best community place to raise a high school student in Seattle suburb (Bellevue: student loans)

[junbug1974]

We are considering moving to Seattle soon.
We have one boy who will be starting high school 2010.
Our budget is around $500,000 max. We want to be around good community area with good high school.
Any advise for decent area and good church too?

We are trying to move out of Orange County CA area.

[Ira500]

Maple Valley has good schools, lot of churches, is pretty, and has a lots of houses for under 500,000.
It would be a bit of a commute to Seattle or the Eastside, where most of the jobs are.
The eastside has good schools. That includes Bellevue, Kirkland,Redmond, and Issaquah. You don't get quite as much house for your money as in Maple Valley, but the commute would be easier.

[packet]

Don't know about the church, but anywhere north of Seattle generally has good schools. On the eastside, Redmond, Issaquah, Bellevue all have excellent schools.

[StealthRabbit]

get close to a college where you can utilize "Running Start" INSTEAD of HS grades 11 & 12. It was/is a 'godsend' for my own kids and numerous others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_Start
http://www.k12.wa.us/runningstart/default.aspx (broken link)
http://www.epinions.com/content_4844134532

One of my kids wanted to do HS too, so... no problem. There are 24 hrs / day, so as long as they got the AA degree by HS graduation it was fine with me to do both (as well as work PT, work on our farm and income pros, and do varsity sports, drama, and music). It worked well and 3.8+ gpa in both programs (4.0 at HS of course, because it is taught to lowest denominator) My kids went directly into U's as full Jrs, saving them LOTS of student loans. (100% self paid college). They both were very successful at college, which I attribute the preliminary study and social skills learned in Running Start were big contributors. (kids were asked to be tutors at RS, so that helped to, tutoring adults BEFORE college, gives a REAL perspective of what NOT to do with your life.)

HS really is 'burning daylight' for most kids. (JMHO... kids should be 'indentured' as apprentices in Jr, High to learn a trade, then do vocational or college prep INSTEAD of HS.) I just finished another degree (post age 50) and the quality of kids in University is pathetic, almost as bad as the quality of profs. Regardless of college aspirations, having a skill and some work experience MAY prove more beneficial than the social nightmare of Jr and SR high school.

Churches vary, but definately look into Mar's Hill locations. They have an engaged community ministry. Mars Hill Church

[texastrigirl]

I would ditto all of the areas mentioned for good schools in that price range. We live in Sammamish and attend Issaquah Schools. Our kids will go to Skyline HS but Issaquah HS is also just terrific. You can go to the Washington State Report Card website to check out HS's.

Washington State Report Card

As far as churches go, on the Eastside we attend Overlake Christian Church in Redmond (Love God // Love People // Serve the World // > INDEX). Other churches that are non-denominational are Timberlake Christian Church, Westminster Chapel, Mars Hill , Antioch Bible Church and Crossroads Bible Church. Of course there are many more but these are the better known churches with vibrant communities IMO. There is a bit of a spectrum in terms of fundamentalism in these churches that are listed but the great thing is you can check them all out online and listen to sermons, etc. DM me if you need more info.

Good luck!

[junbug1974]

Thank you all so much for the info.
Its been a great help and I really appreciate all of you for the response.
Have a great and blissful day.