South Hill vs. Mead?

[Waterloo]

Thanks all for sharing your personal views. It looks like both areas are good areas but offer slightly different sets of advantages. Here's my understanding:
1. Schools: good in both areas, perhaps with Brentwood having a slight edge over Mullan Road(?)
2. Cultural tolerance: not a big problem in Spokane
3. Neighborhood type: both are suburbs, but South Hill has restaurants and stores with characters.
4. Commuting: I'll be working in downtown, so South Hill has the obvious advantage.

My wife and I are still torn. With respect to the houses, I looks like the northside offers more choice (new, old, tract, "out in the country," etc); in South Hill, we'll probably be forced to pick our house among the 60s/70s ranchers in tracts. So this drives us up north.

But grayproduct said somethng interesting about sports in Mead schools. My family enjoys sports, but we don't identify ourselves with what might be called the core ESPN and Nascar audience. If athletic activities really have a religious status in Mead, we may not feel comfortable there. Any thoughts on this?

[Deena160]

It's not just sports that are competitive in Spokane. Having grown up in Washington State, I participated in the vocal music programs in middle and high-school. Of course, this is 20 years ago, but I can tell you that the Spokane area schools (most noteabley, Mt. Spokane and Gonzaga Prep) were highly competitive and successful in Northwest area music festivals.
Anyone have any more recent examples for competition in the arts? :~) D

[kena]

Unless restricted by price range, the housing stock around Mullan Road tends to be newer than 60/70s ranchers (though there are those as well).

I'm not sure if you use great schools as a resource but the rankings (which are not perfect) are good for both:

Greatschools.net Search: brentwood

Greatschools.net Search: mullan road

[Bakergirl]

My kids are 6 and 4 so high school sports aren't my priority. I'm not a sports type at all and I don't feel out of place where I live. Spokane isn't like the town on Friday Night LIghts where everyone lives and breathes football. The south hill is definitely closer to downtown and your commute would be shorter. If I need to go downtown it takes me about 20-25 minutes. We decided where to buy our home based on the school district. I didn't particularly look at each elementary school but rather the the district as a whole.

[grayproduct]

Sports don't have a religious status at Mead [High School], it's the literal injection of evangelical Christianity into the coaching regime itself. They may have changed it since I left (2008), but it was present when I participated in wrestling and football. Legal issues arose and those problems should be remedied by now. Academics are strong though.

[RetiredChef]

Originally Posted by Waterloo

Thanks all for sharing your personal views. It looks like both areas are good areas but offer slightly different sets of advantages. Here's my understanding:
1. Schools: good in both areas, perhaps with Brentwood having a slight edge over Mullan Road(?)
2. Cultural tolerance: not a big problem in Spokane
3. Neighborhood type: both are suburbs, but South Hill has restaurants and stores with characters.
4. Commuting: I'll be working in downtown, so South Hill has the obvious advantage.

My wife and I are still torn. With respect to the houses, I looks like the northside offers more choice (new, old, tract, "out in the country," etc); in South Hill, we'll probably be forced to pick our house among the 60s/70s ranchers in tracts. So this drives us up north.

But grayproduct said somethng interesting about sports in Mead schools. My family enjoys sports, but we don't identify ourselves with what might be called the core ESPN and Nascar audience. If athletic activities really have a religious status in Mead, we may not feel comfortable there. Any thoughts on this?

You summarized it very well.

Sports, Music, Academic contests (deca, etc) were all important factors in our search and this is where the Mt.Spokane / MeadHigh Schools won out.

There is no large Nascar ESPN mentality up here but both of these high schools understand that a student has to be well-rounded. Mead is slightly more enthralled with sports then Mt. Spokane but both of their programs are not cut-throat must win at all costs, rather they are integrity based, using sports as a competition with high moral standards.

As others have said both schools have put forth state or national teams in academic, music and art competitions, more so then those on the south hill.

This is a difficult decision and don't get me wrong about the schools the ones on the south hill are very good too.

We choose north for some compelling reasons.

#1 we wanted land / barn / pasture / horses
#2 we wanted a mountainous setting
#3 we wanted a cul-de-sac or end of road setting
#4 we wanted views of mountains
#5 we wanted to feel like we lived in the country away from people.
#6 we wanted access to a high school to supplement classes - we are home-schoolers.
#7 we wanted a large house with a pool and a large garden
#7 the commute to us was no big deal (we moved from LA so a 30 minute drive is nothing
#8 we also looked at whitworth university and liked that school so it was an added bonus that it was up north.

Everybody is different - you need to figure out what your priorities are - north just happened to fit each and every priority we had.