[ccbradshaw5]

Being an outsider I am trying to find out the best areas for school. Now I do realize it is considered to be a form of profiling. But the facts usually remain that a community/neighborhood that has good schools... has good people.

Does anyone have suggestions on where to look for the appropriate information? Currently my resources seem to be depleted. As of now it shows that very few schools within Nebraska are tracked at a State level for testing. Obviously this cannot be... so this is why I come to you all!

[Omaha Rocks]

Originally Posted by ccbradshaw5

Being an outsider I am trying to find out the best areas for school. Now I do realize it is considered to be a form of profiling. But the facts usually remain that a community/neighborhood that has good schools... has good people.

Does anyone have suggestions on where to look for the appropriate information? Currently my resources seem to be depleted. As of now it shows that very few schools within Nebraska are tracked at a State level for testing. Obviously this cannot be... so this is why I come to you all!

What, exactly, are you looking for?

Are you looking for a high school within the city limits of Omaha? An elementary school?

Thanks!

[ccbradshaw5]

Originally Posted by Omaha Rocks

What, exactly, are you looking for?

Are you looking for a high school within the city limits of Omaha? An elementary school?

Thanks!

Well to be honest I was looking for all of the above. For example... in Northern Virginia there are 2 areas with a high level of concentration for excellent schools. You can see the statistics on every level of schooling for the state. And through some looking we were able to find those specific areas of good schools and probably a good community.

Where are those concentrations located in the Omaha area? Nebraska?

[Omaha Rocks]

Originally Posted by ccbradshaw5

Well to be honest I was looking for all of the above. For example... in Northern Virginia there are 2 areas with a high level of concentration for excellent schools. You can see the statistics on every level of schooling for the state. And through some looking we were able to find those specific areas of good schools and probably a good community.

Where are those concentrations located in the Omaha area? Nebraska?

I'd say that there really aren't any "areas of concentration" in Omaha - or Nebraska, for that matter.

In the Omaha area, people in the Millard School Districts (within the Omaha city limits, but their own school system) consider their high schools to be the best of the best. Those are upper-middle to upper-class schools in the west part of Omaha, and there's a LOT of school pride.

On the other hand, my daughter is about to graduate from Omaha North High School. Most people west of 72nd Street would scoff at the idea of their child going to North, but it's a great school - a Magnet School. Enrollment is increasing rapidly, because more and more people are seeing that it has excellent academic programs - especially in the areas of science, engineering and technology. I think that 4 students from North earned perfect scores on their ACTs last year, and one or two also scored perfect on their SATs. Ironically, North High is in what is considered to be the "undesirable" part of Omaha, and the majority of the students are black.

I cannot give you much of a good opinion on either elementary or junior high schools, because our sons were grown before we moved to Omaha, and our daughter was starting high school at the time.


The bottom line is that you're going to get all kinds of opinions about schools, and those opinions will be based largely on where the "opinion sharers" either went to school, or their kids go to school.

[Dave1215]

While there are some schools that do have better reputations than others, I really don't believe there is a bad district in the Omaha metro... as others have indicated, Millard, District 66, Papillion/LaVista will generally be mentioned as some of the better, thats from a group that's generally all good.

[Omaha Rocks]

Originally Posted by Dave1215

While there are some schools that do have better reputations than others, I really don't believe there is a bad district in the Omaha metro... as others have indicated, Millard, District 66, Papillion/LaVista will generally be mentioned as some of the better, thats from a group that's generally all good.

I may very well be mistaken, but I really don't hear a lot of good comments about Omaha South High, Northwest High and Benson High.

But maybe I'm just missing all the good stuff...

[jnorlund]

We are moving to the Omaha area from CA over the next 7 weeks and I have a daughter starting Kindergarden next year.

I have scoured the lists from schooldigger and greatschools.net (which vary wildly) and I find them lacking in reporting of results, etc. Guess we are spoiled here in CA on that front at least.

We are also trying to find out which schools offer GATE programs as well.

If anyone knows a better (free) resource, drop a line. Thanks.

[jnorlund]

After I asked the question above I was actually able to find a good one:

www.schooldatadirect.org

Not only does it let you customize data tables, you can export it into Excel. Awesome. I got everything I needed for results.

I'm a bit of a stat junkie so this might not be exciting for those looking for at a glance stuff.

[Burquebinder]

One of the great things about Omaha, is that you really can't go wrong with schools - there are great public and private school options all over the city. For many coming from outside the area, I can see how this would be baffling as Omaha is perhaps the only city of over 400,000 in the country that has even close to a solid set of schools, district wide.

[Harpoon]

Millard and Westside districts are highly sought after.