Best area for our family- North Port, Port Charlotte, other? (Sarasota: rental, crime rates)

[tnalilly]

We are planning to relocate to Florida as soon as our house sells in Wisconsin. We recently re-visited Florida and are most interested in the North Port or Port Charlotte areas. Can anyone give me any information about the public schools, crime rates, and overall family friendliness of these areas? What about job prospects? I am an RN and my husband is in the Air Force (reserves). We have two boys, ages 4 and 11 and want to be in a nice area to raise our kids. We need to be in an area where housing is nice, yet affordable. I would also like to be within 30 minutes or so of some nice beaches. (I know.....I want it all.) Any suggestions or information would be greatly appreciated!

[Kkirch123]

Schools are good but alot of cutting on teachers jobs. I am assuming it will affect class sizes. We use imagine schools of North Port and they are good. It is a free charter school. They opened this year and everyone has been happy (those I know). Most people like cranberry and toledo blade (again what I hear). RN jobs check online I believe all the hospitals Peace river, fawcett (port charlotte) and sarasota memorial and doctors (sarasota) and venice and englewood all have an online job search. I know smh def. does. Good Luck

[SoFLGal]

Originally Posted by tnalilly

We are planning to relocate to Florida as soon as our house sells in Wisconsin. We recently re-visited Florida and are most interested in the North Port or Port Charlotte areas. Can anyone give me any information about the public schools, crime rates, and overall family friendliness of these areas? What about job prospects? I am an RN and my husband is in the Air Force (reserves). We have two boys, ages 4 and 11 and want to be in a nice area to raise our kids. We need to be in an area where housing is nice, yet affordable. I would also like to be within 30 minutes or so of some nice beaches. (I know.....I want it all.) Any suggestions or information would be greatly appreciated!

I live in North Port and really like it here. I have three kids and my older two go to school in Osprey and my little one will be starting school at Toledo Blade Elementary gifted program. As the previous poster stated many people choose Toledo Blade, Cranberry and Lamarque.

Here's a link that will give you the grades from the state on each school. Just go to the link and click Sarasota and/or Charlotte counties:
School Accountability Report... You can also go to greatschools.com to get some more opinions on specific schools. Then when you're ready to pick a school and you're wondering about the teachers go to ratemyteachers.com. It's actually pretty funny, but accurate since it's the kids giving opinions of each teacher.

I moved from Charlotte county to Sarasota county specifically for the school system. Not that Charlotte county has a bad school system, it's just that I wanted my kids to attend Pine View School and Osprey and one of the requirements is that you are a Sarasota county resident.

North Port is about 25 mins or so from the closest beach and Port Charlotte is a little farther.

As far as job prospects go, I would not move here without a job. The unemployment rates are in the double digits. That being said, North Port is opening up a new hospital at the end of this year, Port Charlotte has Peace River Medical Center and Fawcett Hospital, Punta Gorda has a Hospital, Venice has Venice Hospital and then there's Sarasota Memorial. Those are your bigger establishments. Then, of course, you have your smaller Dr's office and there a dime a dozen around here.

Good luck with your move

[Kkirch123]

soflgal, I just wanted to say I think it is wonderful the info you give. We lived in NP and just moved recently due to a job up in SC transfer. I go on this area board (SC) to and alot of the realtors claim the market is good you can find jobs etc. I know many up in SC without them and can't find one. I think it is very good that you speak the truth with jobs as well as other things. I also think our kids may have been together in school kinder. Is your dd 11ish and did she have leffler for a little bit? I saw pictures from boca and she looks familiar. Anyway, again thanks for the honesty!

[SoFLGal]

Originally Posted by Kkirch123

soflgal, I just wanted to say I think it is wonderful the info you give. We lived in NP and just moved recently due to a job up in SC transfer. I go on this area board (SC) to and alot of the realtors claim the market is good you can find jobs etc. I know many up in SC without them and can't find one. I think it is very good that you speak the truth with jobs as well as other things. I also think our kids may have been together in school kinder. Is your dd 11ish and did she have leffler for a little bit? I saw pictures from boca and she looks familiar. Anyway, again thanks for the honesty!

