Wilson School District & Sinking Spring and West Lawn Housing? (Reading: crime, house)

[knicksin8]

I am considering a move to Berks County, to have my kids attend the Lincoln Elementary School of the Wilson School District.
I have several questions that I would greatly appreciate answers to, as I am from Wisconsin:

Can anyone comment on the quality of this school district?

Is housing in either Sinking Spring or West Lawn relatively safe and sheltered from the crime of Reading?

Is housing in Sinking Spring or West Lawn considered rural or suburban? Any suggested or recommended new construction single family house communities in either West Lawn or Sinking Spring?

Is the commute to and from Lancaster do-able?

Any feedback regarding this area would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[knicksin8]

bump

[1067Top]

Hi,

Wilson has a very good reputation as a school district. We live near Sinking Spring but our children went to Conrad Weiser. Both West Lawn and Sinking Spring are suburbs although neither are far from rural areas. To the best of my knowledge, there isn't any new construction going on in West Lawn. If you are interested in new construction, you are more likely to find that in Sinking Spring. A note of caution, though. The school boundaries here are not always easy to determine. Also, a Sinking Spring post office address does not necessarily mean that location is in Sinking Spring. For example, we've lived in two locations since moving here in 1995, both in South Heidelberg Township a couple of miles apart. Our first address was 'Wernersville' and 'Sinking Spring' is our post office now. There is also a Spring Township which neighbors Sinking Spring. Spring Township is relatively large and I believe most if not all of it is also in the Wilson School District. Best of luck and welcome to Berks County if you decide on the move.

[NYMD67]

Yes, we just recently relocated to the Sinking Spring area and found the school zoning and post office locations somewhat confusing. We moved from out of state are not familiar with townships,etc...
My suggestion would be,if you are looking at homes with a realtor,be sure to ask them to verify the school district.
I spent many hours prior to moving on schoolmatters.com to try to educate our family on what the best areas would be.
Wilson School district seems to have a really great reputation and our experience so far with our child's elementary school has been wonderful.
We were also looking at homes in the Conrad Weiser area but settled on the Wilson school district.
We did find that there were many new builds available on the Conrad Weiser area but really were focusing on a particular elementary school which is in the Wilson School District.

As far as the townships.. I had a "funny" and slightly confusing conversation with a person at the Lower Heidelberg Township office a few weeks after moving here. We had some questions about our trash pickup and they woman informed me that we do not live in Sinking SPring,that NO ONE actually lives in Sinking Spring but our post office is Sinking Spring... So I asked here where I actually live and she said I live in Lower Heidelberg?
I asked her why there are street signs indicating Sinking Spring and she said that there isn't....
well,if you drive around,there certainly are signs that say Sinking Spring so I am just still somewhat confused about this whole thing... in any case,our mail is delievered to my address which says Sinking Spring

Good Luck with your decision,so far,we are happy with ours. Although,it has been harder as an adult I believe to adjust but our children are doing great!

[ki0eh]

Some other non-existent places in PA are: Levittown, Hershey, Boiling Springs, and Boalsburg. They may have signs that say "Village Of X" but in PA (unlike other states) a "village" is a community without a separate legal existence. The legal municipalities are: city, borough, town (only 2 of these), or township. The federal government in its quest to define us has this to say: Census-designated place - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is a Borough of Sinking Spring, though, so what you were told seems odd. http://www.borough.sinking-spring.pa.us/