Moving to Roanoke ASAP!! Help! (Cave Spring, Radford: real estate, crime, houses)
Roanoke areaRoanoke - Salem area
Please register to participate in our discussions with 1.5 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Hi! My husband, myself, and our almost 2 year old are moving to Roanoke within the next 2 weeks. We just sold our house in Radford and are doing a really quick closing. My husband will be teaching at Franklin County HS so we'd prefer to live in more Southern Roanoke to reduce the commute time. My husband grew up in Northern Roanoke and went to Roanoke Valley Christian for school but isn't very familiar with other parts of Roanoke. I didn't realize that Roanoke City's schools were as bad as they were (Fleming and Patrick Henry ranked very close to the lowest in the state) and want to live somewhere with a great elementary school. I know Roanoke county schools are better but the area is also much pricier. My husband is a teacher so we aren't exactly rich. So any advice on an affordable neighborhood with a good elementary school? We're going to look around with a real estate agent this weekend but would love any insight from people who have kids in the elem. schools on which ones to avoid or to seek out. Thanks SO much!
Boones Mill Elementary in Franklin County has very, very good SOL scores. Yes, I know, SOL scores, but they're the best thing to go on. In fact the 3rd grade SOL scores of Boones Mill were as good or better than the best in the entire Roanoke Metro area.
If you want to avoid living in a semi-rural setting then Southwest Roanoke County does begin pretty close to Franklin County. But there are some good solid homes in northern Franklin County and the community is fantastic.
If you're not against living in Rocky Mount then you'll find some awesome in-town homes for around $150K and up. Depending on your ideal budget I might be able to recommend something. We live over in the 24065 in between Grassy Hill and Green Level Road, which is less than 20 minutes to the High School.
Realtors especially older ones and people who grow up in Roanoke might have a negative impression of F.C. public schools but the reality is that the county has been the fastest growing in the Roanoke M.S.A. for quite a long time, and not just because of the lake growth. All that new wealth and new blood has done wonders for the school systems. And there are really quite nice community resources in Rocky Mount like the massive new Y.M.C.A., the library, etc. It's definitely worth considering.
There are some good Roanoke city schools. I wouldn't discount them based on performance numbers. And if you're a city person there are some super nice neighborhoods with modest home prices. Furthermore, there is Faith Christian School right on Buck Mountain Road in South Roanoke. So you could live in the city and send children there.
I don't mean to show my navigational bias but I think South Roanoke is much nicer than North Roanoke You'll see that once you start touring the area. Also when driving to Rocky Mount from Roanoke on Route 220S, take a detour by heading right at the light in Boones Mill on Bethlehem Road, then drive 3 miles and take a left on Green Level, and drive a couple miles and take a right on Grassy Hill Rd. Grassy Hill will bring you all the way to Rocky Mount's Main St. I suggest this because if you're not familiar with life in F.C. off of Route 220 you might never know how pretty the area actually is and that detour will really bring it home. It's even nicer in the other direction
Hi! My husband, myself, and our almost 2 year old are moving to Roanoke within the next 2 weeks. We just sold our house in Radford and are doing a really quick closing. My husband will be teaching at Franklin County HS so we'd prefer to live in more Southern Roanoke to reduce the commute time. My husband grew up in Northern Roanoke and went to Roanoke Valley Christian for school but isn't very familiar with other parts of Roanoke. I didn't realize that Roanoke City's schools were as bad as they were (Fleming and Patrick Henry ranked very close to the lowest in the state) and want to live somewhere with a great elementary school. I know Roanoke county schools are better but the area is also much pricier. My husband is a teacher so we aren't exactly rich. So any advice on an affordable neighborhood with a good elementary school? We're going to look around with a real estate agent this weekend but would love any insight from people who have kids in the elem. schools on which ones to avoid or to seek out. Thanks SO much!
Here's a search for "elementary schools" on the Roanoke forum:
Use the "advanced search" option and you can narrow it down however you like.
FWIW we just moved here and will have one child start at Patrick Henry this fall. We chose it over county schools after weighing many different pros & cons. How a school "ranks" can be measured many different ways. If your husband is a teacher he probably knows the right questions to ask when talking with different schools. Good luck.
DD, I think people put alot of stock in school district SOL scores, which you can find online. If you look at those SOL scores, Roanoke City comes in last in the entire area. People who have more flexibility with respect to where they'll live (i.e., middle to high income earners) tend to gravitate toward specific districts that have good scores. So in Roanoke that has often meant County schools (Cave Spring, Hidden Valley, etc). Personally I'm perplexed by this trend but I can certainly sympathize with the drive to "do right" by your kids.
However, SOL statistics can be misleading. Roanoke City has a higher % of lower income families, and unfortunately those socioeconomic challenges can often drag down individual student performance. Still, in that environment, children from families who make education the #1 priority will perform individually at a very high level and do very well within city schools. But lots of people simply look at that spreadsheet and think, hmmm, only 68% of students in School A are performing at or above standards, compared to 88% of students in School B. Realtors help perpetuate that "myth" also. It should be noted that for some reason there are ALOT of teachers in the area who are "horse people". As owner of a horse farm, I've boarded many a teacher's horse, and my wife has a few riding students who are also teachers. I believe all of them are teaching in city schools, and they're all absolutely wonderful teachers. I think you'll find that the best teachers who want to make the highest impact are working in Roanoke City schools.
