[biancabal]

We may be moving to CT for my husband's job, but aren't sure where to start looking for houses. Thinking of renting, but not sure. Have one child in K and one in 1st, so good schools are paramount. Ideally would be within 30-60 mins of both New Haven and Hartford. Any suggestions on where to start?

[goldenage1]

Cromwell and Portland schools get better than average ratings from greatschools.org , while Meriden and Middletown get average ratings. New Britain gets poor ratings. There are also a lot of religious schools in these towns. I can recommend a good realty firm to help you.

[goldenage1]

Cheshire and Wallingford also get better than average ratings.

[Stylo]

Woodbridge and Orange are both within 15 minutes of New Haven and 45-50 minutes to Hartford. Traffic is not terrible going to both cities via 15/91 (Hartford) and 34 (New Haven). It's a longer commute to Hartford, but worth it if schools are high priority.

Both towns are very nice, quiet, safe, close to lots of conveniences (Orange/Milford shopping and Milford downtown district) and happen to have one of the top school districts in the state. Amity High School is consistently top rated. Woodbridge is one of the more affluent towns in the state and the most educated, but still maintains a relatively affordable real estate market compared to lower Fairfield County.

My other recommendations would be North Haven, Wallingford, Bethany, and Cheshire closer to New Haven. Up by Hartford but further from New Haven are Glastonbury, Rocky Hill, Farmington and Wethersfield. They should be considered.

However, none of them are quite as good as the Orange/Woodbridge school system. If it were my money, those towns would be my top choice.

Great resource: http://www.greatschools.org/

http://www.schooldigger.com/go/CT/sc...=top10&level=3

[7 Wishes]

When I was in the Hartford area in the summer of 2009 on a temporary assignment, part of the assignment regarded work with the Rocky Hill school district, and from what I saw of the town and schools (albeit it was summer but I did work with some of the kids) it was a pretty good school district. I also have a childhood friend who lived in Rocky Hill for awhile when he got a job with one of the big Hartford insurance companies who sent his kids to the schools and he thought of them highly. It's considerably closer to Hartford than New Haven though.

[JayCT]

Hartford is about 40 miles from New Haven. The halfway point would be Meriden, but I would not recommend living there since it is a small city with schools that do not perform that well on the Connecticut Mastery and Connecticut Academic Performance Tests. There are a number of towns in the Meriden area that have good schools including Cheshire, Southington, Middlefield, Berlin, Durham and Wallingford. The link below will give you more information on the schools in these and other towns in Connecticut. Finding a rental in some of these towns may be difficult.

As for some of the recommendations already made, Portland would not be an easy commute to New Haven. It is located east of the Connecticut River so you have to cross the Arrigoni Bridge and then cross Middletown to get to I-91. It is a bit out of the way.

Bethany Orange and Woodbridge would not be convenient to Hartford so I would not recommend them either. North Haven and Rocky Hill would be good though. North HAven is very close to New Haven, while Rocky Hill is closer to Hartford. You might ask yourself which city you would want to be closer to. Jay

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by JayCT

Bethany Orange and Woodbridge would not be convenient to Hartford so I would not recommend them either.

I disagree. Sure, it's not a short commute, but lots of people have much worse commutes these days, especially in the name of good schools. It's almost average. If schools are top priority, it's worth a commute that's just under an hour. Farmington is another town with top schools, which is the same situation reversed.

It's up to the OP to determine if it's worth it

[Eigenvalue]

Personally, although, Amity is a great schooling district, it is not the only good school district in the area. Cheshire is within 30 minutes of both Hartford and New Haven and its school district is comparable to that of Amity and the OP will probably find more in the way of rentals in Cheshire.

[Stylo]

Cheshire is close to the quality of Amity, yes, and more rentals. That would definitely be a close 2nd if I were choosing. That or Farmington.