Where should I start looking? (Atlanta: rent, job market, neighborhood)

[readytoroll]

Where are Decatur, Lithonia, Douglasville, Riverdale and Jonesboro? I would rather live in a more affordable area and send my son to a private school, like I currently do.

Are these communities in Atlanta?

[readytoroll]

I am in a time crunch. Please help!! Where are Douglasville, Jonesboro and the other communities mentioned. I will be coming down in a week and need to visit them all.

[lastminutemom]

They are all communities in suburban Atlanta.

You aren't going to like this answer either -- most private schools are full for the 2007-2008 school year. You are much better off finding an acceptable public school. Is your son currently enrolled in a private school where the head of school might have connections down here? If so, you might want to talk to them. Private school, especially high schools, are hard to get into and mostly very expensive. Do you use the vouchers in Milwaukee (forget whta they are called.) We don't have that here.

Decatur is really two places -- the City of Decatur, which has its' own small school system and higher home prices, and unincoporated DeKalb some of which uses a Decatur mailing address. Much of the unincoporated part of DeKalb isn't very nice and has not great schools.

There has been much debate on this board about Jonesboro and Riverdale... I won't wade into that again. Just search Clayton County.

Lithonia is a middle class nearly all African American community. Go to greatschools dot net to get a sense of what people think about Lithonia High School. I have met the principal and am impressed by her, but it is a very big school.

I don't know enough about Douglasville to help you.

What kind of teacher are you (what grades, etc). Unless you are in a high demand field, you need to proceed with caution. You also need to include Gwinnett on your list as they hire the most teachers and are the most likely to have openings.

[readytoroll]

The vouchers here are called "Choice" and no I don't qualify.

What does "unincorporated" mean, just curious.

My area of certification is Middle School and Reading.

I finally printed out a map of metro Atlanta and things became even more confusing. Can you direct me to a website that has a list of the metro Atlanta school districts and also the surrounding suburban school districts. I want to stay close to Atlanta, but I don't have to live in the city. I also want to do some comparison on salaries.

But I will start with searching Google for Gwinett, Thanks.

[lastminutemom]

I just heard that Gwinnett needs nearly 200 teachers for this year --though mostly special ed.

Gwinnett County Public Schools
Welcome to DeKalb County Schools
Cobb County School District Home Page
Atlanta Public Schools: Our Focus... Student Success!
Fulton County Schools - Where Students Come First

City of Decatur schools
City of Marietta Schools
City of Buford Schools
Rockdale County
Douglas County

These are all the close in counties -- though parts of each of them are far from downtown Atlanta (except of course City of Atlanta and really DeKalb)

Next tier, in terms of distance

Fayette County
Forsyth County
Hall County
City of Gainesville Schools
Henry County

And I am sure there are more...

Teach Georgia - Home Page

might be a good place to start although the postings look slim

look at this posting

Job_Detail

[sweettea1]

I highly suggest you contact a real estate agent who will be able to drive you around and answer all of these (and more) questions about where to live, school districts, etc. There are lots of good agencies here. Try Harry Norman or Jenny Pruitt and perhaps someone from this thread can give you some names.
This will help take some of the stress off you when you come down to look, especially if you don't know where you're going.

[xxman777]

Originally Posted by readytoroll

What does "unincorporated" mean, just curious.

If an area is unincorporated it means it is not in a city and the only layer of local government is county government. There is no incorporated city which governs the area so the county is responsible for local government. A lot of the Atlanta region is unincorporated.

[atlantagreg30127]

Originally Posted by readytoroll

Well I guess I will be applying to Atlanta Public Schools. Where are some good areas to start looking for housing in Atlanta?

I do hope you're prepared to use self-defense if necessary.

Ok, no, not EVERY school within Atlanta is horrible, but it's not exactly the top-rated in the country, either. I've known a couple of people who have taught in Atlanta schools in the past and they usually ended their first years with, "Never again", and moved to the burbs. Again, they may have just had bad luck and I'm sure not every school is a bad Hollywood gang movie, but, you're not moving to Orange County California, remember.

Housing within the city in places like the neighborhood of Virginia Highland is nice, but what can you afford? The average home there is $450,000+.

I know most want to help you but I can't help but feel that more than a few people are thinking, "She waited too late for this decision". And I think it would be best for you and your child if you don't rush into something as serious as relocation to another part of the country you know nothing about with only 3-4 weeks notice before school starts.

My suggestion would be to look into better options in your current area for your child's school now. Then, take this year to really research the Atlanta area, job market, housing areas, schools, etc etc. Then once you have everything laid out and thought out, relocate here. If you rush into something like this, there is little chance there isn't going to be some major stumbling blocks.

[readytoroll]

Thanks much!!!!!!!!!

[kayrob]

Douglasville hardly has terrible schools. The Chapel Hill district is one of the more highly regarded in the metro.