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Greetings! My family and I are seriously considering moving to the area this summer. He is a regional manager for an insurance company and has an office located in the Ballantyne area. Figure it will be easier to manage his employees from here rather than the corporate office in Ohio.
My first (of what is sure to be many) question is regarding the elementary schools. From what I have gathered there has been an enrollment freeze on some of the elementary schools. This should be eliminated this fall with the opening of 2 new elementary schools. Correct?
My main question is regarding the average class size. I have a 3rd grader and currently the average class size in his school is 32 students! Way to many in my opinion. Can you give me an idea on the average elementary class size in the Fort Mill District.
While we are pretty sure we will move to the fort mill district - we haven't completely ruled out the Indian Land district. So any additional information on IL Schools would be appreciated as well. I also have an 8th grade son who will be starting High School this fall. He is a basketball player so any info on high school sports will be appreciated as well.
My son (4th grade) has 25 kids in his class. My daughter (5th grade) has about the same.
When we moved here in 2006, FM schools are considered to be slightly better than IL, but they may have "caught up" over the past seven years. and it's not like they were BAD - just a small difference between "good" and "really good."
According to this, Fort Mill is number one district in the state, Lancaster (Indian Land) is 25th. How come everyone says they are close???? Seems to me Fort Mill is way better.
I was just going to post the same link ( FORT MILL: Fort Mill schools ranked No. 1 in S.C. | Local | Fort Mill Times ) as the previous poster. And did :-). I was under the impression Indian Land is basically considered part of Fort Mill even though the schools are separate. Actually, Indian Land schools are pretty good. If they're part of the Lancaster school district (I'm not sure), then they're probably being dragged to 25th place due to the performance of all other Lancaster schools. Hopefully, that makes sense. I have friends with kids in IL schools and they love the schools!
Greetings! My family and I are seriously considering moving to the area this summer. He is a regional manager for an insurance company and has an office located in the Ballantyne area. Figure it will be easier to manage his employees from here rather than the corporate office in Ohio.
My first (of what is sure to be many) question is regarding the elementary schools. From what I have gathered there has been an enrollment freeze on some of the elementary schools. This should be eliminated this fall with the opening of 2 new elementary schools. Correct?
My main question is regarding the average class size. I have a 3rd grader and currently the average class size in his school is 32 students! Way to many in my opinion. Can you give me an idea on the average elementary class size in the Fort Mill District.
While we are pretty sure we will move to the fort mill district - we haven't completely ruled out the Indian Land district. So any additional information on IL Schools would be appreciated as well. I also have an 8th grade son who will be starting High School this fall. He is a basketball player so any info on high school sports will be appreciated as well.
Yes, there are a couple of new elementary schools in the works that should eliminate, or at least ease some of the enrollment freezes on the existing schools. This area is once again going nuts with growth so it is anyone's guess on how long before the schools will be at capacity again.
The average elementary class size in the Fort Mill School District will definitely be under 32 students.
As far as researching the schools (Indian Land vs. Fort Mill) I'd suggest going to the South Carolina Department of Education website and look up the comparisons:
Fort Mill School District (York County District 4 - York 04)
Lancaster County District (Lancaster District 1 - Lancaster 01) - narrow down your search even more to the Indian Land schools.
Also check out:
greatschools.org
schooldigger.com
I also highly recommend that people call the school/schools that you are interested in and set up a time to take a tour of the school.
The transition will be easiest on your youngest, it is your oldest that will have the larger hurdles. So again if you visit the high schools in Fort Mill make sure your son comes along as they actually will have one of the students in his grade show him around.
I was under the impression Indian Land is basically considered part of Fort Mill even though the schools are separate. If they're part of the Lancaster school district (I'm not sure), then they're probably being dragged to 25th place due to the performance of all other Lancaster schools. Hopefully, that makes sense.
Indian Land is not a part of Fort Mill at all. The only reason this situation/confusion exists is due to postal zones/zip codes.
