Where to live within 30min to Lexington, VA with good schools? (Staunton: neighborhoods, middle schools)

[sandykassia]

My husband is entretaining a job offer with the university in Lexington and I am looking for feedback of what are the best areas to live up to 30 min from Lexington.
Must have a good High School as my olderst is a freshman and our current school is great! An area open to outsiders, and with many families is important too.
While researching, I saw there are good primary and middle schools in Lexington, but high school seems to have a bad overall rating.
Can anyone give an imput? which neighborhoods/towns are the best? Where to go for a great high school?
Thanks
Sandy

[TN Lily]

Staunton & parts of Augusta County would be within 30 minutes. I don't know about the schools.

Virginia has good boarding/prep schools. I don't know if that is an option you've considered.

[emsman]

The cities of Staunton and Waynesboro are independant and have their own high schools (Robert E. Lee & Waynesboro High respectivley). They are generally considered "lower" than Augusta Co. schools.

Augusta County has 5 high schools, attendence depends on where you live BUT you can pay to attend a different one out of your residence area.

In no order;

Riverheads High(closest to Lexington, good, not very crowded)
Stuarts Draft High(considered good)
Buffalo Gap High(western area, considered the worst perfromer locally)
Wilson High(fishersville area, considered one of the best but it's crowded)
Fort Defiance High(northern part of county, considered equal to Wilson)

There are private high schools also;

Grace Christian, & Stuart Hall (both in Staunton)
Fishburne Military Academy ( in Waynesboro)

This should give you enough homework, these are the general opinions of "locals" that you may here, I am not citing any performance scores. I think the area as a whole is awsome for a family. The area is no more than 2 hours from anything you could ever want to do except the ocean, it's a whole 4 hours at worst.