Philly suburb schools and communite to downtown (Philadelphia, Washington: to rent, homes)

[sshah79]

Hi all,

My family and I are moving to Philly next year. I will have to be travelling downtown to various locations around the city (I am a PCP working in multiple clinics) from Northeast all the way to South Philly. I need to be at work by 7.30 - so was hoping for a commute time of less than 40min.

House price 1-1.5 million if I can get above and good schools. We want some land (> 0.5-2 acres)

I have been told Ardmore on the west side, elkins park on east side.

Would love some suggestions

Thank you all

[AshbyQuin]

Do you plan on driving or using SEPTA? In Elkins Park you can catch the Warminster line that stops in Center city via Melrose Park Station or Elkins Park station.

[Angus215]

Elkins Park would be good geographically, but does not have the best schools (Cheltenham SD). Jenkintown is next to it and has a decent but very small school district. Better schools will be further to the north, in places such as Upper Dublin, Fort Washington, Ambler, and Lower Gwynedd . . . or to the west in the main line towns (such as Ardmore / Lower Merion). The Main Line would not be as convenient to NE Philly, however. Philly has a pretty bad highway system so check travel times on Waze or Google at the times you would be commuting.

[KansastoSouthphilly]

It might be easier to live in New Jersey. You have a good budget so I would look somewhere like Haddonfield, Moorestown or maybe Voorhees. Just keep an eye on property taxes. Generally easier to find bigger lots in NJ as well. The PA side is going to be tough to find a place with a reasonable commute to NE Philly AND South Philly. As others have alluded to, it might not look like a long distance on a map but it is a very densely populated area with a lot of congestion.

[selhars]

I take it there's no significant other's commute to consider (or you likely would have mentioned it.)

Any thought to renting for a year to get to know the areas you'd really want to consider?
Will you be able to do any counting trips in advance?

[chessimprov]

Maybe Packer Park area and use cyber school or private school.

[mphilly]

Originally Posted by Angus215

Elkins Park would be good geographically, but does not have the best schools (Cheltenham SD). Jenkintown is next to it and has a decent but very small school district. Better schools will be further to the north, in places such as Upper Dublin, Fort Washington, Ambler, and Lower Gwynedd . . . or to the west in the main line towns (such as Ardmore / Lower Merion). The Main Line would not be as convenient to NE Philly, however. Philly has a pretty bad highway system so check travel times on Waze or Google at the times you would be commuting.

Cheltenham may not have the best schools in the region but they aren’t bad.

[salonva]

i think considering the places you will be commuting to, that your initial selections Elikins Park and Ardmore/Lower Merion are very good.
As has been mentioned before, schools are better for Ardmore/ Lower Merion.

[MarketStEl]

I'm going to put in a word on behalf of the Cheltenham School District:

The district does not rank among the region's best, true, but it's far from the worst, and it's also one of the more racially/ethnically diverse districts in the Philadelphia suburbs, outranked on this score only by Upper Darby's.

I consider this a value worth considering; you can read me elaborating on this point somewhat in the semi-autobiographical cover feature I wrote for the September 2019 Schools Issue of Philadelphia magazine. Since it dealt with city grade schools exclusively, it's not really a guide to schools in the 'burbs, but the same general observations apply: if you support your kids, they will do as well in a "bad" school as in a "good" one: studies show that the single strongest correlating factor with student performance in school is the income of the student's household.

And Cheltenham, like Ardmore, is home to a sizable historically Black community.

La Mott dates to before the Civil War; it's one of several tracts of land around this region Quaker abolitionists purchased for the purpose of allowing free Blacks to settle in them. The community is named for Quaker abolitionist Lucretia Mott, whose family homestead was located in it.

I'm not exactly certain of this, but looking at the locations of the township's grade schools, both La Mott and Elkins Park children would attend Myers Elementary in Elkins Park. The school is housed in the oldest building still used for a grade school in the district, but it got renovated in the mid-2010s, when three of the district's five elementary schools got all-new buildings.

For these reasons, I would not rule out Elkins Park as a place to live. But there is a caveat: Property taxes in Cheltenham Township are quite high.

[mphilly]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

I'm going to put in a word on behalf of the Cheltenham School District:

The district does not rank among the region's best, true, but it's far from the worst, and it's also one of the more racially/ethnically diverse districts in the Philadelphia suburbs, outranked on this score only by Upper Darby's.

I consider this a value worth considering; you can read me elaborating on this point somewhat in the semi-autobiographical cover feature I wrote for the September 2019 Schools Issue of Philadelphia magazine. Since it dealt with city grade schools exclusively, it's not really a guide to schools in the 'burbs, but the same general observations apply: if you support your kids, they will do as well in a "bad" school as in a "good" one: studies show that the single strongest correlating factor with student performance in school is the income of the student's household.

And Cheltenham, like Ardmore, is home to a sizable historically Black community.

La Mott dates to before the Civil War; it's one of several tracts of land around this region Quaker abolitionists purchased for the purpose of allowing free Blacks to settle in them. The community is named for Quaker abolitionist Lucretia Mott, whose family homestead was located in it.

I'm not exactly certain of this, but looking at the locations of the township's grade schools, both La Mott and Elkins Park children would attend Myers Elementary in Elkins Park. The school is housed in the oldest building still used for a grade school in the district, but it got renovated in the mid-2010s, when three of the district's five elementary schools got all-new buildings.

For these reasons, I would not rule out Elkins Park as a place to live. But there is a caveat: Property taxes in Cheltenham Township are quite high.

Thank you for writing this, I totally agree. Statistically high achieving students do very well at Cheltenham.