Dallas School Districts (Plano, Garland, Richardson: home, neighborhoods, purchase)

[cristobalg]

Hey all

Looking to purchase a home in Dallas and we are having a devil of a time finding a good school district for my HS aged kids. Even in areas where home values are strong and the demographic is upper middle class +, the high schools there seem to be rough, aside from HPISD of course

What gives? Do most high income earners living in Dallas proper send their kids to private schools? I don't mean to sound like a snob (I'm not) but its becoming frustrating

[MurphyPl1]

Um, can you define rough? And maybe give us an idea of where you are coming from?

[cristobalg]

Originally Posted by MurphyPl1

Um, can you define rough? And maybe give us an idea of where you are coming from?

Poor scores, gangs, violence, bullying.

[MurphyPl1]

So you're saying that you find Plano, Coppell, Flower Mound and Southlake to be full of gangs, violence, bullying and poor scores?

You probably should stick with HP or a private.

[cristobalg]

Originally Posted by MurphyPl1

So you're saying that you find Plano, Coppell, Flower Mound and Southlake to be full of gangs, violence, bullying and poor scores?

You probably should stick with HP or a private.

I specifically stated Dallas and Dallas proper in my opening post. So please, instead of dissecting my statements either be helpful or don't post at all.

Thanks in advance

[GripeWater]

I think MurphyPl1 was just trying to understand your dilemma. However, DISD has issues and though their Magnet schools are great, getting in one is a gamble. Affluent Dallas residents send their kids to privates or move to Highland Park, Plano or Coppell school districts. Some parts of North Dallas feed to PISD so that's an option as well but Plano has lower property tax so people prefer to just move there since commute from North Dallas and West Plano are same considering two cities border each other.

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by cristobalg

I specifically stated Dallas and Dallas proper in my opening post. So please, instead of dissecting my statements either be helpful or don't post at all.

Thanks in advance

WT White (covering parts of Preston Hollow & North Dallas) and Woodrow Wilson (covering Lakewood and most of Old East Dallas) are the two neighborhood high schools with the highest concentration of white and affluent students in DISD. I would start there and also apply to DISD magnet high schools, several of which are stellar and rank at and near the top of all US public high schools. While the top students at Woodrow and White haven't done as well in the NMSF competition as private high schools and the top suburban (incl HPHS) high schools, the top graduates have typically done quite well in college admissions at Top 50 universities and liberal arts colleges. Recent grads from these schools (and Hillcrest, discussed below) have matriculated at Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Princeton, NYU, Stanford, Duke, Wellesley, Wash U- St Louis, Yale, U Michigan, Cal Tech, UT Plan II Honors, UT Business Honors, etc.

Furthermore, when the SAT scores of white students - who are typically more affluent - are evaluated at these schools, they are on par or better than suburban counterparts. Hillcrest's M+V for whites is 1133, Woodrow's is 1087, and White's is 1042. For comparison, white students have these M+V scores at other high schools : Plano Sr - 1143, Lake Highlands - 1125, FM Marcus - 1112, Flower Mound - 1108, Colleyville Heritage - 1103, McKinney - 1100, Frisco Centennial - 1088, Frisco Liberty & Frisco HS- 1083. Hillcrest's white students have the 8th highest M+V in the metroplex, behind only HP, Southlake, Coppell, Plano West, Garland, & JJ Pearce.

Hillcrest is the other neighborhood high school choice and it covers Preston Hollow and North Dallas neighborhoods. My neighborhood is zoned to Hillcrest and I was shocked when I moved in how many Hillcrest signs are in the yards. My neighborhood is a $500k-$1.5M range area and I'd guess approx 25% of the yard signs are Hillcrest and it's feeders and 75% are private schools. The last DISD superintendent sent his kid to Hillcrest and then onto Harvard.

I went to a Texas flagship state university and ran across many well-qualified and involved graduates from all three of these DISD high schools.

While I would first try for the elite private schools (St Marks, Hockaday, Greenhill, ESD, Jesuit, Ursuline, & Cistercian), if they didn't pan out I would thoroughly vet these three schools as well as the magnets (if your kids have a legitimate shot at admission) before looking elsewhere. If your choices are second rate privates like TCA, I would stick with a DISD neighborhood school and save your money.

Another decent choice is Richardson ISD's Lake Highlands HS. While the demographics are deteriorating in the LH schools, your kid is already old enough that it wouldn't impact his high school years. Some beautiful neighborhoods and great home values, particularly in the neighborhood adjacent to Flagpole Hill.

[MurphyPl1]

Originally Posted by cristobalg

I specifically stated Dallas and Dallas proper in my opening post. So please, instead of dissecting my statements either be helpful or don't post at all.

Thanks in advance

Actually you didn't specify Dallas proper and many relocatees refer to the entire area as "Dallas" and since you mentioned districts plural that was somewhat open-ended.

[CMC_TX]

Originally Posted by cristobalg

Hey all

Looking to purchase a home in Dallas and we are having a devil of a time finding a good school district for my HS aged kids. Even in areas where home values are strong and the demographic is upper middle class +, the high schools there seem to be rough, aside from HPISD of course

What gives? Do most high income earners living in Dallas proper send their kids to private schools? I don't mean to sound like a snob (I'm not) but its becoming frustrating

Hey, I've lived in Dallas for a long time & went to one of the private schools here. I can attest to the fact that most of the more affluent families living in DISD send their kids to one of the area private schools. There are numerous options, even at the high school level.

If HPISD isn't an option and you want to live in the city of Dallas, I would focus on one of the private schools. You'll see a recurring theme among some of these posts where DISD boosters talk the schools up and act like there is a mass exodus of affluent students leaving private school to come to DISD high schools, which is nothing short of laughable.

Do the research for yourself and you'll see you want to stay far away from the train wreck that is DISD. Many of the schools named as "popular" DISD neighborhood options for affluent families are 85%-90% minority student population. You can look this up on the greatschools website & other similar sites. Many of the schools look so ghetto they look more like prisons than a high school.

If you are open to a suburban community, Carroll ISD, Plano ISD, Coppell ISD & Lewisville ISD (Flower Mound/Highland Village schools, only, & Colleyville Heritage HS) all have solid reputations.

Private High Schools: Hockaday, Ursuline, Jesuit, St Mark's, Cistercian, Bishop Lynch, TCA, ESD, Greenhill.

http://www.greatschools.org/texas/da...b=demographics

http://www.greatschools.org/texas/da...b=demographics

http://www.greatschools.org/texas/da...t-High-School/

Good luck!

[HockDad]

Originally Posted by cristobalg

Hey all

Looking to purchase a home in Dallas and we are having a devil of a time finding a good school district for my HS aged kids. Even in areas where home values are strong and the demographic is upper middle class +, the high schools there seem to be rough, aside from HPISD of course

What gives? Do most high income earners living in Dallas proper send their kids to private schools? I don't mean to sound like a snob (I'm not) but its becoming frustrating

Yes- most of the upper income people in Dallas send their kids to private schools. If you want to send your HS kids to the University of Texas, let them stay in DISD and graduate in the top 8% and gain residency. If you want to send your kids to any top private university, I cannot and would not recommend DISD. I think it stinks. Please note the story this week in DMN where DISD's trustees gave its own superintendent an evaluation one level above failing. That is pretty par for the course with DISD,.