North Richmond Suburbs: Best school district Godwin or Deep Creek? (Chesapeake: homes, neighborhoods)

[sbmcpartlin]

From some initial reading on-line it looks like Deep Creek and Godwin have the reputations as being the strongest public high schools in the Northern Richmond suburbs.

What are the characteristics of each district?

Is one better than the other?

My kids aren't even in elementary school yet, so I know things can change, but just trying to plan ahead

[sls76]

I think you mean Deep Run. I don't believe you can go wrong with either. I can't say there's much distinction between the two and by the time your kids are in high school there's a good possiblity there will be lots of reassignments because of growth (there is a new high school to be built near Deep Run--not sure what the status is because of the economy, but I believe Deep Run is pretty close to capacity and the student body keeps growing). Personally, I'd focus on an elementary school because if you feed into Short Pump or Pocahontas Middles or Deep Run or Godwin High Schools you'll be in good shape.

[RVA-Jsn20]

Deep Creek is in Chesapeake, you mean Deep Run.


Deep Run is north of I64 and the neighborhoods on that side are slightly richer, but that would be the only difference between Godwin / DR. As the previous poster had said there is a new high school scheduled to open this fall, and they are likely to redraw the lines. My bet would be that Godwin / Deep Run / and the new high school will all be considered the best. Freeman, Tucker, and Hermitage are good too though.

Also, each high school has a specialty center. Godwin's is Math & Science, Deep Run is Info Techology, Freeman is leadership, Henrico is Arts, Hermitage is center for Humanities, Tucker is center for World Languages. So you could make your choice based on your childs interests and encourage them to pursue one of these specialties - I didn't do it (I went to Godwin), but it's something to think about.

[sls76]

Originally Posted by RVA-Jsn20

Deep Creek is in Chesapeake, you mean Deep Run.


Deep Run is north of I64 and the neighborhoods on that side are slightly richer, but that would be the only difference between Godwin / DR. As the previous poster had said there is a new high school scheduled to open this fall, and they are likely to redraw the lines. My bet would be that Godwin / Deep Run / and the new high school will all be considered the best. Freeman, Tucker, and Hermitage are good too though.

Also, each high school has a specialty center. Godwin's is Math & Science, Deep Run is Info Techology, Freeman is leadership, Henrico is Arts, Hermitage is center for Humanities, Tucker is center for World Languages. So you could make your choice based on your childs interests and encourage them to pursue one of these specialties - I didn't do it (I went to Godwin), but it's something to think about.

I think generally you are correct, but Deep Run does currently pull from some neighborhoods on the other side of Broad St./64. I would guess that Deep Run attendance skews slightly more affluent/homes are generally newer and Godwin tends to have a more stable population (meaning people have lived in their homes for 5+ years).

http://www.henrico.k12.va.us/boundaries/high/high.pdf

Also, your point about specialty centers is interesting and honestly I didn't know the details of those, but it may be tough for the OP to figure out his children's interests as teenagers when they're not even in elementary school. I have heard really neat things about the robotics program at Deep Run, but that's certainly not for everyone.