Yup, she is 11 and she did have Leffler (Ugh!) for about four months (until winter break) or so and then they moved her over to Mrs. Scully's 1st grade class. She came into kindergarten reading the Harry Potter books and doing multiplication. They had her sitting at a desk by herself (in kindergarten) because she was bored and would "annoy" the other kids. She's been up at Pine View since 2nd grade and is doing fantastic. She had long blonde hair when she was in Leffler's class, as you can see she has since cut it off and it looks kind of boyish. That's alright though, she's happy with it.

I looked at your username and can't seem to place you by that. I'm gonna pull out the kindergarten class pictures and see if I can figure it out.

Thanks for the kudos anyway! I call it like it is. I'm not one to put on the rose colored glasses give a bunch of B.S. If the market, jobs, etc are doing crappy I'm gonna tell you that and vice verse. That irritates me to no end when you see Realtors bending the truth about what's happening in their town. Then people move there and things aren't how they thought it would be. Not a good situation.

[tnalilly]

Thank you guys/gals so much for the information. I am so happy to have found this web site! It is so helpful. It is really nice that complete strangers would take the time to help others out by providing the information found on this site. If anyone else has anything else to add, please keep the info coming, as it is all very much appreciated.

[CuteShuz]

Hi,
I think one of the most affordable places to live is East Englewood/Port Charlotte line, very close to beaches (10-15 min) and if you go the other direction the "city" part of Port Charlotte is over the bridge - another 10 min or so down the road. There are 2 hospitals in Port Char. and one in Englewood. I have heard that there is a need for RNs in the area and they are predicting a shortage. As far as kids go, we have a son and he loves the beach and going on the boat and fishing. I would like him to get into golf. I have some photos from on the boat and info about fishing, hospitals (I am in the medical field) and beaches and other stuff in the area at the bottom of this link CharlotteCountyCharlotteHarbor
Hope that helps!

[mrcoolmrcool28]

Originally Posted by tnalilly

We are planning to relocate to Florida as soon as our house sells in Wisconsin. We recently re-visited Florida and are most interested in the North Port or Port Charlotte areas. Can anyone give me any information about the public schools, crime rates, and overall family friendliness of these areas? What about job prospects? I am an RN and my husband is in the Air Force (reserves). We have two boys, ages 4 and 11 and want to be in a nice area to raise our kids. We need to be in an area where housing is nice, yet affordable. I would also like to be within 30 minutes or so of some nice beaches. (I know.....I want it all.) Any suggestions or information would be greatly appreciated!

We too are in Wisconsin. Whereabouts are you? We're 15 minutes east of Madison. We bought a vacant lot in Port Charlotte last month and can't wait 'til we can build a house and move down there. When we were down house hunting in February, we met a number of people off this board, namely Augie, Mr. & Mrs. Sunshine, the Veltes, and SoFlGal and Big House. All are wonderful wonderful people. You will do yourselves a huge favor by getting to know these people and move to PC asap. Hope to meet you (down there!) soon!! mr. & mrs. cool

[tnalilly]

Thanks again for all of the wonderful information. Everyone has been so helpful!!! We are currently living in Chippewa Falls, WI. (Right next to Eau Claire.) Unfortunately, we JUST had a "twindominium" built and we purchased both sides with the intent of having one side as a rental property. We moved in last November and the other side is currently rented, but after re-visiting Florida, we are hooked and want to move. I'm not positive, yet, if we will sell or try to rent out both sides and keep this place for a few years until the market changes a bit. The problem is we will be so far away, it will be hard to manage. We have family nearby, but don't want to burden them. The other issue is we want to be able to buy a home as soon as possible in Florida, but we're not sure we would be able to get another mortgage, even if our home in WI were rented. So, basically, it's all up in the air at the moment, The only thing we know for sure is that we are very anxious to get to Florida!!! I think my husband and I are going to try to drive down the first week in August to check some things out. Again, I really do appreciate all of the information you've all provided. Thanks again and I hope to one day meet all of you!

[mrcoolmrcool28]

YIKES!! Chippewa Falls??? Man!! And we think it's cold down HERE!! My sis-in-law went to school at UW-Eau Claire..visited her... ONCE!! That was enough for me!