Suggest a Suburb for Safety, Schools & Downtown Commute? (Chicago: 2015, waterparks)

[CBB_bear]

I grew up in Wilmette and went to New Trier and my parents still live there. While there was definitely affluenza with regard to clothes, ski trips, etc., I don't know a single person who grew up with a SAH mom and nanny to watch kids while grocery shopping. I think a lot of what is being described is a little overexaggerated.

I know plenty of more down to earth types who live in New Trier feeder towns. Mostly, they value education/saving for college and safety. It's not diverse, but it's not as Stepford as people are describing here either.

[MayaLucy]

Honestly...if someone has small children, a huge home and huge disposable income, I'd think they were kind of nutty too if they were cleaning their own house, unless they loved to clean.

That's just my perspective...when I had three young children I could have used all the help I could get. We had occasional sitters and occasional housekeeping when we were able to fit that into the budget.

As a therapist I've also seen firsthand how at-risk stay-at-home moms are with fewer resources or who feel shame about the unrealistic expectation that they shouldn't need help.

[murphymom139]

I live in Clarendon Hills and absolutely love it. The schools are excellent and people here very nice, a Mayberry kind of town.

[ConcreteRooster]

Another update: Downers Grove is our current top pick. I remembered one of my friends from college is actually a police officer in DG, and who better to ask for the "dirt" on a town than a cop? He had nothing but good things to say, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to any of his friends or family as a great place to raise kids. And he's worked there for about 15 years now, I believe. So if he hasn't seen it all, he's certainly seen most of it. (Though he did say, if he had the money, he'd personally live in Clarendon Hills.)

As I mentioned before, we love that DG seems to have a preponderance of larger lots, which we want. We've eaten at a few local establishments, all were very kid-friendly (crayons, stuff to color on, staff happy to chat with my kiddos, most other customers were families with kids, etc). Granted, how much can you really glean from such a small sample size; but having nothing but good experiences is certainly encouraging. I read RJA29's post above as a ringing endorsement. We've since done more driving and walking around DG, and it just has a cozy, comfy feel to us.

Now the only question is schools. We can't really find anything particularly negative about the DG schools, but we are somewhat second-guessing ourselves, because they're not the "best". It seems New Trier, Hinsdale and Naperville always get touted as the best suburban schools---and indeed those schools generally have the top metrics, let's say 95th percentile in the state. Based on what I've seen, DG might be "only" 90th percentile. (My wife has done most of the research, so these numbers are loose approximations of what I've learned from our conversations, but I believe the gist is accurate.) How much do my kids benefit from that extra 5% or so?

The question for us is: do we give up on the big yard or commute or police officer endorsement in order to get into the "better" schools? I know that's only a question we can answer, so the real question is, how do we measure schools? Obviously it's easy to measure a yard or commute, and set our limits. But that's not so straightforward with a school. Even with all the information available, we haven't yet figured out how to best interpret that info, and make it meaningful to us. One of the spreadsheets my wife downloaded ranked schools, along with a ton of other attributes. The rankings were clearly most heavily weighted by test scores. And for the top schools, the test scores differed by hundredths of a percent. So School A might rank #15 and School B might rank #75, so you'd be inclined to think School A was significantly better than School B. But if you look at the raw numbers (e.g. test scores) they differ by less than 1%, which in my opinion is not meaningful. I'm thinking it might be better if the rankings were by "buckets" (so you might have 50 schools with the same rank). But I don't know how to create those buckets.

In other words, are some of these rankings really just a "photo finish", and the differences come down to minutiae that likely won't matter to me? Or are there more meaningful tiers that differentiate the Major League pros from the Minor League wannabes?

Another source of info: I just skimmed over US News and World Report's ranking of Illinois high schools. DG North came in at #50. The three I mentioned earlier were all higher, as were many of the other suburbs mentioned in this thread (e.g. York/Elmhurst). But if I go from #50/DG North to (for example) #15/Glenbrook South, how much better is it? (I have a number of friends who went to GBS... one of which actually deliberately lives in New Trier district, for the "better" schools than he had growing up, yet USNWR ranked New Trier #22. Where's the confused emoji?)

[MayaLucy]

One comparison you could make between schools (and I'm not sure where this info is) is information on college attendance. What percentage go to college, and how many are going to which colleges? How many are going to elite universities?

I don't personally care if my child goes to an elite university, but I like the idea of a high school environment that could help them cultivate whatever their goals are.

