Brownsville area..schools (Houston, Mercedes, Fresno: best neighborhoods, homes, neighborhoods)

[vrb]

My family might be relocating to the Brownsville area. I have been looking at elementary schools and noticing there is a very small percentage of non-hispanic students. I am looking for the best subdivisions for us to move into that have great schools in their zone. How about any private schools? Thanks for any info! Gracias!

[RGV]

Oh, by the way VRB, I haven't attended schools in B'ville for some years but my sister has her kids in Sharp Elem and says it's one of best ones. Can't say about any others, but you can go to the State websites on school distrist which can provide you with a breakdown of past rates on the taks, income, and racial breakdowns.

Here're a couple of links that may help you out:

Texas School Districts (http://www.tcet.unt.edu/sch_dist.htm - broken link)

Welcome to the Texas Education Agency

This last one allows you to look at each school:

Greatschools.net Search: brownsville


There are some good private schools. St. Joseph Academy is very good and has classes from elementary all to way to HS.


As for neighborhoods. I don't know what you're looking at money wise, but there's Rancho Viejo north of B'ville, many neighborhoods in North B'ville, and there are some good older neighborhoods in central b'ville between Palm blvd. and boca chica.

Adios.

[doss1]

Doesn't Sharp still have the best chess team in the nation?

[RGV]

I believe that is true. In fact, Brownsville schools are always well represented in State chess tournaments and bring back many trophies. I know, both my sister's kids participate and I've been to a State tournament in Houston DT with them. Brownsville kicked butt.

[teatime]

St. Joseph Academy has grades 7-12. It's a bit pricey, depending on your finances -- $7,000-8,000 per year. For the lower grades, I'd recommend Episcopal Day School. I'm not sure what the tuition is there.

North Brownsville schools are fine. My son went to Marilyn Burns Elementary and I was pleased. The middle school, Vela, used to be a tough school but from what I hear now, it's excellent. It's a beautiful campus, so I'm glad they turned it around with MUCH better leadership.

It gets really dicey in high school. At that point, I'd suggest South Texas ISD in Mercedes (nationally ranked, free, and they provide bus transportation from Brownsville) or St. Joe, finances-permitting.

[doss1]

I went to St Joseph and enjoyed it better than college It was a great school and the kids and teachers were AWESOME. The whole school is surrounded by a moat, lol.

[vrb]

Thanks for the advice, and also for all of those wonderful links! How about the Los Fresnos area? I have seen some nice looking homes (from the pictures anyways!) on an acre. Any views on this area? I have two huge, noisy dogs..so we don't want our neighbors to be TOO close.

[yosoyway]

Probably the best school in BISD are on the north side.

Elementary: It would be Paredes Elementary and Hudson Elementary. These schools have been open a couple of years and they have done very well. They are in or close to some of the best neighborhoods in Brownsville.

These schools feed to Vela middle school. It is probably the best middle school in Brownsville. It has it's share of problems but not too many.

High Schools, it's probably a toss up. They all have their good and bad aspects. In the 80's Pace was the best, then it was Rivera and lately I've heard it's Hanna.

Private schools: St. Joseph is probably the best followed by Livingway I believe.

Hope this helps.