mercer island questions (Seattle, Bellevue, Renton: apartments, houses, schools)

[a88888]

Hi,

Is there lots to do for teenagers on Mercer island. I have a 10 and 12 year old so I am looking ahead a few years. Will they need to be driven off the island to do all their activities.

Are the local schools facing big budget cuts like many places?

Also, if we were to live in a house on the lower price range 700-800 thousand would you feel out of place as I see many houses are well over a million?

Thanks

[AzDreamer]

What kind of activities are you planning? Most teenagers find plenty to do here, but if you need something unusual it might not be available.

I haven't heard of any school budget cuts. You could contact the local PTA for their view. You can google 'mercer island pta' for links to the various school groups.

If you are able to live your own life without always needing to one-up your friends and neighbors with some new possession you'll be fine.

[Hemlock140]

Mercer Island has a very active Boys and Girls Club with teen programs.
Mercer Island Boys & Girls Club

Other activities may require driving off since the population is not enough to support sports leagues on it's own at all ages, but Bellevue is a very short drive.

The schools are still well funded due to the work of the schools foundation in fundraising and importance that parents there give to education.
Home | Mercer Island Schools Foundation

If you can find a home that inexpensive there go for it. Despite the multimillion dollar homes there is still a range of high to low like any other place (just their low is higher than most) and the people are not going to
treat you differently as they might in Medina or Hunts Point if they had any homes that low.

[Ira500]

I'll agree with both posters above. i wouldn't say that Mercer Island is so full of activities that teens won't want to " get off the island" but both Bellevue and Seattle are ten minutes away.
And, although there are lots of million dollar + houses on the island, it's a rather unpretentious place.
The schools have been largely unaffected by budget cuts. They take their school system seriously there, and it's a great one.

[Xanathos]

Apparently I live on a different island than the rest of you guys (which is odd, because my address says I live on the same island). This is one of those places where there's not a whole lot of anything to do. This isn't necessarily a bad thing if you're an adult, but I'd imagine a teenager would go a little crazy (which explains our higher-than-usual per capita instance of harmless-but-annoying "teenage angst" that you see go down). If they're mall rats, they've got to be able to get across the bridge to either Bellevue or downtown. The local cops here will bust them up for loitering pretty quickly if they congregate in a parking lot (have seen it a few times now). I know the kid who walks my dog is a skater, and he apparently has to find a way to South Renton to get to a skate park. As someone mentioned above, there's a community center. But it wasn't so long ago that I was a teenager that I don't remember what it was like...and I don't recall anyone between 14 and 17 thinking it was all that cool to hang out at one, so I can't imagine it being a hot destination.

I'm reasonably certain most teenagers find this place pretty boring. And I'm perfectly OK with that .

[eskercurve]

I agree with Xanathos. There's some stuff to do for adults (parks, hiking, some shops, a coupla bars, basketball), and there's stuff to do for kids (again parks, trails, baseball and soccer fields, tennis, basketball, etc).

But for teens, it gets BORING. Very boring. So boring in fact they feel the need to congregate at the north end QFC every freaking night in the summer to blast the speakers out of mom and dad's gift to them. It's one of the few pet peeves living here, though if you go out to talk to them and ask what music they're playing, talk a little, then just say you gotta work the next day, typically they understand (unless there's like 20 of them). They also like to drag race down 77th. So most are pretty cool, there are some troublemakers but heck, how many teens aren't troublemakers at some point in their lives? And I do know that MI teens are not immune to drugs and sex (again the QFC parking lot attracts that sometimes).

There is a small skate park but it is nothing to write home about, and there's a BMX course hidden in the hilly trails near the north-center of the island, just to the east of the commercial district.

To keep your teens occupied, you will be forced to enroll them in extracurricular activies. The Mercer Island schools have excellent sports programs, and the MIHS baseball team won the state championship and I believe made it to the quarterfinals for the US little league championship. They're music and science and math extracurricular programs are also good. There's also private companies who specialize in extracurricular stuff here.

In short you'll have to manage your teens' time, and that may or may not work, depending on their personalities (if they're rebels, don't count on MI making much a difference).

[brandonbrinegar]

I live on Mercer Island and yes - it is very boring here. For any and all entertainment, you must get to either downtown on the freeway. Bellevue & Seattle have a lot going on and they are just 10 minutes away.

[AzDreamer]

Originally Posted by eskercurve

So boring in fact they feel the need to congregate at the north end QFC every freaking night in the summer to blast the speakers out of mom and dad's gift to them.

They also like to drag race down 77th.

The vast majority teens on the island do not hang out at the QFC. There are a few teens whose parents are confused about how to raise kids, but compared to other places you could live we are pretty well off.

When I was a teen there was a drive-in hamburger place where we could hang out. There is nothing like that here, so the QFC by default becomes the meet-up place. I feel sorry for the folks living in the apartments nearby but the rest of the town is residential and very quiet.

As for kids drag racing on 77th, in the downtown area that street has a stop sign every block. The speed limit is 25. I walk my dog along that street every night and I have never seen any drag racing. Maybe this is a problem late at night but I have never seen any mention of this in the police reports.

Answering the OP's question about teens being bored, there is plenty to do here considering the size of the island. What teen isn't bored occasionally and that usually stimulates their mind to find something to do.

[Townandcountrygal]

What activities are your teens interested in? Sadly, MI has never had a wide range of activities for kids. Yes, there is the Boys & Girls Club (limited activities) and various sports programs. There are swim pools, private clubs, tennis clubs, a martial arts club (still there?). My son never was at loss for things to do but he was into sports and chess. Many of his classmates were very bored and their parents chauffered them off island.

Note about "poverty rock" being unpretentious: I don't agree. Lived there 30+ years and how can a communuity consisting mostly of "upwardly mobile" types NOT be pretentious? Before you move there, be sure you'll be okay in this type of affluent community-- we were not upwardly mobile but had money so didn't care.