Where are the best places to live in Pittsburgh... (Franklin Park: schools, areas)

[LAMBSN]

Originally Posted by slamont61

Mt Lebanon hands down. You can always drive to the trails but if Schools come into play, Lebo is as good as it gets. Were it not for that there are plenty of other places worth checking out.

Why does everybody think Mt. Lebanon is the best to live in and the best for school? There was a drug raid there last week. I know a lot who live there (some very good friends) and they feel they are better than everybody, they aren't. They have a high school which is falling apart - I have a friend who is a teacher there and they said there is an area in the school where when it rains, water comes in and they have to move the students from that area. There are school districts better or just as good as Mt. Lebanon.

Other areas to consider would be Montour, North Allegheny, Cranberry and others.

[Hopes]

Out of the 693 high schools in the state, these are the local school districts ranking in the top 100:

6 Mt Lebo (Allegheny)
24 Franklin Regional (Westmoreland)
26 Peter's Township (Washington)
27 Upper St. Clair (Allegheny)
30 Moon (Allegheny)
40 Hampton (Allegheny)
43 Quaker Valley (Allegheny)
52 Bethel Park (Allegheny)
55 North Hills (Allegheny)
75 Fox Chapel (Allegheny)
82 Baldwin (Allegheny)
89 Deer Lakes (Allegheny)
95 South Fayette (Allegheny)
99 Mt. Pleasant (Westmoreland)
100 North Allegheny (Allegheny)

When we're recommending school districts on City Data, we rarely recommend Moon, North Hills, Baldwin, Deer Lakes, etc. Meanwhile, they rank higher than North Allegheny, which is often recommended. I think people are more focused on affluance over school quality. We can't ignore that Mt Lebo ranks 6th in the state, but we're doing our other schools a disservice by pretending the only place to live for quality education is Mt. Lebo.

[Katiana]

I would add to that, there are always "good" schools in "bad" districts, and vice versa, good teachers in bad schools and vv, etc. It's very much a crap shoot, so to speak. School scores are directly related to parental socio-economic status, so some of those good schools would score well no matter who was teaching in them. Plus, the scores mean nothing to an individual student's acheivement, as they are averages.

[Hopes]

I was thinking about that last night, Katiana. There are many decent schools in the area that don't rank as high as the ones listed because they have pockets of impoverished students throughout the townships. Those students face challenges outside of school that hinder their ability to perform and they can bring down the districts overall test score. Yet, many students thrive in these districts. Shaler would be a good example. It doesn't rank in the top 100, but it's a good school that happens to serve three major impoverished area in addition to its solid middle to upper-middle class.

[Truman325]

The best areas OVERALL (not just schools) are USC, Franklin Park, Cranberry, Peters, Pine, & Cecil. It just depends on what you are looking for. I'm not from Pittsburgh originally so I agree with others who don't understand the appeal of Mt. Lebo... It's OK, but nothing amazing.

[tmorrisn]

It's also to look at individual high ranking schools that are in otherwise mediocre districts. As a non-native, some of these schools could be in the districts that Hopes posted, but here you go.

The schools appearing on Newsweek's 1300 best high schools in the country are: Taylor Allderice (1225), North Allegheny (1261), Mount Lebanon (1075), Upper St. Clair (933), Hampton (1257), and Pine-Richland (1000) - that's near here, right?

Now keep in mind that schools and school districts are rated based on various criteria, so it would vary depending on what is important to you. Is the number of AP students more important than the % of students that go to 4yr colleges? Or maybe the whether those students go to top tier colleges? Or is the amount of extra-curricular activities offered. I just say that b/c I used to teach in MD and some of the schools that made the MD list (at a better rank than any of these schools) are not necessarily schools I would send my kids (if I had any) and some of them are just amazing schools.
You just have to research schools based on what is important to you and your brother.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by tmorrisn

Pine-Richland (1000) - that's near here, right?

It's in the north, between Hampton and Marz. It serves part of Wexford, Warrendale, Gibsonia, Valencia, and Bakerstown.

[Tootsieroll]

I currently live in Atlanta suburbs and am thinking about moving back home to Pittsburgh to be close to my family but do not want to live where I grew up in Monongahela/New Eagle area. Any suggestions?

[Impala26]

Originally Posted by Hopes

I was thinking about that last night, Katiana. There are many decent schools in the area that don't rank as high as the ones listed because they have pockets of impoverished students throughout the townships. Those students face challenges outside of school that hinder their ability to perform and they can bring down the districts overall test score. Yet, many students thrive in these districts. Shaler would be a good example. It doesn't rank in the top 100, but it's a good school that happens to serve three major impoverished area in addition to its solid middle to upper-middle class.

I myself graduated from Fox Chapel Area High School. I can safely say that the same phenomenon can be observed at that school. And no, before you start with the Fox Chapel jokes, I grew up basically in the boonies in Indiana Township in a middle-class home thank you very much. Everyone seems to assume that if you graduate from Fox Chapel that you're Richie Rich. This misconception couldn't be further from the truth.

The Fox Chapel School District comprises much more than just Fox Chapel Borough. It also contains O'hara Township, Indiana Township, Blawnox, Aspinwall, and Sharpsburg. Citing wikipedia (they're trusted enough right?), Fox Chapel has the highest median household income per year of the district at around $103K, while Sharpsburg is the lowest at about $22K. The rest of the boroughs are actually pretty evenly spaced throughout that range as well.

Sorry for the stats lesson. The point I mean to offer is that tests like those could be quite skewed. My firsthand experiences showed me that the school had quite a handful of incredibly gifted and talented students, but also had even more apathetic, lazy, and dim-witted students. Most students could basically fall specifically in one category or the other. This was generally divided by income level, but that certainly wasn't the rule. You had plenty of gifted students who were from low-income families and plenty of deadbeat know-nothings mooching off their parents' Swiss bank accounts.

The point is, this tests give a general scale of how "good" as school is, but like others have said, there are innumerable factors at work.

[Derek2444]

Originally Posted by slamont61

Mt Lebanon hands down. You can always drive to the trails but if Schools come into play, Lebo is as good as it gets. Were it not for that there are plenty of other places worth checking out.

Mt Lebo or Seton LaSalle if your looking for Catholic EDU. SLS is in the top 50 in the country.