of the upheaval in NC Education) can change the quality of a given student's education from one year to the next. I personally went to great school and "good" ones, but at both I had terrific teachers AND rotten teachers (the latter even at an expensive well-ranked private school).

It makes sense to want a good school, but not as such a major deciding factor in where to live. The quality of life for your kids as well as you will be affected by much more than school. Maybe buy a little smaller house and pick a private school to give more flexibility? I'd be looking at the whole swatch from Guilford to Orange county.

BTW, I have a friend with 2 Masters degrees, very erudite, who lives in Mebane and is very happy with the schools there for her daughter.

Greatschools is borderline obnoxious. As long as a school isn't incredibly under-funded with a dilapidated campus and constant fights/violence......a smart kid is going to do well in any school. Chapel Hill and Cary (and apparently...Browns Summit) don't all get "9s and 10s" on great-schools because they offer a vastly superior education and will make any kid a genius....they get those rankings because they serve students from affluent, well-educated households. I guess that is a defacto way of people saying they want to be surrounded by affluent, well-educated households...which is fine; but to put as much stake into the VERY subjective 1-10 range on one website as so many folks do nowadays is insane to me.


Best thing OP can do is come down to NC for a visit and tour the areas they are interested in with the family. Get a feel for these two (very different) communities....and maybe even some others in between them that would be closer to work!