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I simply cannot believe that greatschools.org has an elementary rated at a 5 out of 10. Looking at any houses on redfin.com that have Windom elementary as a school shows it as a 6 (data pulled from greatschools.org). However when you pull up greatschools.org directly it shows the most recent rating as a "5."
WTH?
Anyone have any idea why? We've seen some decent houses priced a bit lower that have this elementary school as it's primary, but geez, I do NOT want to send my kid to a 5/10 school.
Also, windhom is located in the older part of Orchard Park. There is a lot less wealth, and generally higher incomes equals better schools unfortunately.
It's the red headed step child of orchard park. The school is still an above average school. I think unfortunately a lot of the kids who go there might not have as much parental involvement as say South davis, Eggert or Ellicott since it is the older part of town with probably more single parents and families that work multiple jobs. I don't mean that in a bad way at all just stating my observations.
Another option to at least consider, just a few blocks away into Hamburg would put you into the big tree district of frontier which is often a top elementary school in all of WNY.
Obviously Going that route into big trees district would then later on be frontier middle and high as opposed to OP middle and high.
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions I will elaborate more
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Don't give great schools so much credit, One element that may be bringing it's average down is the students testing proficiency which scores in the 35% range versus Ellicott that scored 60%/70% for english/math proficiency there is also a significantly lower percentage of students of students on free/reduced lunch, Eggert Road is similar.
It's not to say these kids are less capable but perhaps the schools demographics are from a lower economic rung or there is a higher percentage of ESL. Ultimately it is the parents who will have the biggest impact on a student. Just use this as one tool in how you make your decision....
Don't give great schools so much credit, One element that may be bringing it's average down is the students testing proficiency which scores in the 35% range versus Ellicott that scored 60%/70% for english/math proficiency there is also a significantly lower percentage of students of students on free/reduced lunch, Eggert Road is similar.
It's not to say these kids are less capable but perhaps the schools demographics are from a lower economic rung or there is a higher percentage of ESL. Ultimately it is the parents who will have the biggest impact on a student. Just use this as one tool in how you make your decision....
^ This and people may not realize that a 5 is an average NY State elementary school. Rankings are done on a state level, not a national level. If one looks at the Greatschools ranking system, it explains what the rankings mean. So, a 5 isn't a bad school and is only a part of the equation.
Personally, I'd rather not be in a school with less involved parents. No, this doesn't make them bad kids or less capable but the unfortunate nature of this is that in the end the class will drag behind others where parents are around to reinforce the school work and participate. This is what we're looking for. Also, coming from an area that is HEAVILY populated with kids that need ESL classes, we have seen this have a SERIOUS detrimental effect on other students in the same school/class. The curriculum needs to slow down way below standard levels because the kids cannot comprehend English well enough to follow the material. Sending your naturally speaking English child to a situation like this is essentially an educational death sentence. This statement from me may seem shocking at first, but then again, if you could only actually visualize a classroom of 30 children where only 4 are native English speakers. Multiply that times however many actually classes in that single school. I won't go further into the politics of what exactly creates these scenarios, as I'm sure you can draw a line yourself between the obvious dots.
The point is we're trying to avoid just that situation. It's too bad our government doesn't make it the utmost priority to fund education - at all costs. It's only normal that a large part of the population is going to need to work multiple jobs and be extremely busy just to put food on the table. More funds would allow for additional supportive staff, hours, and programs where kids could stay longer and have what they learned in the day reinforced in a way that engages them.
Unfortunately sending my kids to a school that lags because of these physics isn't going to change the school for the better.
Thanks for the insight and information.
Personally, I'd rather not be in a school with less involved parents. No, this doesn't make them bad kids or less capable but the unfortunate nature of this is that in the end the class will drag behind others where parents are around to reinforce the school work and participate. This is what we're looking for. Also, coming from an area that is HEAVILY populated with kids that need ESL classes, we have seen this have a SERIOUS detrimental effect on other students in the same school/class. The curriculum needs to slow down way below standard levels because the kids cannot comprehend English well enough to follow the material. Sending your naturally speaking English child to a situation like this is essentially an educational death sentence. This statement from me may seem shocking at first, but then again, if you could only actually visualize a classroom of 30 children where only 4 are native English speakers. Multiply that times however many actually classes in that single school. I won't go further into the politics of what exactly creates these scenarios, as I'm sure you can draw a line yourself between the obvious dots.
The point is we're trying to avoid just that situation. It's too bad our government doesn't make it the utmost priority to fund education - at all costs. It's only normal that a large part of the population is going to need to work multiple jobs and be extremely busy just to put food on the table. More funds would allow for additional supportive staff, hours, and programs where kids could stay longer and have what they learned in the day reinforced in a way that engages them.
Unfortunately sending my kids to a school that lags because of these physics isn't going to change the school for the better.
Thanks for the insight and information.
Well Windom is probably the whitest school around with nearly 100% English speakers....
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