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Our family is planning to move to Gwinnett County (Peachtree Corners) to be closer to family.
I would like to get some more insight into Norcross High School. I've heard from several people that it's a great school, with an IB program, and the valedictorian/salutatorians in the past years have attended some top notch colleges. However, when I got on greatschools.org or schooldigger.com, the ranking and test schools do not reflect well (ie milestone assessments are below state average). Why is this? In addition, I'm curious to know of any insights on how the new Paul Duke STEM High School will affect enrollments and possible education at Norcross HS in the future?
Our family is also considering North Gwinnett High School and Brookwood High Schools. Any thoughts with regards to academic competitiveness, and how they compare to Norcross HS?
Our family is planning to move to Gwinnett County (Peachtree Corners) to be closer to family.
I would like to get some more insight into Norcross High School. I've heard from several people that it's a great school, with an IB program, and the valedictorian/salutatorians in the past years have attended some top notch colleges. However, when I got on greatschools.org or schooldigger.com, the ranking and test schools do not reflect well (ie milestone assessments are below state average). Why is this?
Our family is also considering North Gwinnett High School and Brookwood High Schools. Any thoughts with regards to academic competitiveness, and how they compare to Norcross HS?
Each of the 3 existing Gwinnett County high schools that you named (Norcross, North Gwinnett and Brookwood) are excellent high schools.
The reason why some of the test scores may be lower at Norcross High School than at the other two high schools you inquired into is because Norcross HS, while the school continues to have a large population of students from affluent families and households in upscale residential neighborhoods and housing developments in the Peachtree Corners 30092 area, also has a very large population of lower-income transient families and households.
The lower-income transient families are attracted to the area because of the high concentration of affordable apartment and townhome housing along the Peachtree Corners Circle corridor of the 30092 zip code and throughout various parts of the Norcross 30071 zip code.
Like North Gwinnett and Brookwood high schools, Norcross High School has a student body that is exceptionally racially and ethnically diverse. But unlike North Gwinnett and Brookwood high schools, Norcross High School is much more socioeconomically diverse with the aforementioned very large population of working-class and lower-income transient families that exceeds the large population of affluent families in the school's attendance zone.
(...Low-income students are estimated to make up about 12% of the student body at North Gwinnett High School and 28% of the student body at Brookwood High School, but are estimated to make up 67% of the student body at Norcross High School.)
Norcross High School also has a very high number of students for whom English appears to be a second language (ESOL/English as a Second Language), which is another factor that most likely has an adverse effect on the test scores of the entire student body as a whole.
Because of the significantly lower number of lower-income transient students in their student bodies, North Gwinnett and Brookwood high schools receive academic ratings that are significantly higher than Norcross, with both North Gwinnett and Brookwood being rated and regarded as two of the best public high schools in the entire state of Georgia and in the entire Southeastern U.S.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lttldragn
In addition, I'm curious to know of any insights on how the new Paul Duke STEM High School will affect enrollments and possible education at Norcross HS in the future?
The new Paul Duke STEM High School is intended to be a reliever school for Norcross High School which currently has an enrollment of over 3,800 students as of the 2017-2018 school year.
Students currently attending school in the existing Norcross High School cluster/feeder zone in grades 8-11 will be given the option to transfer to the new high school when it opens in August 2018.
Any remaining spots in the school will be open to students from outside of the Norcross HS cluster/feeder zone who want to attend and will be able to provide their own transportation to and from school. Student enrollment at the new high school will be capped at about 1,000 students.
Paul Duke STEM High School reportedly also will not field any athletic teams in the foreseeable future. Academics will be the primary focus of the school on the STEM fields.
Note cluster names are in that light bolded gray and are named after each high school district.
Now Norcross is an excellent school and B2R said it well. What is going on in the Peacthree Corners/Norcross area is it houses both the richest and the poorest parts of the entire county and it is almost a 50/50 split.
It has just under half of the county's office space, but it also has the largest industrial park (right along I-85) in the whole metro region.
The Northern part of Peacthree Corners (The area that goes to Simpson Elementary), is easily some of the most sought after areas of Gwinnett. That elementary school is one of the best. If you look up the test scores at that Elementary Schools it is among the best and above average.
As you go further west and south towards I-85, especially southeast of Buford Highway, there are a large amount of apartments and the single-family home neighborhoods are heavily influenced working class and immigrants.
Yet to the northeast you get developments like the Forum, which is one of the nicest shopping areas in the county.
What many people do on the upper-middle class end is they stay in district and send their kids to Simpson, and possibly Peacthree and a few middle ground schools. They don't really lose anything by going to an Elementary school, like Simpson.
Then in the older years, usually when raised in a more affluent, english-speaking, and less mobile family the student will test into honors, gifted, and IB programs in middle and high school and it ends up being a school within a school and the students are in a good spot.
A few, especially those who don't do as well in school, will go to private schools just for 4-7 years. Wesleyan and Greater Atlanta Christian are large private schools located right in this area. Wesleyan is right across the street from Norcross HS.
If you go to North Gwinnett, Parkview, Brookwood or Grayson the school districts are much more homogenous middle and upper-middle class. You won't have the more extreme wealth found in Peacthree Corners, but you won't have the extreme amount of apartments and lower-middle/working class found in the Nocross HS cluster closer to I-85 either.
Now there are plenty of other good school clusters, like North Gwinnett, there is Buford City (the city has its own school system separate from Gwinnett County), Lanier, Archer, Mill Creek, Peacthree Ridge, Collins Hill, and Dacula that are all good options too.
The big drawback is you are getting further away from decent commuter access to Atlanta City and Perimeter Center the further out you go.
