Best schools with houses on the 250's? (Dallas, Plano: find a job, suburbs)

[CMC_TX]

Originally Posted by synchronicity

Well, Plano's school metrics (at least at the high school level for West and Senior) are behind only HP, about even with Carroll (Southlake) and slightly higher than Coppell. HP has nothing anywhere near 250K (maybe a refrigerator box is for sale somewhere ), and Southlake has virtually nothing at 250K (there are actually a few single family detached homes that aren't doublewides [yes, there are actually a few mobile homes within Carroll ISD limits!] that are smallish and might be as low as 250K if they ever hit the market).

Coppell is generally pricier than Plano and we all know how fast houses go there. Richardson (feeding into Pearce) and Flower Mound or Highland Village are other options. Richardson generally gets talked up here a bit as does Flower Mound, but both are smaller than Plano and the school metrics have generally been a touch lower (although FloMo's most recent scores moved them up to Coppell/Plano level). Flower Mound is also a generally tougher commute to downtown Dallas than Plano.

Plano gets top mention most of the time because the schools overall are top notch and there's a lot of reasonably priced housing there. It's not some weird pro-Plano bias. That said, FloMo and Richardson get a lot of props and deservedly so. Grapevine probably is undermentioned a bit (and GCISD is in that weird area of not quite being in the very top tier, and Colleyville is often in the shadow of Southlake reputation-wise).

Your post is very accurate. Unfortunately, I do not think GCISD, and more specifically, Colleyville Heritage, really get the accolades they deserve.

You're right about the perception they are in the shadow of Southlake. However, a large portion of students in GCISD are from outside Colleyville & Grapevine due to ISD boundaries. GCISD encompasses an area that has students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and apartments in HEB attending their schools, whereas Southlake does not have any apartments, nor do they have to educate anyone economically disadvantaged.

If all students attending Colleyville Heritage were from only inside Colleyville city limits, I guarantee you their stats would be on par with Carroll Sr. any day of the week. Demographics for city of Colleyville v. city of Southlake (not the ISDs, just the city) are very similar.

Hopefully more people will learn about GCISD and take advantage of the good schools there. It is a good option in the area, as are Coppell, FloMo & Carroll.

[frenzyrider]

Quite frankly, the city i like the most in terms of diversity, schools, location, age, etc is Richardson. Every other city has problems in one part or the other. When i mean diversity, i mean true diversity in terms of socio-economic status, accepting of minorities, etc. Southlake, HP, Preston Hollow, GCISD, etc i wont even consider because I am a minority. Believe me that i can buy at some of these places but i just don't get the right vibe for a minority which is again only my impression. It probably works for others i am sure.

Plano, frisco, allen is currently way better for certain minorities and are newer. They are a second for me after Richardson. I like coppell for its location and school but it is a very small town with very low inventory.

The bottomline is you have to compromise on certain factors at some point such as location, schools, age of the house, etc. All these places have a great mix of all factors so it is not like you will make a poor decision for your child if you choose Coppell over Plano.
It will come down to which town you like as a family.

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by CMC_TX

Your post is very accurate. Unfortunately, I do not think GCISD, and more specifically, Colleyville Heritage, really get the accolades they deserve.

You're right about the perception they are in the shadow of Southlake. However, a large portion of students in GCISD are from outside Colleyville & Grapevine due to ISD boundaries. GCISD encompasses an area that has students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and apartments in HEB attending their schools, whereas Southlake does not have any apartments, nor do they have to educate anyone economically disadvantaged.

If all students attending Colleyville Heritage were from only inside Colleyville city limits, I guarantee you their stats would be on par with Carroll Sr. any day of the week. Demographics for city of Colleyville v. city of Southlake (not the ISDs, just the city) are very similar.

Hopefully more people will learn about GCISD and take advantage of the good schools there. It is a good option in the area, as are Coppell, FloMo & Carroll.

Actually, most of the students are from Grapevine or Colleyville. It's just a small part of Euless that's in the GCISD boundary, and that area is single family detached homes that are nice if not "fancy". That said, the infamous "Mustang Drive apartments" of Grapevine are in that zone, some practically on the doorstep of Grapevine High School (which probably contributes to it having a worse rep than Heritage, even though both have similar low SES percentages and very similar performance metrics).

