Life in Bend with Kids (middle schools, college, to live)

[OreAMomma]

Hi there, anyone know if Bend is "kid friendly"--and what areas? By Kid Friendly I mean, you see kids playing outside together, walking to school in groups, in the parks, etc. Are there programs/festivals geared towards families? How are the schools, any excellent ones? Do most youth seems college bound--or just trying to get by? Are they generally respectful? What is the prevalent youth attitude (clean cut/respectful/drugs)? I know it's an intangible but if anyone has an idea, that would be so great. What's your overall impression?

[whirnot]

Didn't they tell you? Kids are not allowed in Bend, there is nothing for them to do.....

[delta07]

Bend is an amazingly kid friendly city! Don't listen to whirnot, he's being sarcastic!

There are numerous festivals, events and other things that are geared towards kids in this city. Just this past weekend was the Northwest Crossing Spring Festival. There are always kid booths and activities at these.

You will definitely see children running around & playing in the streets, parks and on the nearby trails.

I think the youth here are better off than many in big cities because of the outdoor culture. Lots of kids ski & snowboard in the winter, mountain bike in the summer, and generally just get out and be kids.

The schools here are good, from what I hear. I'm not a parent, but generally speaking, most schools are fine. If you do a search of this subforum, you will see lots of threads already about schools.

Hope this helps!

[mrwibble]

There's a curfew, isn't there?

[oregonwoodsmoke]

There is a lot to do for kids, but it is family stuff, so the kids will be there with their parents, and not so much a lot of kid stuff to do where the parents don't have to pay any attention to what the kids are doing. Not so many places where you can just turn them loose unsupervised.

[redguard57]

With the exception of a lack of sidewalks in a lot of areas, yes Bend is very kid friendly if you can afford to live here.

In my opinion all the schools are high quality, as far as how good, generally it goes 1) Summit 2)Mountain View 3) Bend High for high schools and the associated middle schools and elementaries that feed to them are in the same boats. By my standards they're all good and there are some private schools too if you want that.

What is the prevalent youth attitude (clean cut/respectful/drugs)? I know it's an intangible but if anyone has an idea, that would be so great

I'd say it leans more toward small town innocence due to the general isolation but there is a meth problem in all of the rural west; we have some of that too. Tats and piercings are really popular once they get out of high school - that's true of all of Oregon though. Not sure if that bothers you.

[BendLocal]

IMO there is absolutely no small town innocence around here!

[empearls]

Use the website GreatSchools - Public and Private School Ratings, Reviews and Parent Community to research schools, however, their ratings system doesn't take into effect all variables so you really need to go to the individual websites for each school to find out more about them (Great Schools offers a nice snapshot though). For instance, there is one middle school in Bend rated a 6 (out of 10) but it also has an IB program. IB (International Baccalaureate) programs are rigorously academic and can be compared to AP classes at the high school level. One high school in Bend has the IB program, the other high schools have AP (Advanced Placement) classes. My family is considering an eventual move to Bend and we have children so I've started looking into the schools. And the Kindergarten cut off date is Sept 1 (the child must be 5 before September 1).