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My "smaller, older" property has more than DOUBLED in value in the past 8 years, even accounting for the real estate downturn. What has your giant new home in Plano done for you?
Well, I live in a giant new home, for one thing.
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City services: last time I called 911 in Dallas (medical emergency for family member), an ambulence showed up in under 2 minutes- pretty comprable to University Park's response times. There are several older people in my building and none of them have ever died waiting for an ambulence. Neither has our building burned down waiting for firemen.
Call Dallas 911 and tell them your car's been broken into. Start the timer and let me know when it stops.
As for "extremely iffy" schools, I'm sorry you missed out on the chance to visit 1 or more of the 125 DISD schools that share the same Exemplary & Recognized ratings that your local schools earned. I really can't believe there weren't 10 schools that you could have selected where your kids would have had an equal or better educational experience than their current schools.
My particular path of Plano schools consists of Exemplary, Exemplary, Exemplary, and Recognized. I'll take that. More importantly, I don't have to play "win the admission lottery" games or live in a particular part of town to make sure I don't get stuck with one of the 99 Acceptable or Unacceptable DISD schools.
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Seriouly, you should all do yourselves a favor- look up the Booker T Washington performing arts calendar and go visit the school during their senior art show or a dance performance or theatre production. They're either free or have a nominal charge. I think you'll be quite suprised at the caliber of students and teachers.
I get it. Booker T. Washington is a mini-Fame. What does that do for the other 99% of the school district, other than siphon off the best performing arts talent? Anyway, my kid isn't the next Norah Jones.
Let me rephrase- what's your home's value done for you? I doubt you've averaged 10-12% appreciation per year since 2002.
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Originally Posted by Big G
Call Dallas 911 and tell them your car's been broken into. Start the timer and let me know when it stops.
I know it makes you feel good when the cops come, take notes, and tell you they'll try to find the bad guys....but they rarely, if ever, do. Take your own pics of the damage, file your report with DPD over the phone, and call your insurance. Big deal.
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Originally Posted by Big G
My particular path of Plano schools consists of Exemplary, Exemplary, Exemplary, and Recognized. I'll take that. More importantly, I don't have to play "win the admission lottery" games or live in a particular part of town to make sure I don't get stuck with one of the 99 Acceptable or Unacceptable DISD schools.
First, there are exemplary and recognized schools in nearly every area- especially at the elementary school level. Where I live, I'm zoned to an Exemplary, Recognized, and an Unacceptable HS (North Dallas). Where my boyfriend lives, it's Exemplary, Recognized, and Acceptable. I have no problem putting my kids in DISD trough 8th grade for sure- after that, we'll see what the neighborhood school is like in 2025 or so and either do that, apply for magnets, or have enough money saved to go private. Our inner-ring home will continue to appreciate at 3-4x the rate of your home 20 miles out from Downtown, so it won't be hard to come up with $50k for high school, if need be.
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I get it. Booker T. Washington is a mini-Fame. What does that do for the other 99% of the school district, other than siphon off the best performing arts talent? Anyway, my kid isn't the next Norah Jones.[/quote]
Well, to begin with, it gives 400 kids an extrodinary experience- one that HP, St Marks, PWSH, or any other school in Texas could provide them. Nearly every week, the artists coming through Dallas to perform at the Winspear, Wyly, and Meyerson visit the classrooms and instruct on a very low performer:student ratio. Duncan Sheik, producer of Tony-award winning "Spring Awakening" taught a class to the screenplay majors last spring. Meryl Streep, Blue Man Group, etc have all been in the school recently. Plus, most of the funds for the new building were raised privately and did not impact tthe DISD budget- it's a $40M facility. I think giving 100 graduates a year the opportunity to have world-class instruction FOR FREE is fantastic. I'm sorry you don't appreciate the school's worth to the District's national reputation or for the city's arts district.
What about the other kids, you say? The other magnet schools are equally wonderful for their focuses; I just know the most about Booker T. Woodrow Wilson is a stellar inner-city high school (carries the same recognized rating as your local hs), as well as White. Many other neighborhood high schools are seeing trend improvement in test scores, year after year. Their ratings will follow; it just takes time.
The district's drop-out rate has decreased by 10% over the last 5 years. These are monumental signs things are moving in the right direction. I attended last month's open DISD school board meeting and was impressed by Hinojosa as well as most of the trustees and administrators who spoke that evening. They are turning a big ship around/ it doesn't happen overnight.
With over 40% of the schools acceptable or below? Yes, I do.
For comparison, Frisco ISD 2010 school ratings:
EXEMPLARY - 37 schools (88% of district)
RECOGNIZED - 5 schools (12% of district)
ACCEPTABLE - 0 schools (0% of district)
UNACCEPTABLE - 0 schools (0% of district)
Please let us know the % of Frisco students who qualify for free lunch.
Please let us know the % of Frisco kindergarteners who are rated "Limited English Proficiency."
And the same for Plano, since you live there.
It's not a race thing, as you indicated earlier. It's socioeconomics, plain and clear. Frisco has one of the top mean & median incomes in the Metroplex, if not the state of Texas. Having Hispanic students means nothing. Having Hispanic students whose parents both work two shifts and barely scrape together $25,000 per year in income, who never finished 5th grade themselves and who speak only Spanish at home- now that's a huge uphill battle for a kid to climb. That "kid" represents about 50% of DISD.
