Best Tulsa suburb area and school district (Broken Arrow, Edmond: work, suburbs)

[huskerwoman]

We are moving to the Tulsa area from OKC. I am trying to research the best suburb areas to live in. We have a child and we are also concerned with the school districts. In OKC, you have to really worry about OKC public schools and suburb schools are typically better-is it the same in the Tulsa area? We have been looking at the Broken Bow area and so far it looks nice (comparible to Edmond?) How are their school districts and is it close to Tulsa downtown.

Any information is greatly appreciated.

[Schousse]

Look into Broken Arrow, Union and Bixby school districts. These are considered the best in Eastern OK

[huskerwoman]

Thanks Schousse,

Are you familiar with the OKC metro area? I'm just wondering how Broken Arrow compares to the Edmond area.

Also, Would I be looking at a long commute from Broken Arrow if I will be working Downtown?

Thanks again

[Goodpasture]

Edmond is very similar to Broken Arrow. You might also look at the Jenks SD. It too has a lot of similar characteristics.......

[TU 'cane]

Union is probably the best school district.. Best suburb?? Eh, depends.. Jenks, Broken Arrow and Owasso, heck I'll even throw Bixby in there. They're all growing very quickly and are starting to outshine Tulsa.

[BigOkie]

Here is a schooldistrict map of Tulsa County:

http://www.assessor.tulsacounty.org/maps/schooldist.pdf

You can live in the City of Tulsa and be in the Union school district. Likewise with Jenks school district.

[okiecominghome]

I just moved back to Tulsa from a North Dallas suburb. We chose the Berryhill area in west Tulsa because we wanted a smaller school instead of the very large schools my kids attended and Berryhill High School received a rating of 10 on greatschools.net. Also, I work downtown and it is 8 miles so we love it. We have only been back 1 week and my kids love it and I moved a Sophomore who was not happy with me when told he would have to move. I prefer the smaller school with more teacher involvement over the larger one with more electives and less time for the child.

[sgrizzle]

People have to think about suburbs differently in Tulsa. Most true suburbs but right up to Tulsa and are around 20 minutes from downtown. Broken Bow is not really a suburb, it's just a community near Tulsa.
Owasso, Jenks, Broken Arrow, Bixby and Sand Springs are the major suburbs.
Sperry, Collinsville, Choutea, Catoosa, Claremore, Pryor, Pratville, Wagner, Coweta, Glenpool are all minor, outlying semi-suburbs.

[Goodpasture]

Broken Bow is several hours out of Tulsa.................

[tRdoc]

Yes, the OP and a follow-up poster misspoke (mistyped? lol) and said Broken Bow when probably thinking Broken Arrow. Broken Arrow is a Tulsa 'suburb'... think of Midwest City or Moore to OKC... practically part of the city. Broken BOW is over 3 hours south of Tulsa, nearly in the OK/TX/AR junction. If you know where Idabel is, that's basically the same area.

I'll chime in, even though I'm not in Tulsa now... been doing some research the last month or so, as I'm moving there the first week of June. Growing up in Eastern Oklahoma, I've also got some input on school systems from competing against some of these schools in extra-curricular activities, and many of my friends are currently teachers and are still actively involved with Eastern Oklahoma school systems and organizations.

Broken Arrow (B.A. as it's usually called shorthand), Union, and Jenks are often considered 'top-tier' schools in the Tulsa area. Bixby is also very nice. All these schools will have tons and tons of opportunities for your kid(s) to get involved in very high-quality programs for both sports and arts (band, choir, etc). All of these areas will offer a relatively short commute to most of Tulsa, with downtown being typically 15-30 minutes' drive. 30 minutes would be the outside edge of BA on a heavy traffic day, I believe.

The poster above who chose a smaller school district has a very valid point. All of these larger schools are much much larger than the school I attended, with BA being the largest, I believe. I am a proponent of smaller schools, smaller towns, etc., to a degree. I don't want to see my child graduating in a school that has 10 students per grade level and struggling to buy computers, but I also don't think a class of 500-700 is ideal, either, regardless of how much money the district has and how many football coaches there are.

Just my $0.02.