Also, I've done somewhat of a 180 since my kids were little. Back then, I didn't want them to go to a really highly affluent school. One reason is I wasn't interested in a highly competitive atmosphere that would cause my kids extreme anxiety, i.e., achievement and getting A's is all that matter in life. The other reason, I guess, was sort of a bias or judgment toward affluent people; people who have their teens driving status cars.

Now, I've changed my tune. I think it will be good for my kids to be in an achievement-oriented atmosphere. No matter how you slice it, teens are highly influenced by their peers. That's just where they're at developmentally. I don't care what my kids decide to do when they grow up, but what I do want is for them to believe they can essentially do whatever they want.

[wjj]

If you are looking only for the very top high schools, your only option in the west suburbs is Hinsdale Central. If you can't get into that district then your only option is in many of the north and northwest suburbs where the majority of top tier schools are located.

But in my opinion, you are stressing too much over this. Splitting hairs at this level is just not productive. We are blessed with a huge number of great schools in this area. Stressing over the highest ranked public HS, Stevenson, vs Hinsdale Central vs New Trier vs Prospect vs Libertyville is just going to suck the life out of you for no good reason.

Just to demonstrate how good we have it here as far as education is concerned........we have a second home in Southwest Florida. One day a couple years ago, just for the heck of it, I looked at the US News national rankings (I am no fan of the US news rankings but it is the only half way reasonable national survey out there) to see where the Lee County (Fort Myers, Sanibel, Cape Coral, Estero, Gateway, etc) and Collier County (Naples, Bonita Springs, Marco Island, Golden Gate Estates, etc) public schools that are raved about down there, stack up to the suburban Chicago high schools. Guess what. Just one high school down there (Fort Myers HS) cracked the top 50 of Chicago area public schools.

We have it pretty good up here and the schools you are worried about would be #1 in SWFL. Take a deep breath. You are fine where you are.

[RJA29]

Regarding schools - you can look at subgroup data, like how affluent students to at Downers Grove North. If you edit out the poor students, the levels of college attendance, etc., rise to nearly the level of the other schools you looked at. Personally, I'm not a fan of the New Trier / Hinsdale vibe. I don't want every kid to drive a BMW to high school. Some difference is good (although it's really splitting hairs at this level, indeed).

If you want to talk Downers, feel free to send me a private message.

[4122]

North, York, Hinsdale Central, New Trier, etc. are all great schools and it's splitting hairs comparing them. Test scores really don't show the quality of school and results can be skewed. For me, I would want my kids to be in a high achieving school, but not too competitive (top ten or so) where they can't thrive and fall through the cracks. North is the perfect balance of this. My nephews and niece graduated from North and they all did well there.

[almost3am]

Originally Posted by ConcreteRooster

But, yes, biking in extreme cold winter... we'll see. Of course I'd prefer a short walk, but it's looking like I'm going to have to compromise. We only have one car now, and I'd like to keep it that way. But I'm also looking at this as an excuse to buy a fat bike, and possibly an electric conversion kit...

So, I bike to the train year-round, although about 5 days a year I find alternate transport because -10F gets a little chilly or new snow is a little dangerous. I have a 3-ish mile bike ride (I'm in Naperville). Biking year round is doable, but I bring my work clothes in my backpack and change at work. During the height of winter I look like I m going skiing only to ride my bike. Fresh snow is actually the worst thing, as it is really slippery...but that only affects a couple days a year.

[ConcreteRooster]

Originally Posted by wjj

If you are looking only for the very top high schools, your only option in the west suburbs is Hinsdale Central.

We're not looking for the very top schools, just trying to determine what the delta is between "very top" and "just under very top"...

Originally Posted by wjj

But in my opinion, you are stressing too much over this. Splitting hairs at this level is just not productive. We are blessed with a huge number of great schools in this area...

Originally Posted by 4122

North, York, Hinsdale Central, New Trier, etc. are all great schools and it's splitting hairs comparing them...

...and from these responses ("splitting hairs"), it sounds like it's more of photo finish, i.e. the differences are minimal, as opposed to significant. So I don't think we're necessarily splitting hairs, but rather doing a sanity check. Is the difference between these schools like the difference between a Lexus and Toyota, or between a Lexus and a horse-drawn buggy?

Originally Posted by RJA29

Regarding schools - you can look at subgroup data, like how affluent students to at Downers Grove North. If you edit out the poor students, the levels of college attendance, etc., rise to nearly the level of the other schools you looked at.

The spreadsheets my wife got (from schooldigger.com IIRC) have a tremendous amount of data, and we haven't had a chance to dig through it in detail (pun intended). But from a cursory review of the data, our thoughts are consistent with your comments.

Anyone out there with an opposing view, i.e. very-top schools are markedly better than near-top schools?