Best area in Spokane to raise a family (Tacoma, South Hill: hairstyles, school district)

[Deena160]

My husband will be working in the airport area. We're seriously looking at areas around Indian Trail, southern South Hill, and in the Valley. He has a very easy commute right now, but reckons 20-odd minutes wouldn't be too painful.
I loved Greenacres when we visited last summer. Our lot right now is about 13,000 which is fairly managable for us--a vague min/max for us would be 8,000/20,000. It all depends on the house, but I don't want to live on a postage stamp and mowing is not my husband's idea of fun! Of course, he'd love an excuse to have to buy a ride-on mower... :~) D

[ktm2007]

Originally Posted by Deena160

My husband will be working in the airport area. We're seriously looking at areas around Indian Trail, southern South Hill, and in the Valley. He has a very easy commute right now, but reckons 20-odd minutes wouldn't be too painful.
I loved Greenacres when we visited last summer. Our lot right now is about 13,000 which is fairly managable for us--a vague min/max for us would be 8,000/20,000. It all depends on the house, but I don't want to live on a postage stamp and mowing is not my husband's idea of fun! Of course, he'd love an excuse to have to buy a ride-on mower... :~) D

Well, the South Hill would be the easiest for a commute probably, depending of course on how far south you go. I grew up on the south hill. Very nice community, and probably some of my favorite houses in Spokane are on the South Hill (I love the old craftsman style houses). I havent spent much time in the Indian Trail area, but people who live up there seem to love it. Good luck in your search!

[Chibichippoke]

Hello Everyone, I'm new here so I wasn't sure if I should start a new thread or not, let me know if I need to move this post. ^_^
I have done some research on my own but have lately become inundated with information so I figured I should regroup and get opinions here first. Here's the scoop:
My family and I have just moved here this past December after a pretty short notice move. We are currently staying in a rental so we could get a feel for what the best areas are for our young family. Our eldest is going to be starting Kindergartern (gulp) this fall so we're trying to find a good elementary for him. My main concern is finding a nice house in a nice area in a house price range of 130k and under. So far finding a nice house isn't a problem, it's finding a nice house/school combo that's a problem. Then add on trying to find a nice area, plus trying to find one thats not more than a 30 min. commute to my husbands work...(am I asking for too much for this price range?) My husband works just off of E Trent and N Hamilton just off of the river. However, we will be willing to live more than a half's hour drive away if it's the right area.
We are looking for a 2br 1 ba home (atleast). It doenst matter if its a condo, townhouse, or regular single family home just aslong as its in a decent area with a nice school. I say decent now because I'm trying to be realistic. We have two young sons, one is five and the other one is 7 months. We will probably be staying in this future house for about four years until we move into a better area or just move into a new city altogether (depending on my husbands work). Any and all information is welcome. I do however, know about greatschools.net and schoolmatters.com and I believe I have crime rate statistics map...I honestly do have a slew of info but now I really just want to hear word of mouth, personal opinions. Please let me know if I left anything out, which I'm sure I did. I've been comming back and forth to this computer to finish this post and finally woke up in the middle of the night and decided to finish this (notice the hour). So, If any of this doesn't make any sense, my apologies lol Thank you in advance for all of your comments!

P.S. I believe I read somewhere that your child can attend another school that is not near your area? Is this true? Or did I read wrong? I haven't had much luck finding school boundry maps. I think I only found one district that did, ugh and I don't even know which one it was or where I put it....

