Sleepy Hollow, anyone? Advice? (Tarrytown: condos, train station, station)

[bmwguydc]

You're welcome. Best of luck in the move, and let us know if you think of anything else. People around here are sure to chime in with opinions.

[ping pong ball]

Dr N,

While I am not intimately familiar with Sleepy Hollow, i would say the Westchester region has a few generalizable characteristics, some of which are -

A direct correlation between average/median costs of property and the "strength" of the school district. While it is true that your kid could do very well in just about any school district here, there is something to be said for the competitive atmosphere you find in the best-rated school districts. It is not simply by chance that they send so much more of their students to the top-rated colleges.

A desire to perpetuate the dishonesty that diverse communities are socially coherent entities. In reality, to use the examples of Mount Kisco and Mamaroneck which another poster alluded to, perhaps the majority of Latinos there are poor/working class immigrants, living for all intents and purposes in the "ghettoes" of these towns and socially isolated in a larger sense from the rest of the community.

I don't know if this applies to the Latino community in Sleepy Hollow, but it does to most places in Westchester with significant populations of minorities. Not that this should be a major factor in deciding where you want to live, but it is what it is.... Still, no chance that you'll be dealing with a ticking time bomb.

[DrN]

thanks, ppg.
you touched on a couple of points i was concerned about. that is why i had brought up the issue of how vested the parents are in their children's education (in this schools district). i found a disparity between the high cost of sh manor/philipse manor homes and what i had read about the tarrytown school district prior to joining this forum. while i don't like the idea of kids being too stressed in the competitive atmosphere you mention, there is something to be said about the work ethic of fellow students with regard to studies(which, for the most part, is learned from the parents). i know all schools have dedicated and not so dedicated students (i know mine did!).
regarding the 'dishonesty of diverse communities' issue, i know what you mean. it appears that there is more money poured into the schools(from prop taxes). however, that means nothing if parents are not equally vested.
i can tell you, the school system here in SF is a mess! there are only a handful of good public schools that all the parents try to get their children into. familes that don't get their first or second pick have to send their kids across town to schools with low performance and which are more rundown. we're trying to get away from that. yes, we have lower property taxes here in cali thanks to prop 13., but we're facing a crisis with lowered funding for schools.
i've learned alot from the responses i've received on this forum. thanks!

[dma1250]

Originally Posted by ping pong ball

Dr N,
A direct correlation between average/median costs of property and the "strength" of the school district. While it is true that your kid could do very well in just about any school district here, there is something to be said for the competitive atmosphere you find in the best-rated school districts. It is not simply by chance that they send so much more of their students to the top-rated colleges.

No, it is not simply by chance that schools in higher-income areas send more kids to top-rated schools. It is due to the fact that A) more parents can afford to do so without financial aid, B) more parents spend money on SAT Prep classes outside of the school; C) more parents are focussed on getting their kids into these colleges and therefore guide the children to do what is needed, D) more parents are alumni of these colleges, and C) more of the students are able to take low-paying or unpaid summer positions and volunteer postions (which look good on their applications), whereas less well-off students often need to have paying jobs to help with the family finances. None of these factors have anything at all to do with the school or with the quality of the education that students recieve.

[bmwguydc]

Originally Posted by dma1250

No, it is not simply by chance that schools in higher-income areas send more kids to top-rated schools. It is due to the fact that A) more parents can afford to do so without financial aid, B) more parents spend money on SAT Prep classes outside of the school; C) more parents are focussed on getting their kids into these colleges and therefore guide the children to do what is needed, D) more parents are alumni of these colleges, and C) more of the students are able to take low-paying or unpaid summer positions and volunteer postions (which look good on their applications), whereas less well-off students often need to have paying jobs to help with the family finances. None of these factors have anything at all to do with the school or with the quality of the education that students recieve.

Well said, dma1250! I cannot give you more points right now, since I gave you some on another thread, but that's an excellent assessment as to why the admission rates to "top" colleges and universities seem to perpetuate the myth that merely attending a "top" high school grants admission. Also, as you pointed out with the alumni network, I know more than one legacy for whom the standards were "massaged" to gain entrance, so it wasn't a function of the top school that they attened.

And, the OP strikes me as someone who is interested in the academic pursuits of his children, or he wouldn't be concerned about the district in the first place, hence there is no reason why they would not do just as well in Sleepy Hollow, especially in the areas he's considering.

[dma1250]

bmguydc--thanks for the compliment!

[kletter1mann]

Originally Posted by DrN

thanks for the breakdown, MJ.my concern is whether they can stay that way. i see so much free land so close by that i wonder if shortly those areas would be filled with apartment complexes, thus increasing the congestion and taking away the quiet atmosphere. maybe because of my bay area roots, it's hard to find free land that won't soon be developed. again, only time can tell. btw, since rockefeller state park is so close by, are there any known ordinances that prevent development from happening between SH manor/phillips manor and the park? just wondering...

Nobody took up this one, so I'll give it a shot. The development issues in Westchester could scarcely be more different than CA (or the west in general). Undeveloped land is almost always undeveloped for some reason other than the developer is just biding their time. Westchester is packed with what appears to be undeveloped land but is actually a parkland of some sort, a preserve, watershed land or something similar. State Parks are close to sacred, being developed is unthinkable. To sum it up: in CA you can pretty safely assume that undeveloped land eventually will be. In Westchester the opposite is far more likely opposite - if it hasn't been developed by now, there's almost certainly some good reason, and it isn't likely to change. This is particularly true in the southern and central parts of the county. In any case, a visit to the town hall can usually tell you what the status of a given parcel is.

[nonny]

There are many statistics for the schools in Westchester. Check them out. Tarrytown just does not do as well as other schools in Westchester. It's generally near the bottom. It's a great town, though. It's got the historic music hall, interesting stores, restaurants, people.

Dobbs Ferry and Irvington are towns that appeal to people from San Francisco, too. They're also vibrant river towns. Your school money would be very well spent in either Dobbs or Irvington.

[outtaheer]

For what its worth (and I'm going to get some trouble for this) I think Tarrytown has great schools - you can't just go by test scores. Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow go to the same high school - Sleepy Hollow High School. Sleepy Hollow (having lived both there and in Tarrytown myself) has more migrant workers, day laborers and section 8 housing. I don't know how you feel about the political correctness of saying this, but from a testing basis, scores are going to suffer if English is not your first language, or you don't plan on going to college, etc.. An African American friend of mine spoke to one of the teachers in the high school about the test scores. She said that the problem is not necessarily even that English is a second language. She said that the problem is that many of the children of families who have immigrated to Sleepy Hollow are from poorer countries and are even illiterate in their own language.

I know kids in the Tarrytown schools system. They are all bright, happy and kind. My neighbor is a professor at Columbia and sends his kids to the Tarrytown schools. I bought a house in Tarrytown planning to send my kids there. It simply is not as bad as people believe it is, as they are basing their opinions solely off the test scores which admittedly are low.

Last point: two of the grads last year went to Ivy League schools. Someone is getting a good education in Tarrytown.....

[bkhakis]

Amazing. I remember going to Tarrytown to see the fireworks. At that time 1990 or so there was no "Sleepy Hollow". A few years later and the area had become enormously Hispanicized.

The area around the Metro North train is not very nice either.