Indian Land is located in Lancaster County, SC
Indian Land residents/students attend the Lancaster County School District (Lancaster 01)
Fort Mill is located in York County, SC
Fort Mill residents/students attend the Fort Mill School District (York County 04)
~as plotzonit has said above I do think that Indian Land schools would have a higher ranking if they had their own school district but in comparing just IL vs FM I still feel that FM schools are better.
Thanks for all the input. We should determine within the next month if we will be making the move. If so - we will probably come down with the family to visit the area around spring break if not sooner.
I know that Fort Mill is the top rated school system and therefore our first choice - but was just wondering how Indian Land stacked up in the event our perfect house materializes in Indian Land. That being said - I haven't personally toured either area (though I have visited Charlotte) so I can't really make a fullly informed decision. Just basing it on my research and the commute distance to Ballentyne.
LovetheCarolinas - surprisingly my oldest son is on board with the move and is really pressing us to move forward. This is really our perfect window of opportunity to make the move as I feel it's important that he spend all 4 years of high school in the same school. Our school here is roughly twice the size of either FMHS or NFHS so I'm really looking forward to the prospect of a smaller school. Ideally we should have 2 separate schools but our community insisted that the one school remain intact.
It is my younger son who adamantly states he will not leave his friends. That said - he makes friends very easily and I am sure he will adjust fairly quickly. My oldest is a basketball player and as long as I can quickly get him hooked up with a basketball program and hopefully the local high schools hold some open gym times for prospective team members he should be fine. His perfect house would be in walking distance to a local gym!
As far as school growth is concerned - It does appear to me that the district has been fairly proactive in planning ahead. I am assuming that the FM community supports the schools - since the school system seems to be a large factor in why people choose to move here. We have had similar concerns due to growth in our district here in Ohio. Unfortunately the state funding here for the schools falls woefully short and the districts must rely on property tax to make up the difference. It has been increasingly challenging here to get the community to agree to support tax increases and because of this our district has been forced to make cuts such as bussing, elective classes, reading intervention teachers, counselors and extracurricular activities etc. Hence the 32 students in my child's 3rd grade class. We finally did pass a levy last month which will help with but not alleviate our challenges.
Thanks for all your help. This forum has been invaluable in helping me learn about the area and guide our decisions. Hopefully I will be joining you all here soon! :-)
There is currently a new Elementary school being built on Harrisburg Rd. in Indian Land. My daughter will be attending next year as a fifth grader. Her class size at Indian Land Elementary is typically around 25 students, but that may be reduced with the new school opening. I've always been very pleased with her teachers and the attention that they seem to provide to each student. My daughter's teachers have even attended her soccer games on the weekends - adding to the smaller town charm I can't speak for Fort Mill schools, but I do know that the test scores and such in Indian Land have also been pretty impressive. They also offer an "Eagles" program which is comparable to the "Gifted and Talented" programs in other districts. The Indian Land area will be a little bit of a closer commute to Ballantyne for you. We moved to the area 5 years ago from Baltimore, MD and have not regretted the decision. It has everything that we need and allows a lot of accessibility to bigger shopping areas without being right in the middle of it all. I do work in Fort Mill, so I'm quite familiar with both areas... but would still choose to live in Indian Land.
The largest class either of my girls has had was about 30 kids - and as soon as school started they hired an additional teacher to bring the size down to the average of about 21.
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I can't speak for Fort Mill schools, but I do know that the test scores and such in Indian Land have also been pretty impressive. They also offer an "Eagles" program which is comparable to the "Gifted and Talented" programs in other districts. The Indian Land area will be a little bit of a closer commute to Ballantyne for you. We moved to the area 5 years ago from Baltimore, MD and have not regretted the decision. It has everything that we need and allows a lot of accessibility to bigger shopping areas without being right in the middle of it all. I do work in Fort Mill, so I'm quite familiar with both areas... but would still choose to live in Indian Land.
