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Greenville is another good option and is probably the best compromise of city size and location. I would not reccomend Wilmington if you are in fact covering the entirety of ENC and I've never heard of anyone doing so. It's a great city though. Carteret county is too remote if you're covering ENC. You'd pass through larger areas that are more convenient to live in just in the performance of your duties. It is true that the best school systems in ENC are in Dare, Craven, Carteret, Pender, and New Hanover counties, but that doesn't mean the others are bad. Just the aforementioned are superior. There are good schools in Pitt County, especially if you are an involved parent.
If you chose Greenville, the best rated school is Chicod, a K-8 school in Greenville. You might want to look at private schools for high school, however.
The high schools aren't as bad as they appear to be in Greenville. The kids at good middle and elementary schools just don't disappear when they get to high school. The test scores just reflect the fact that the high schools are mixed bag. Take J.H. Rose for instance. You have kids from some of the richest neighborhoods in Greenville going to school with some of the poorest. The average test scores are reflection of that, not the quality of education.
The high schools aren't as bad as they appear to be in Greenville. The kids at good middle and elementary schools just don't disappear when they get to high school. The test scores just reflect the fact that the high schools are mixed bag. Take J.H. Rose for instance. You have kids from some of the richest neighborhoods in Greenville going to school with some of the poorest. The average test scores are reflection of that, not the quality of education.
Agreed...I know lots of folks with kids in the Greenville area High Schools and they are all three fine. Some of the lower level schools in certain neighborhoods may be a little more questionable, but for the most part most of the schools in Pitt Co are ok....even over to Farmville Central.
Chicod is a rural school about 10 miles out of Greenville, thats why its K-8. Its in an area of the county with a little less poverty than other rural parts of Pitt Co...and its K-8, so it has small class sizes, etc...thats why it ranks high...its really no different than other Pitt Co schools except for the makeup of the school. Bath in Beaufort Co is the same way, serving a certain area and being K-8, which many times score better on ranking websites when comparing to middle schools or elementary schools that are serving larger more diverse areas.
Greenville also has very good youth sports programs and won the SI Sportstown designation for NC.
Agreed...I know lots of folks with kids in the Greenville area High Schools and they are all three fine. Some of the lower level schools in certain neighborhoods may be a little more questionable, but for the most part most of the schools in Pitt Co are ok....even over to Farmville Central.
Chicod is a rural school about 10 miles out of Greenville, thats why its K-8. Its in an area of the county with a little less poverty than other rural parts of Pitt Co...and its K-8, so it has small class sizes, etc...thats why it ranks high...its really no different than other Pitt Co schools except for the makeup of the school. Bath in Beaufort Co is the same way, serving a certain area and being K-8, which many times score better on ranking websites when comparing to middle schools or elementary schools that are serving larger more diverse areas.
Greenville also has very good youth sports programs and won the SI Sportstown designation for NC.
In addition, that's also why the all of the school's in Down East Carteret County are so high performing, despite serving some of the most rural and isolated areas in the state.
If your company is sending you here with the same salary you made in NY you will find life here in NC very comfortable. The houses you see online like Mimosa Bay for 300k would be close to 800k anywhere on LI. and the taxes on them are less than 2500 a year versus 10-15k on LI. They also have electric bills to heat and a/c at less than $200 per month. NO MORE LIPA (highest in the country)
The schools here seem to have excellent athletic programs as well as private sports clubs. Unlike NY, the teams raise a lot of the money for equipment and they charge to get in most sports events. Parent here pay $6.00 a head to watch there kids play soccer, or football but at the same time their fields are beautiful and even more impressive than most LI school. They don't pay anywhere close in school taxes so they have to raise the money somewhere. They also do not have the tax base to support programs for "gifted&talented" or special ed as LI school do, but again they do a good job considering how low the taxes are. Teachers here start at under 30k a year so many turn to higher paying careers. Check school districts carefully. Some are a lot better than others.
You may find that the fishing in North Carolina is a bit of a disappointment. My husband and two sons are avid fishermen but have found that fishing on Long Island was a lot more satisfying. We bought our first boat here (23ft Seafox) but found you must travel to the gulf stream to get a decent catch. Also the inlets here are pretty treacherous (similar to moriches inlet) and you can't trust the buoys. We have run aground right next to one. Since we are pretty inexperienced boaters we pretty much don't go out more than 5-6 miles but never had any really impressive catches. They have fished out of Morehead city on a head boats and did much better than our Topsail area.(north of Wilmington) They actually do a lot better right off the beach here. They have been killing the red drum this past week and had to release several for being over the size limit.You will have many more months to enjoy your boat here but you can count on spending triple what you pay in gas on Long Island because you have to go out so much further to get the fish.
All and all you should love it here, the people are friendly, and it's less than 12 hours from Long Island for when you get home sick.
Last edited by mkozlpn; 05-24-2013 at 10:37 PM..
Reason: spelling error
We moved to Greenville from Westbury last year. Some of my threads may have been included in what you have already read, so I won't get too detailed here.
I agree with just about all of the above info. We bought a house in the Chicod School district and everyone we have spoken to in the area says it was the right choice. Parents who have kids going there are very happy.
As you can probably tell from reading the board, Greenville isn't for everyone, but we like it. There are many promising developments in the works and the proximity to Raleigh and the beach is a big plus. Good luck!
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