Spencer TN and or surrounding areas (Memphis, Chattanooga: appointed, real estate, how much)

[kdmartin]

We are going to Spencer mid Oct to look for 5 acres to build a home and raise a nine year old, we are looking for a great school district, will we find it there? We are not looking for jobs, just a beautiful place to live. We are from TN (Memphis)so we think we wont be total outsiders to the locals but we keep to ourselves, mind our own business and dont think that will be a problem anyway. (Not that we are opposed to having some friends!!)We dont seem to find anything much on Spencer. We looked at Cookeville and didnt find anything we liked as far as land, we are not settled on Spencer, still looking. Any information you can give us on Spencer and the schools or other towns around with good schools, I have checked great schools .net, the High School is only rated a 6,
We read Dunlap floods so...
know any better school districts than Van Buren County?

[JMT]

Originally Posted by kdmartin

We are going to Spencer mid Oct to look for 5 acres to build a home and raise a nine year old, we are looking for a great school district, will we find it there? We are not looking for jobs, just a beautiful place to live. We are from TN (Memphis)so we think we wont be total outsiders to the locals but we keep to ourselves, mind our own business and dont think that will be a problem anyway. (Not that we are opposed to having some friends!!)We dont seem to find anything much on Spencer. We looked at Cookeville and didnt find anything we liked as far as land, we are not settled on Spencer, still looking. Any information you can give us on Spencer and the schools or other towns around with good schools, I have checked great schools .net, the High School is only rated a 6,
We read Dunlap floods so...
know any better school districts than Van Buren County?

You'll be hard-pressed to find outstanding school districts in that part of Tennessee except for Putnam County (Cookeville) which you have unfortunately already ruled out.

The schools in Van Buren County aren't bad, they're just very, very small (only 2 schools in the entire county), poor, and the vast majority of students there have no desire to go to college. I don't mean to imply that everyone should go to college, I'm just saying that in a school district where few students are encouraged to go to college, the calibre of education tends to be lacking.

Having said that, I have friends from Spencer who went on to do well in college, but they tell me that they're the exception to the norm around there.

[yarddawg]

Originally Posted by JMT

The schools in Van Buren County aren't bad, they're just very, very small (only 2 schools in the entire county), poor, and the vast majority of students there have no desire to go to college. I don't mean to imply that everyone should go to college, I'm just saying that in a school district where few students are encouraged to go to college, the calibre of education tends to be lacking.

I mostly second that but with a little spin. I went to Van Buren schools, granted a few years back , and I have two college degrees and most of two more. And yes, it was in spite of the school system not because of them. The only thing the school counselor ever tried to get me to do was join the Air Force. And what is small? My graduating class had less than 40 people in it and I think it was in the low 30s if you only count those who got a diploma. The school system is slightly larger now but not much. Don't expect anything other than the state mandated classes and expect them to be taught at a level of mediocrity suitable to the slower students in the class. There is a heavy focus on compliance with "no child left behind" to avoid funding loss. The lack of desire of students to go to college reflects the lack of local jobs requiring a college education more than anything else but it does affect the atmosphere of the school. I'm sure it will seem strange to all of y'all in a hurry to pull up stakes (again) but local people here don't tend to be very mobile. 8+ generations on this little corner of the Plateau is not uncommon. So for most people a college education is a setup for a stiff commute to Nashville or Chattanooga or maybe if you're lucky Cookeville. Or you could be underemployed, I know people with BS degrees working construction, not a great motivation for the next generation.

[Turkey Creek Tom]

Originally Posted by kdmartin

We are going to Spencer mid Oct to look for 5 acres to build a home and raise a nine year old, we are looking for a great school district, will we find it there? We are not looking for jobs, just a beautiful place to live. We are from TN (Memphis)so we think we wont be total outsiders to the locals but we keep to ourselves, mind our own business and dont think that will be a problem anyway. (Not that we are opposed to having some friends!!)We dont seem to find anything much on Spencer. We looked at Cookeville and didnt find anything we liked as far as land, we are not settled on Spencer, still looking. Any information you can give us on Spencer and the schools or other towns around with good schools, I have checked great schools .net, the High School is only rated a 6,
We read Dunlap floods so...
know any better school districts than Van Buren County?

I think the schools in Spencer, Tennessee good old country Van Buren County will do any child good. No gangs, just good education by good mountain people who have devoted themselves to their jobs. Your children can get a good elementary and high school education in Spencer and then go up the road to Cookeville or down the road to Murfreesboro for a University Degree.
I wish my grandchildren could have attended there.
Now for the tiny little town of Spencer...there are no jobs...There is one grocery store; two convenient stores; maybe a couple of eating places and two dollar stores. One whiskey store and about four real estate offices.
If you have more real estate offices than you do grocery stores...then there has to be something going on there I don't know about.