But yes, I completely agree that it's an overlooked district and is an excellent choice. As I've noted countless times, we expected to settle there so I researched the heck out of it a few years ago. Colleyville isn't quite as affluent as Southlake overall but it's darn close (and was actually more attractive to us than Southlake for several reasons, that being part of it). If you look up the metrics for Bransford or Taylor elementaries, for example, they're very good.

Really, in the arc near DFW airport from northern Euless in GCISD through Colleyville, Southlake, Grapevine, Flower Mound and Coppell, it's tough to go wrong with any of those choices.

[ChristieP]

Here are GCISD's student demographics from their own website:
African American - 4%
Hispanic - 21%
White - 63%
Other (Native American/Asian/Pacific Islander) - 12%
I hope this will disprove the rumor here that GCISD hardly has any minorities, since the district is 37% non-Anglo.

There are a LOT of apartments in Euless that feed into GCISD. The Bear Creek area along 360 and Mid-Cities Blvd does have single family homes, but it also has a large cluster of apartments.
Yes, there are the apartments and trailer parks on Mustang Drive, and there are also a lot on Park that feed into Silver Lake Elementary, too.

[frenzyrider]

Originally Posted by ChristieP

Here are GCISD's student demographics from their own website:
African American - 4%
Hispanic - 21%
White - 63%
Other (Native American/Asian/Pacific Islander) - 12%
I hope this will disprove the rumor here that GCISD hardly has any minorities, since the district is 37% non-Anglo.

There are a LOT of apartments in Euless that feed into GCISD. The Bear Creek area along 360 and Mid-Cities Blvd does have single family homes, but it also has a large cluster of apartments.
Yes, there are the apartments and trailer parks on Mustang Drive, and there are also a lot on Park that feed into Silver Lake Elementary, too.

Do you have a breakdown of ethnicities by socio-economic status? Because while the above higher level stats look great on paper, what i actually observed was feeders have widely disparate demographics. For example, lower socio-economic status went hand in hand with larger % minority. While this is true generally everywhere, I found it less of a factor in Richardson, Plano, Coppell, Frisco, Allen and even Flower Mound. We searched a ton and drove around a ton of neighborhoods...

[ChristieP]

The district doesn't have that on their website. I would love to see it for myself, but I'm not sure where to look...?

[frenzyrider]

Originally Posted by ChristieP

The district doesn't have that on their website. I would love to see it for myself, but I'm not sure where to look...?

I am also trying to find that info for all districts. It will be super helpful. I was hoping that with Census data one should be able to disect it but since ISD boundaries do not directly correlate with county or city boundaries, it is really hard.

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by frenzyrider

Do you have a breakdown of ethnicities by socio-economic status? Because while the above higher level stats look great on paper, what i actually observed was feeders have widely disparate demographics. For example, lower socio-economic status went hand in hand with larger % minority. While this is true generally everywhere, I found it less of a factor in Richardson, Plano, Coppell, Frisco, Allen and even Flower Mound. We searched a ton and drove around a ton of neighborhoods...

That info is not available, however, I can tell you (and you can verify by looking it up) that, sadly, the elementaries with larger minority populations did, in fact, have higher percentages of "economically disadvantaged", and there were considerable disparities among those K-5 feeders in terms of SES and school metrics. (These were largely eliminated at the 6-8 level, and the two high schools have almost identical percentages of economically disadvantaged as well as test metrics and the like).

IIRC, Pearce HS in Richardson and FloMo HS in particular scored among top districts re: minorities in SATs, but were absent from the top 7 for whites, so that would support your observation.

[HockDad]

I would look at schools in the RISD. Some schools are very good (like Pearce), while other schools are just good (Lake Highlands). People love living in RISD and it is more affordable than many areas in the metroplex

[Jinxy3]

Originally Posted by frenzyrider

I am also trying to find that info for all districts. It will be super helpful. I was hoping that with Census data one should be able to disect it but since ISD boundaries do not directly correlate with county or city boundaries, it is really hard.

Not sure if this is what you are referencing, but I go here to search for district info:

2014 Texas Academic Performance Report

You have to select district and enter the search terms accordingly.