Best areas for 30s couple wanting to start a family? Milwaukie, Tigard, Beaverton, SW hills, Woodstock, etc

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

For convenience, anywhere within walking distance of MAX. Take MAX downtown, hop on the streetcar, walk in the door at work. You can take your bike on the train if there is room. Stay close in for a fast trip. The Orange Line is a good bet.

Of the three east-side MAX lines, the Orange Line would be my pick too. I've always been partial to the SE neighborhoods. The Westmoreland, Eastmoreland and Sellwood neighborhoods are nice. Someplace within walking distance of the Bybee or Johnson Creek Orange line MAX stops would be ideal for a downtown job.

The Red/Blue line equivalents would be either Lloyd Center or the Hollywood areas or Providence Hospital areas which are more urban and chaotic and probably less family/residential friendly.

The yellow line neighborhoods in north Portland I'm less familiar with.

[Benzito]

It is possible to live as far out as Lake Oswego and still have a reasonable commute via public transport (bus). You'd have to live in town (more towards the river) as the main route to Portland runs up and down Highway 43. I have a friend who takes the bus into downtown every morning and then rides his bike home (more downhill). Actually, a few folks do this as the ride is about 25 minutes and all of the main lines end up driving within a block or two of City Hall.

If you could swing Lake O on a $450k budget, you are getting 5 of the top 6 elementary schools and 2 of the top 5 public high schools in the entire state. It is absolutely worth it if education is the top priority, even with all of the negatives that you'll hear about that community (too white, snobby, old money, suburb, etc.).

[EasyBeezy]

Originally Posted by StealthRabbit

Bikeable to downtown / starting a family and working downtown... I wouldn't be moving to these areas.
Milwaukie/Oak Grove
Beaverton
Tigard
Southwest (near Multonomah Village/Markham/Hillsdale)
Raleigh Hills area
Cedar Mills area

There are plenty of options near town (without being in the hills, not all that fun / safe for biking in winter)

Walkable to work would be nice, and plenty of choices there too.

Bridges should not be a huge delay if biking (Except a very rare draw bridge event, which you can plan around.)

Oaks Park, Selwood, Westmoreland, Woodstock, Eastmoreland... or closer to town.

Hillsdale if you are trying for BUFF.

I would dispute the notion that Milwaukie is not bikeable to downtown or that it would not be a good place to start a family. Oak Grove may not be within easy biking distance (although the Trolley Trail does pass right through it) but most of Milwaukie itself is. I bike downtown to work from Milwaukie all the time. Takes less than an hour, which is comparable to the drive in non-pandemic times traffic.

The schools in Milwaukie, according to the online rating sites, aren't the best. However, they aren't terrible either, and I contend that the quality of the schools according to the rating system has alot more to do with the parents and their educational level than it does the city or the school district. If you are serious about your kids education, then they will do well even at a lower rated school.

[Nell Plotts]

Originally Posted by EasyBeezy

..

The schools in Milwaukie, according to the online rating sites, aren't the best. However, they aren't terrible either, and I contend that the quality of the schools according to the rating system has alot more to do with the parents and their educational level than it does the city or the school district. If you are serious about your kids education, then they will do well even at a lower rated school.

I live in one of the highest-rated school enrollment areas in Portland and agree with the above. Much of a child's academic success is due to the involvement of parents and peers. I grew up in the Chapman neighborhood, economically it was diverse but due to the arrival of refugees from Europe after WWII poorer households' families were academically oriented.

It is possible to research census data to find a neighborhood that works for you.

[EasyBeezy]

Some school districts themselves are impoverished and thus I would be more wary of sending my kids to underfunded schools. However, this is not the case in Milwaukie. North Clackamas SD has some of the highest rated schools in the state in it's more affluent areas (Happy Valley) and all the schools that I've been to seem well equipped and staffed. I'm looking forward to seeing the new Milwaukie HS when they finish construction.

[texasdiver]

I've been around education and teaching for half my professional life and have three kids in public schools. If we aren't talking about extreme examples and just shades of grey between somewhat comparable districts then my thoughts are as follows:

1. At the elementary level there is frankly not that much difference from school to school if resources are roughly equivalent. Most of your child's experience in elementary school is determined by the individual teacher or teaching team and not the school or administration. Elementary schools my children attended in Texas were virtually identical to those in the Pacific Northwest. Where resources come into effect are in things such as class size and enrichment like arts, music, librarians, and even science, which are often the first to go in times of budget crisis.

At the middle school and high school level, tracking starts to happen in earnest and the bright kids start being congregated into honors tracks which become AP tracks in HS. This is often done based on math classes. Kids are grouped according to math class at many middle schools but because of block scheduling those groupings end up extending to ELA and social studies classes. So, for example, at my daughter's middle school last year all the 8th grade blocks were organized around the three levels of math that was offered. And even though the social studies and science classes were supposedly identical, they weren't in practice because the same group of smart math kids were in all three classes together. At high schools it is even more extreme and self-selecting, especially at larger high schools where there are really often several schools within a school happening. You have cadres of kids who all populate the same honors and AP classes and float through school often barely even associating with the rest of the student body.

What this means is that schools which may be "struggling" in the school rankings do so largely because of the performance of the bottom 50% of the student body, not the top 50% of the student body. Those are the students with language issues, attendance issues, bouncing from school to school, homelessness, problems at home, etc. etc. that are often aggravated by poverty. So if you were to compare the student population at a lower ranked HS like say...Gresham to a top ranked one like Lake Oswego. The top 10% is going to look pretty similar. An AP bio class at Gresham is going to be pretty similar to one at Lake Oswego. It is the bottom 25-50% that will be dramatically different. And that is largely where the difference in scores comes from. In fact sometimes that top classes are even better at poorer schools because you have fewer marginal students signing up for them. Consequently you you get a more rarified group of talented kids. At some wealthy schools parents sign everyone up for AP classes even if they don't want to be in them or aren't ready for them and they get watered down as a result.

What does that mean if you are a parent? In my opinion, where you get the biggest contrast between high and lower ranked schools is in the middle or mainstream student populations. If your child is not an honors or AP type student but just struggling along in school then rougher, higher poverty schools are going to be a tougher experience because there will be so many more peers providing bad examples. And honestly, the mainstream (non honors/advanced) classes in lower rated or poorer schools are often more noisy and disruptive and difficult to manage.

The other problematic situation is in smaller rural schools in poorer communities, especially at the HS level, when there is not enough of a cadre of advanced students to populated advanced and AP classes. Then you have students start to leave for things like running start in WA and the equivalent dual-enrollment community college programs in OR and then you get a vicious cycle where the HS can't offer advanced classes because half the students who would be taking them are off doing running start community college classes instead.

What does this mean for parents? If you have bright motivated students who will be in advanced college-bound tracks then they will be just fine in any of the Portland metro schools. On the other hand, if you have students who are struggling, unmotivated, and for whom getting through school is likely to be a challenge, then the higher ranked and wealthier schools are likely to give a bigger leg up just by virtue of having more motivated peers and chaotic classes at the lower levels. It is a lot easier to get your unmotivated student through school if all their peer's parents have similar high expectations and are pushing them than if the opposite is true.