[kdmartin]

Originally Posted by yarddawg

I mostly second that but with a little spin. I went to Van Buren schools, granted a few years back , and I have two college degrees and most of two more. And yes, it was in spite of the school system not because of them. The only thing the school counselor ever tried to get me to do was join the Air Force. And what is small? My graduating class had less than 40 people in it and I think it was in the low 30s if you only count those who got a diploma. The school system is slightly larger now but not much. Don't expect anything other than the state mandated classes and expect them to be taught at a level of mediocrity suitable to the slower students in the class. There is a heavy focus on compliance with "no child left behind" to avoid funding loss. The lack of desire of students to go to college reflects the lack of local jobs requiring a college education more than anything else but it does affect the atmosphere of the school. I'm sure it will seem strange to all of y'all in a hurry to pull up stakes (again) but local people here don't tend to be very mobile. 8+ generations on this little corner of the Plateau is not uncommon. So for most people a college education is a setup for a stiff commute to Nashville or Chattanooga or maybe if you're lucky Cookeville. Or you could be underemployed, I know people with BS degrees working construction, not a great motivation for the next generation.

Isnt Hawks Bluff near this town, did it not do much in the way of helping the economy and schools out? I got the impression it was a very large development. I am dissappointed in what I am hearing, although that is not where I want to live

[JMT]

Originally Posted by kdmartin

Isnt Hawks Bluff near this town, did it not do much in the way of helping the economy and schools out? I got the impression it was a very large development. I am dissappointed in what I am hearing, although that is not where I want to live

Hawks Bluff isn't very large. Maybe some realtors told you otherwise, I don't know. According to the US Census, Van Buren County has lost population since the year 2000, going from a county population of 5,508 in 2000 to a population of 5,448 in 2006.

It is a spectacularly beautiful area, but it's not booming, there's very little money there and even fewer jobs. It's a long, mountainous 20 miles to the nearest hospital. Someday it might start growing, but it'll take more than just a few retirees at Hawks Bluff to make much of a difference to the county's tax base.

[yarddawg]

So far what Hawk's Bluff and a cluster of subdivisions in the same area have meant for the county is that timber companies (that weren't from here) sold a lot of land to developers (who weren't from here) who then split the land up into tiny little pieces and sold it to other people who weren't from here. Compared to the number of lots they cut up very few houses have been built so the impact on local tax revenue has been minimal. Most of it seems to be driven by land speculation and I'm not sure what the final result will be. The state owns a large and growing section of the county as parkland, wilderness areas and wildlife management areas (and I cheer for every one) while the actual plateau escarpment, which winds through the county like a snake, is unbuildable due to slope so there are some real logistical limits on how much development is possible without even getting into current issues with utilities.

Some of the marketing seems funny to me anyway. They're representing it as pristine wilderness when over the past century and a half or so the southwestern part of Van Buren has been

1) clearcut
2) strafed and bombed, there was a major artillery range in the area during WWII
3) strip mined, much of which was not reclaimed.

Here's some fun for anyone that does googleEarth. Zoom in on the southwestern part of Van Buren. There's some nice, high res imagery there. See those long chains of sortof linear shaped ponds? Those are flooded unreclaimed coal strip pits. The ripply looking terrain around them? More strip. Zoom in tight. Notice the weird color water? The bright blue ones are so acid that nothing can live in them. Some of them have orange iron 'bathtub rings', if the iron is really high the water will be a bizarre green color. I don't know what it's doing to the groundwater, I suspect nothing good.

[brcomm0]

I just built my home out in this area and love the people and the area.
I agree we do not know what the future will be, but for right now it is very peaceful and quite. Can't wait for my complete move there.

[hiknapster]

Yarddawg: Can you give me a street or something to zoom into?

[yarddawg]

Originally Posted by hiknapster

Yarddawg: Can you give me a street or something to zoom into?

Not a problem. Fly to the coordinates 35.615, -85.473

Then you'll have to back out a little to see what's going on. This takes you to a point on 111 just south of where Baker Mountain Road crosses. It's about a mile and a half from Hawk's bluff, there are strip pits closer but these are really easy to see. There are strip pits on both sides of the highway and some additional areas that are reclaimed strips.

Here's a little more help.

TopoZone - USGS Smartt Mountain (TN) Topo Map


That's a link to a topographic map of the area on topozone in which the strip mined areas have been added in purple (standard color for revisions of USGS maps). Really makes them stand out in disturbing technicolor.