Duluth is a school similar to Norcross. It's bi-polar with very wealthy areas to the west and many apartments and cheaper townhomes to the east near I-85. Peacthree Ridge is a small bit like this, but to a much lesser degree.
Thank you @borntoroll for the insight. That makes a lot of sense that the Norcross HS test scores reflect the diverse socio-economic population of the school. I love that the school has the IB program, which really draws me to to it, since my oldest is in currently in middle school and we really are attracted to the Peachtree Corners area due to family (specifically the Simpson Elementary School area for my younger kids). It sounds like the students who strive for academic excellence would really stand out and do well there. Thank you also for the information about the Paul Duke HS. I now have concern that perhaps all the students that focus on academics will transfer to the STEM HS, and I wonder about the fate of Norcross HS? Will it decline through the years, and would real estate in the Peachtree Corners area decline too?
@atlantamove - thanks for the links. Please see above for my concern about the Peachtree Corners area. Any thoughts about the future of the area and Norcross HS?
@cwkimbro - Thank you for your insight as well. I haven't heard much info about Grayson or Parkview HS but will look into them too. We would like to stay close to Atlanta (for job and family), but also value good school clusters... Of course, everything will ultimately depend on the real estate market and where we can find a house in the next couple of months too. In your opinion, do you think the diversity in Norcross HS is a negative or positive? My children are high-achievers, but I also worry about the competitiveness of some schools if everything is homogenous but also about the possible negative influences from "poor peers" from a diverse school as well.
Again, thank you for everyone's responses. I appreciate your time, thought, and replies.
Thank you @borntoroll for the insight. That makes a lot of sense that the Norcross HS test scores reflect the diverse socio-economic population of the school. I love that the school has the IB program, which really draws me to to it, since my oldest is in currently in middle school and we really are attracted to the Peachtree Corners area due to family (specifically the Simpson Elementary School area for my younger kids). It sounds like the students who strive for academic excellence would really stand out and do well there. Thank you also for the information about the Paul Duke HS. I now have concern that perhaps all the students that focus on academics will transfer to the STEM HS, and I wonder about the fate of Norcross HS? Will it decline through the years, and would real estate in the Peachtree Corners area decline too?
@atlantamove - thanks for the links. Please see above for my concern about the Peachtree Corners area. Any thoughts about the future of the area and Norcross HS?
That is a good assessment that many (but most certainly not all) students that want to focus solely on academics will transfer from Norcross High School to the new Paul Duke STEM High School.
Last I heard, about just over 500 students had elected to transfer from Norcross HS to Paul Duke STEM HS... Which is one of the main intentions of the new Paul Duke STEM HS: To provide relief to a Norcross HS campus that currently is bulging at the seams with an enrollment of over 3,800 students... A Norcross HS campus that was only intended to serve about between 3,000-3,300 students tops.
But with Norcross High School still being home to some extremely strong athletic programs (particularly in the football, boys basketball, girls basketball and baseball programs) as well as the IB program, there will still be many academically-focused and academically-oriented students that will elect to stay at Norcross because it is the known commodity with the strong athletic programs that the Norcross and Peachtree Corners community likes to rally around.
Overall, the Norcross/Peachtree Corners area will continue to have a sizeable cluster of upscale detached and attached single-family homes close to a sizeable cluster of well-paying jobs in an area of office commercial and industrial development (in the Technology Park, Georgia 141 and Peachtree Industrial Blvd corridors) that will continue to attract large numbers of affluent residents to the area.
The Norcross/Peachtree Corners area likely will also continue to diversify, a situation that likely will continue to put downward pressure on academic scores and outcomes at Norcross High School where the administration and teaching staff has done an excellent job keeping an increasingly diverse student body (including outside of the extremely highly-rated IB program) in a competitive position academically.
(...Norcross High School has gone from having a student body that was over 90% white 30 years ago to having a student body that is about 17% white today.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by lttldragn
@cwkimbro - Thank you for your insight as well. I haven't heard much info about Grayson or Parkview HS but will look into them too. We would like to stay close to Atlanta (for job and family), but also value good school clusters... Of course, everything will ultimately depend on the real estate market and where we can find a house in the next couple of months too. In your opinion, do you think the diversity in Norcross HS is a negative or positive? My children are high-achievers, but I also worry about the competitiveness of some schools if everything is homogenous but also about the possible negative influences from "poor peers" from a diverse school as well.
Though the school has experienced some downward stress on academic scores and outcomes, the increasing and exploding diversity at Norcross High School has definitely been a positive thing for the school, overall.
If you decide to send your children to Norcross High School, they will be more than okay in the school's increasingly diverse environment since they come from a strong and stable family support system and home environment.
If you decide to send your children to the new Paul Duke STEM High School, your children will be surrounded by other high academic achievers in an environment focused on academics.
If you want to move into the Norcross 30071/Peachtree Corners 30092, you really cannot go wrong. The Norcross/P'tree Corners is a great place to move your family to as it is a great inner-suburban community with lots of amenities (including retail, parks, recreation, community/family activities in historic Downtown Norcross, etc) with one and soon-to-be two great high schools that the community will continue to rally around in an extremely strong way.
You would do well to move your family into the Norcross/P'tree Corners area. Lots of great people that are educators, parents and volunteers at Norcross High School.
To simplify all of this, Brookwood is by far the best high school.
It's the only truly "insulated" community which results in a lack of diversity but outstanding level of quality.
The way the community is designed itself also lends to why Brookwood has always been the go to school and community. It screams family. It screams "American dream."
It's nice in Brookwood. Really.
Parkview would be next.
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