[Deena160]

Welcome, Chibichippoke! Kudos for you for actually looking for a real starter home. It seems many people don't think that realistically these days--they want their starter home somewhere they invision themselves to be in in 20 years. NOT! My family has progressed over the last 16 years from 1000 sf townhome, to house in the city that wasn't in the best area, to nicer house in the suburbs, and now looking to move across the state to Spokane.
I did a quick search and I was surprised how much really is within your price range and parameters. There are some really cute little houses out there and they seem to be all over the place. If you were willing to put in some sweat equity(I know, hard to do when you have young children...) you could find a nice property that was worth the investment in some of the nicer areas.
So, you've done your research, like I have, and know where the better schools are. Scary how much they vary when one schools gets a 10 and another a 3? I wish they'd base it on something besides the WASL though. If you've read some of my other posts, you know how I feel about it. It's convoluted. If a school isn't focusing their teaching on passing the WASL that might attribute to lower numbers, but that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't doing a good job teaching the kids. It also seems like some of the "younger" schools in the Valley have lower scores.
I haven't really looked into Mead area, but there are some of the best rated elementary schools in the lower South Hill area(also seems to be an area with some older fixer-uppers. Correct me WendyK and Kena if I'm wrong. lol). Lots of young families in the Valley, but elementary schools seem to be a mixed bag. South Pines and University have better then average ratings at 7/8, while Broadway and Greenacres only rate 4/5, but then again you have parents raving/complaining about their school no matter what the scores may say!
A great tool I've found has been Google Maps Street View. Most of Spokane is on it. If you want to look at a listing, but can't jump in your car, you can go to it and most houses come up able to virtually drive round the block and see what the neighborhood looks like. I've been able to cross several homes off of my favorites because of it and I'll be able to have a look-see when my husband and I come up next week!
Hope I helped a little. Good luck with your search. :~) D

[kena]

WendyK can probably give you more options than I can but I'll pitch in with my thoughts. Finding everything you're looking for at that price point is possible I think but it will take some digging. I started by thinking of elementary schools that have good reputations but are not exclusively surrounded by homes beyond your pricerange. I'm more familiar with the schools on the south hill so take that into consideration. While you're very unlikely to find something in the Wilson or Mullan Road boundaries you might have more luck looking around Jefferson and Adams. Both are solid schools if not quite the level of the others but also have pockets where you might be able to find something in your pricerange. Both are in parts of town that are pretty decent and still provide a pretty easy commute to your husband's job.

Taking a very quick, cursory look, there are a few homes in those areas in the high 130's or low 140's listed. You'll most likely get less for your money than in other parts of town but the trade would be, in theory, a good school, a decent neighborhood, and a pretty easy commute. Good luck with your search.

[Chibichippoke]

Thanks Deena for your info ^_^ yeah I know what you mean about people who want there first homes to be something picturesque. One of my friends though seems to have gotten lucky in the first home department. Just fresh outta college and equally new to the married life, she got something around a 2.5k sq ft house with a four car carage, all the works!! And it's just her and her new husband! Talk about lucky lol. This house won't be our first actually, it will be our second. When I was pregnant last year with our youngest, I got really sick (I mean not your average morning, noon and night sickness), times got rough and so we decided to get rid of our house and start anew. We picked a couple states we thought were suitable, my husband put out some resumes, did a couple of interviews and then BAM all of a sudden he got a job offer where they wanted him in Seattle to train for three weeks. I think it was a little bit before Thanksgiving and they wanted him in Seattle by I think December 3rd Luckily we already had moved out most of our stuff and were staying at my in-laws house. I'm not that experienced with moving but that was a pretty quick move for me lol. Anyway that story leads me to where I really wanted to get to, this house won't be ours. Our credit was hurt and thankfully my in-laws are saints and are actually going to buy a house for us down here and we'll rent from them. They're hoping to make a little equity out of the house while we get to repair our credit and they'll either buy another house for us and make equity with the next one or we'll try to buy our own again. So getting a slight fixer upper is definitely a posibility. Something still livable for us but still room for improvements. It really is all up to my in-laws though. They really would be doing most if not all the funding for improvements and it will be their house. I know my father-in-law would be up to a little sweat equity. Plus, it gives them more of a reason to come see their grandkids
Oh and Google, it's fantastic isn't it? Did you notice when they launched the street view feature? I don't believe they announced it or anything. We were doing our regular searches for addresses when my husband noticed the street view link. He was like, "Woah wait a minute what's this?" He clicked on it and all of a sudden we were looking at a whole 360 degree look of the street. lol All he was saying was how awesome Google is while I was just saying," Holy cow that wasn't there yesterday." I think Spokane is a test city though because we called my husbands parents and they didn't have the feature. lol Some people, like me, wonder how someone could love a search engine when they first hear about it but man, once you really use it, it IS awesome and you do love it!
I am really worried about picking a right school for my son, especially since he's so sensitive to new environments and such. Plus add the fact that there's only so much data (like those test scores) can give you. That's why I came here, so I can get people experience, word of mouth (something more than the parent reviews that are out there). There's nothing like talking to people who've been through it ^_^ It's tough though isn't it? Like you said there's raves/ complaints no matter what the tests say! It makes me pretty stressed. I read a majority of the posts before I skimmed through the rest of them so I could finish before my baby woke up from his nap. So I'm not sure, Have you had any luck in narrowing down schools for your kids? Let me know how that goes, I'd love to know! Anyway baby's about to wake up from his nap, gotta go! (Man my posts are long huh? Has anyone's eyes gone crossed yet? I have a tendency to type, like now ::looks sheepish:: heh I'll stop now!