Personally, if I were a city person I'd pick living in the City over the County in a heartbeat. The County is just not set up as nicely as the City with respect to the structure of family friendly neighborhoods. Even in the affluent neighborhoods. Heck, compare Hunting Hills to Old SW City. Hunting Hills and places like Canterbury are nice, yes, and they have mature trees, yes, but you can't walk anywhere. In Hunting Hills there are no sidewalks or even barely shoulders to speak of and you never see kids playing outside or anyone walking (and I know personally there are lots of kids because lots of them go to North Cross where my girls attend). But head over to the city on Cornwallis, or Stanley, or Richelieu, or Memorial, and there are sidewalks, and cozy streets, and kids playing, and people walking and talking, etc.
Another reason SOL scores can be misleading is for up 'n coming areas. For example, look to Franklin County. The high school SOL scores are not bad, but not great. You'd look at that and you might rule out Franklin County. But if you look at elementary school scores in Franklin County, they're literally on level with the best elementary schools in all of the Roanoke area, even outperforming in some cases the best schools period. Living here I can tell you that it's because for the past 5 years there have been lots of middle to upper income folks moving into Franklin County with young children and they're involved and place a priority on public education. So, even though Franklin County H.S. SOL scores aren't fantastic now, just wait until all these 1st through 5th graders move up to middle and high school.
Thanks guys! I appreciate all the advice. We hadn't really explored the option of living in Franklin County mainly because we wanted access to all of the things that Roanoke city offers. It does sound like Franklin Co. offers more than I realized and is still in fairly close proximity to the city. I haven't seen too many houses advertised in our price range there, though. I have my degree in elementary education and as a former teacher, I agree that SOL scores do not tell everything about a school but I feel like they are definitely an indicator of what a school (and a community) offers. As a side note, my friends who have attended Patrick Henry have very positive things to say about it and I know that PH offers some great college prep opportunities. I was just very surprised by how low their testing scores were. I drove by PH today and think that it's such a pretty school. We're looking at a couple of houses very close to the school and I think the area seems great. We drove through some sketchy neighborhoods today. I'm not at all opposed to diversity and think it would be great in a neighborhood but I don't want to live in a place where many of the neighbors seem to take no pride in taking care of their homes bringing down the value of my home and any potential for making a profit from the resale of our home. We drove through some cute parts of Garden City today kind of close to Yellow Mountain. Does anyone know anything about that area? Oh, and we drove through Old Southwest- GORGEOUS!! I think that area is so charming.
This is one of the houses we are considering: http://www.usamls.net/rvar/?mls_numb...&this_format=0
I'm very on the fence about the neighborhood. I feel like it's on the edge of acceptable. The street itself is mostly charming. The surrounding 2 or 3 streets are also pretty acceptable. I just can't tell. Does anyone know anything about Fallon Park Elementary?
Sorry this is like a book!!
Just for the record- I love Roanoke. I've wanted to move there for several years and am so excited at the prospect of living in such a charming city. I'm just hoping for the safest neighborhood and schools for my family.
Sean- I think we posted at the same time. I completely understand the point that you are making and think it has a lot of merit. I taught in a very poor rural community my first year teaching where the school did not pass their SOL scores as a whole the year I was there. The faculty was incredible and tried so hard. However, when you have a community where many of the parents work several jobs, there is very little parental involvement in the school and in the lives of their children. There also tend to be more behavioral problems which definitely interferes with a teacher's ability to conduct his or her classroom the way they would like to. It may sound hypocritical, but while I loved teaching in a school like that, I don't want my own child to attend a school like that.
Of course your husband's commute would be longer from Kenwood, so that's a drawback. Maybe if you found the right house in Garden City it would be worth considering?
Does anyone know anything about Fallon Park Elementary?...I'm just hoping for the safest neighborhood and schools for my family.
That part of town is hit and miss, best I can tell. The home looks lovely, but it's probably $50,000 lower than it might be because of the location. There are really nice streets in southeast Roanoke..and northeast Roanoke...and northwest Roanoke...bordered by not-so-nice streets.
The most consistently nice areas are Old Southwest, south Roanoke, and southwest Roanoke. That's not to say there aren't bad parts in those areas (well, maybe not SoRo! ), but you tend to get block after block of well-maintained homes and yards, not just an occasional street, and crime is lower in those parts of town. See the Roanoke Times crime data map: Roanoke Valley crime data map and search - Roanoke.com
You can see that most of the crime takes place in parts of town other than SoRo and Southwest (old and less old).
That being said, in the Fallon park area, you're really close to (duh) Fallon park, which has one of the city pools, as well as the Tinker Creek greenway and the river greenway.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $53,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 1.5 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So any advice on an affordable neighborhood with a good elementary school? We're going to look around with a real estate agent this weekend but would love any insight from people who have kids in the elem. schools on which ones to avoid or to seek out. Thanks SO much! 
), but you tend to get block after block of well-maintained homes and yards, not just an occasional street, and crime is lower in those parts of town. See the Roanoke Times crime data map: 
