Can someone rank these Abington Elementary Schools? (York, Penn: neighborhoods, school district)

[alohagirl444]

I am looking to move into the district. Can you give me your opinion on these schools and or rank them starting with the best.

Thanks.

Cooper Beech
Highland
McKinley
Overlook
Roslyn
Rydal
Willow Hill

[Tone509]

My info may be slightly outdated since I graduated over 20 years ago... but I still keep up with family and friends there, so I'd go like this:

Rydal
Copper Beach
McKinley
Overlook
Highland
Roslyn
Willow Hill

While I don't think that any of the schools are "bad" per se, as I said in another recent thread, neighborhoods east of Old York Road tend to be more upscale... so the schools are populated accordingly. Copper Beach may break the trend only because it's a relatively new school that the district poured a lot of money into. Willow Hill includes kids from Crestmont, a low-to-middle-income predominantly black neighborhood. That's probably where you'll get the most socioeconomic diversity. After Rydal and Cooper Beach, I don't think there's any discernible difference until maybe Willow Hill... and even then we're not exactly talking squalor.

So in the end, it depends on what you can afford. But as they all feed into the same junior and senior high schools, you won't have to worry about the quality of education at that level.

Originally Posted by alohagirl444

I am looking to move into the district. Can you give me your opinion on these schools and or rank them starting with the best.

Thanks.

Cooper Beech
Highland
McKinley
Overlook
Roslyn
Rydal
Willow Hill

[orrmobl]

Search for Pennsylvania public schools.

[JasmineFlower]

Originally Posted by alohagirl444

I am looking to move into the district. Can you give me your opinion on these schools and or rank them starting with the best.

Thanks.

Cooper Beech
Highland
McKinley
Overlook
Roslyn
Rydal
Willow Hill

I registered just to reply to your post because I disagree with some of what is said above. First and foremost, just because a school has a (relatively) higher amount of low to middle income black children hardly makes its a worse school, I truly didn't think there was a reason to mention that. Also, the info is incorrect, children who live in the Crestmont area attend Willow Hill and Overlook for the most part, sometimes Highland, depending on where you are drawing the Crestmont line. All 3 of which are good schools, far superior to most in the entire state. Any school in Abington School District is a good choice, you should move to where you can afford.

As for quality of schools, they are pretty equal, they are receiving the same budgets and following similar curricula, I think one of the differences comes in terms of principals, teachers, and PTA involvement. I would agree that Rydal and McKinley are great elementary schools (but I'm heavily biased towards them as I went there), but the others are as well. A new building does not mean a better school. Copper Beach isn't a better school because it has newer facilities, and at this point, their facilities are not the newest, given that Overlook, Highland, Willow Hill, and Roslyn have all been redone after Copper Beach.

McKinley, Rydal, Overlook, and Roslyn have all received Blue Ribbon awards recently (not for the first time), so you can use that as a measure if you'd like for quality. But really, you won't go wrong in ASD, you really won't.

I hope your kids enjoy the area, its a great place to grow up.

[Tone509]

Originally Posted by JasmineFlower

I registered just to reply to your post because I disagree with some of what is said above. First and foremost, just because a school has a (relatively) higher amount of low to middle income black children hardly makes its a worse school, I truly didn't think there was a reason to mention that. Also, the info is incorrect, children who live in the Crestmont area attend Willow Hill and Overlook for the most part, sometimes Highland, depending on where you are drawing the Crestmont line. All 3 of which are good schools, far superior to most in the entire state. Any school in Abington School District is a good choice, you should move to where you can afford.

As for quality of schools, they are pretty equal, they are receiving the same budgets and following similar curricula, I think one of the differences comes in terms of principals, teachers, and PTA involvement. I would agree that Rydal and McKinley are great elementary schools (but I'm heavily biased towards them as I went there), but the others are as well. A new building does not mean a better school. Copper Beach isn't a better school because it has newer facilities, and at this point, their facilities are not the newest, given that Overlook, Highland, Willow Hill, and Roslyn have all been redone after Copper Beach.

McKinley, Rydal, Overlook, and Roslyn have all received Blue Ribbon awards recently (not for the first time), so you can use that as a measure if you'd like for quality. But really, you won't go wrong in ASD, you really won't.

I hope your kids enjoy the area, its a great place to grow up.

Thank you for your sharing your thoughts as they look to be more current than mine. (I have the dubious distinction of being in the class that "closed down" the former Hamilton Elementary, the adminstration building formerly known as Abington Junior High and was the last to graduate from the one-time "North Campus" of the Senior High, now known as the current Abington Jr. High.)

I agree that all the schools are essentially equally funded and that involvement and effectiveness between parents and teachers are likely the main difference. I did not mean to imply that Willow Hill was a "bad" school because they likely had the most lower-income black students. Here's something I rarely find the need to mention but -surprise! - I happen to be a black guy myself. There's a fair chance that if I graduated a year later than I did that I would have gone to Willow Hill and I'm sure I would have done fine.

I admit that I either did not know or had forgotten that the schools had been rebuilt so I'll take the hit on that. I did concede initially that my information may not be quite current but I admit to being further off than I thought. I think we can both agree one can receive a very solid, even excellent education at any ASD school; it's just a matter of where one chooses to live.