[WendyK]

Chibi (I love your name even if I'm not sure if I'm saying it correctly) -- right now there are actually many homes in your price range on the north side and south hill. Do you have a local grid map of Spokane? That is the easiest way to see how the neighborhoods are broken up and where the elementary schools are located. You should probably focus on trying to be one of the lower priced homes in an area of other higher priced homes. I will leave it to the others on here to recommend particular elementary schools, as I'm not really allowed to steer people. I can tell you that I have had my children in 3 different school districts here in the Spokane area, and have been happy with all of them. The elementary schools seem to foster a lot of parental involvement - I would look for a school that has opportunities for you to become involved with your son's class activities. That's the best way to know what he's doing daily.

[Deena160]

Chibi,(I can spell that without having to cut and paste it!) I'm with Wendy, try and find somewhere that encourages parents in the classroom. My youngest is in a program where parents actually are required to be in the classroom and I love it. It's a nice alternative to homeschooling which not all of us are gifted enough to do(been there, done that, and even bought the book!).
I can totally relate--our first house was really the one before the townhouse and was bought by my in-laws for us to rent from them. We did alot of improvements and they let us live the last year free so that we could save up to move and buy our home. Don't know where we'd be now without that leg-up, God bless them!!!
I'm also a typer, but I'm trying to cut back! lol.
Finding schools...argh! I have three kids with three very different needs in their education. It's very, very frustrating. People are probably getting sick of me talking about them. Because we need a specific kind of a house for handicap accessibility, I've decided we'll look at houses first and then weigh in the schools(and alot of prayers!) before we make a decision.
We'll be there next week and I have a list of about 16 homes to specifically look at. We won't be able to make even a contingency bid on any of them though until the home we're in is ready for the market though. So, we'll just have to cross our fingers. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be! I'm a firm believer that if you do all you can, then God will take care of the rest. So, I'm fully armed with all the 8 months worth of maps, facts, figures, charts and lists that my obsessive-compulsive nature can muster.
Leap of faith, baby, leap of faith! :~) D

[EasternWashMom]

We moved to Liberty Lake from Montana 2 years ago. We really like the area and love the school district. We are now buying and have chosen to stay in this general area, but out of Liberty Lake and into Greenacres. We found a great home with lots of sq ft and a big yard for the kids. This keeps them in the same Middle and High school. With a Autistic child and 3 "normal" children, the schools were a big issue. Our next issue is safety. Currently our little one can ride her bike to school, just 3 blocks away, and she is with the majority of her classmates. Very few ride the bus or get rides from parents. We have found some can be difficult, bullies and arrogant people. But we have found that is everywhere.

Loving it so much better than Montana.

[Deena160]

EWMom, would you mind sharing how old your autistic son is? My son (high functioning PDD-NOS) is 13 and in 7th grade. Would be very interested in what you know about programs in your area. Thanks!!! :~) D