Let me rephrase- what's your home's value done for you? I doubt you've averaged 10-12% appreciation per year since 2002
I'm glad that worked out for you. Ya know, I bought some Microsoft stock back in '08 that's gone up 40% in the last couple of years. Some investments work out, some don't. In fact, I'm quite sure my house's value has gone down since I built it in 2006.
Still, I'm living, as you say, in a "giant new home", right where I want to be. I guess I could have put that money towards a much smaller house in HP. My balance sheet on Quicken would look better with an unrealized paper gain, but I'd still be living in an old, cramped house.
The other magnet schools are equally wonderful for their focuses; I just know the most about Booker T. Woodrow Wilson is a stellar inner-city high school (carries the same recognized rating as your local hs), as well as White. Many other neighborhood high schools are seeing trend improvement in test scores, year after year. Their ratings will follow; it just takes time.
I've pretty much checked out of this pissing match, but just for clarification, Woodrow Wilson is academically acceptable, not recognized. Magnet schools are magnet schools. 99% of students in Dallas won't get the chance to go to them. That makes them outliers.
This board has gotten old. I'm not sure how some of you stay on here for years talking about the same things over and over. So I guess I'm checking out of this board, too. One last thing before I go.
I love Dallas, I really do. My wife and I are planning on moving either downtown or just east of downtown as soon as our current lease is up. But the elitist anti-suburban attitude by some is amazing, and you all know who you are. You get so riled up when people speak anything bad about Dallas, but you don't let that get in the way of your own biased and condescending generalizations about where other people live. Dallas is a suburban city, period. Outside of the few square miles that make up downtown and uptown, it's suburban. If you live in North Dallas, you might as well live in a suburb. If you live in Lakewood, you essentially live in a suburb. If you live in Preston Hollow, suburb. You get the point. The lines between life in Plano or Richardson and living in Dallas city limits are becoming more and more blurred. Their trees are getting to be just as tall as Dallas's, they've got their own parks and trails, and they're opening their own bars and restaurants. They've got real diversity in their schools. It's not just 85% hispanic at one school and 85% black at another like at DISD. People in the suburbs are finding less and less reasons to come to Dallas for things to do. The thought of that kills people in Dallas, and I don't know why. So, congratulations if you live in those precious few square miles of urban life in Dallas. I'm not sure why it's so hard for you to accept some people don't care to do the same.
I guess my point in all this is, who cares? Who freaking cares? Live and let live, I say.
You know I am left of center, and admittedly white, and I love Frisco. Do I love Lakewood also, yes, and I am jealous that most of the folks down there are in my camp. But I love the ease of getting around Frisco, and I happen to, gasp, live in an established neighborhood with wonderful mature trees. Another misconception gone....My neighborhood is fairly moderate politically so not so bad.
Some good things are happening in Frisco, the new grand park development on the drawing board will match any public space in DFW when it is completed. Traffic in town is really good as long as you stay off Preston which is easy to do. I personally think the OP would be happy in Frisco but thats just me. And if you want a change and time to experience life inside the loop it is a meer 25 minutes drive south on the tollway on the weekends. I know, I do it all the time. So for safety and convenience nothing wrong with the place, and lots of good.
Btw, most of my neighbors have been on my street for at least 5 years, many have lived here for as much as 18, so we have a little history in my area of town. Admittedly, not as much as the inner city but I'll take the tradeoff. In addition, I can identify all of those Dallas neighborhoods on the map and their associated demographics/crime stats. It really comes down to preferences, I don't like trying to get around down there and the obvious crime threat we just don't have as much of up here.
But I certainly wouldn't readily throw out racism anymore, there's people from all walks of life on my street, mostly white, but not by much. Does it exist, sure, but it does down there as well. I know from experience.
Now I will say, Lakewooder, that while I imagine we probably share many things philosophically, you have made a number of derogatory comments for things outside the loop thats the reason for the pretentious tag. You're slapping us with the same borad brush you accuse us of slapping your area with. I'm a statement of proof that Collin County is not all redneck neo cons. Now, conversely, is the tea party strong here, yes....gotta admit the bad with the good. But Bill White and Obama both received around 40% of the vote here, so we're not all lumped together too tight.
DFWMike, nice post.
First post on this board but I have been "lurking" for several days reading through the forum. Great information from everyone!
My family and I are moving to Frisco the first of the year as my wife fell in love with the place and my company is willing to relocate us to make travel easier on the family.
That being said, what subdivision are you living in and where do you think you would choose today if you had to do it again? Maybe we're below your price range--our budget is around $300k.
I lived in frisco for 8 years. Being African American it was great for me. I moved there before the boom, and I moved there because of the small town feel. It is more diverse since I moved there years ago. The school district is the best. If I were to leave frisco I would move to Prosper. Addison is a place for nightlife not too far. Frisco has so much I hardly ever saw Dallas.
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Some investments work out, some don't. In fact, I'm quite sure my house's value has gone down since I built it in 2006. 
