Moving to North Carolina (Charlotte, Cary: for sale, real estate, new home)

[cathbattle]

Help please. My family is moving to North Carolina. We are looking for a good school for our 3rd grade daughter. We fell in love with Charlotte, Mint Hill and Cary. How are the schools? Looking for a good diversified school and neighborhood. How are the schools? Where is a great place to live. I hear Cary NC is the safest place to live but on the downside I've heard that there is some racism there. Just good people, looking for a nice, safe place to raise our daughter. Thanks for any input.

[friendnc]

Around Charlotte, look at Concord/Harrisburg (NE of uptown Charlotte), Belmont/Mt. Holly (west), and Ft. Mill/Lake Wylie (SW). They're safe, good housing costs, good schools, near recreational assests, and good commutes into Charlotte.

[joanchris2000]

We are moving to the charlotte area at the end of this month. We looked into schools all over. Charlotte, despite it's huge size does seem to have plenty of good schools (many BAD as well...look carefully)
There is a good website, but there is a fee for full access, but I used it (happened to use it 2x as we moved last summer and are moving again!) and it was very helpful. PSK12 Public School Rankings
It will rank schools in a county by test scores, and when you click on the name of the school it give more detailed information, breakdowns, I think (subscription expired last week) of test scores, and demographic information, which should help if you're looking for diversity. There are many schools that are very skewed and not very diverse, so you could stay away from the less balanced ones.
Then you can take the schools you like and search properties BY SCHOOL and within your price range parameters here: (if the links get cut PM me and I'll pm them back)
Charlotte NC Homes For Sale, Houses for sale, houses, real estate, for sale - helenadamsrealty.com
I'm not a realtor, and dont' work for these folks, but they were immensely helpful when I searched for our new home.