Lower Merion Elementary Schools

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by Tallybalt

If you spend more than $1 million for a house on the Main Line, the clear majority of children in the surrounding $1+ million houses will be attending private schools. That's how it works on the Main Line, particularly in Lower Merion.

Not at all true. I can't speak for the other suburbs, but Lower Merion has absolutely no shortage of people living in million dollar-plus homes who are more than happy to send their kids to public schools and pocket the $25,000k+ per child they would have shelled out on private school tuition. Plenty of kids at Penn Valley/Welsh Valley/Harriton who came from affluent to super-affluent families. There is a cut-off point, but it's much closer to $2 million than one. At least that's how it worked in my new money Jewish circle. The old money WASPs might play the game a little bit differently.

tl;dr: OP's kids would not at all be alone in an LM public school.

[Tallybalt]

Yes...

That's why I said there are patches, almost like fiefdoms. If the OP wants an immediate neighborhood where most kids are in the local elementary schools (as in most of the kids on her street, not just the township) she needs to be careful where she ends up buying her house. Certain parts of the Mainline are more attractive to private school parents and others to public school parents. There are streets after streets in Bryn Mawr, Rosemont or Haverford where pretty much all the kids are in private schools and other streets where the public school is the preferred choice.

Originally Posted by HeavenWood

Not at all true. I can't speak for the other suburbs, but Lower Merion has absolutely no shortage of people living in million dollar-plus homes who are more than happy to send their kids to public schools and pocket the $25,000k+ per child they would have shelled out on private school tuition. Plenty of kids at Penn Valley/Welsh Valley/Harriton who came from affluent to super-affluent families. There is a cut-off point, but it's much closer to $2 million than one. At least that's how it worked in my new money Jewish circle. The old money WASPs might play the game a little bit differently.

tl;dr: OP's kids would not at all be alone in an LM public school.

[silverspringer]

OP's kids clearly wouldn't be "alone" in public, but there is much more of a culture of private school here than in the DC suburbs, imo. This article is admittedly from 1997 but it says 30-40% of LM kids attend private. Obviously that isn't going to be uniformly true across the township. You only have to drive around during open house season to notice how many signs there are (often clustered, as noted, in certain areas). It's not because the public schools aren't very good, it's just something different here to keep in mind.

[ajl22586]

I went though the school system there not too long ago. Gladwyne is an excellent school and goes above and beyond for each and every student. Welsh Valley and Harriton however are a vastly different story. If I lived there and had the money the OP has, I would consider sending my kids to Shipley for junior high and high school.

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by ajl22586

I went though the school system there not too long ago. Gladwyne is an excellent school and goes above and beyond for each and every student. Welsh Valley and Harriton however are a vastly different story. If I lived there and had the money the OP has, I would consider sending my kids to Shipley for junior high and high school.

What's wrong with Welsh Valley and Harriton? My high school only sent, like, 20-25% of students to Ivy League colleges. Harriton isn't even the same high school anymore, post-reconstruction/redistricting (still an excellent high school, just no longer the "small" high school and certainly not the "rich" high school to the extent it once was). I actually had a somewhat tough time at Welsh Valley myself, but looking back, I see that as just a matter of middle school being sucky in general for a lot of people.

I also remember you railing on Gladwyne/the Main Line in general for being snobby/pretentious, qualities which are most prominent at fancy private schools like Shipley. And maybe I'm misremembering, but didn't you also say you left the area before high school?

[PRW MEB]

Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and suggestions. Just wanted to clear up a few things. I am fine if we are the only family on our street attending public school so long as the school we attend has that small community/active parents environment. We are also fine with being one of few kids who have to ride the bus to school so long as we are in that same type of small school community. About 20% of kids in our current neighborhood attend extremely expensive private schools, so we are accustomed to having friends in private schools.

That said, I'd like to get more information about particular schools. Are there any elementary schools in the district that stand out for having smaller class sizes, better facilities, or for having more active parents? I have read about a few schools but would like to hear your thoughts. Also, are there any elementary schools in the district that regularly out perform the others on tests etc.?

Re: Gladwyne Elementary. Thanks for the comments about the possibility of having less of a community feel. I had that sense simply from looking at mapquest. It seems to feed from a large area and it doesn't look as if many kids could be walkers. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

[PRW MEB]

Also, both Harrinton and Lower Merion are small schools in my opinion. If we stayed in our current school district for high school, we would be attending a school with about 2000 other kids. It is an excellent school, however.

I have no issue with the size of the LMSD high schools.

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by PRW MEB

Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and suggestions. Just wanted to clear up a few things. I am fine if we are the only family on our street attending public school so long as the school we attend has that small community/active parents environment. We are also fine with being one of few kids who have to ride the bus to school so long as we are in that same type of small school community. About 20% of kids in our current neighborhood attend extremely expensive private schools, so we are accustomed to having friends in private schools.

That said, I'd like to get more information about particular schools. Are there any elementary schools in the district that stand out for having smaller class sizes, better facilities, or for having more active parents? I have read about a few schools but would like to hear your thoughts. Also, are there any elementary schools in the district that regularly out perform the others on tests etc.?

Re: Gladwyne Elementary. Thanks for the comments about the possibility of having less of a community feel. I had that sense simply from looking at mapquest. It seems to feed from a large area and it doesn't look as if many kids could be walkers. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

Except for a small ring immediately surrounding the school itself, no one has the option of safely walking to Gladwyne. The elementary school services a large area because the western half of the Township is much less densely populated than the eastern half.

Merion Elementary is probably going to have the highest proportion of walkers, and even then the majority are still going to be taking the bus. I don't think any elementary school in particular outshines any of the others as far as class sizes/facilities/parent activity go, but I also never had the opportunity to directly compare. Rest assured, any school your child is zoned into is going to be an outstanding one.

[narb06]

Are there any schools that stand out? No. The school district works very hard to "equalize" resources, curricula, and programs across all the schools at every level (elementary, middle, and high). In addition, the student population is very similar from school to school (e.g, nearly all parents are well educated, care a lot about education, are highly involved, etc.). You can find minor test-score differences from school to school if you dig around enough, but my guess is those differences are mostly random and vary from year to year anyway.

You are lucky in that you can really choose whatever you want. Choose based on the house, the neighborhood feel, the commute, the yard, walkability, etc. You don't have to choose based on schools.