Relocating to Ft Worth-- need info on schools (Fort Worth, Arlington: day care, house)

[Mommy2Ava]

I am very excited at the opportunity to move to Fort Worth in April. I have one daughter who will be entering kindergarten in the fall, and it is very important to me that she be in a great school.

I prefer public, unless public schools are horrible. I have heard schools in Ft Worth are great, however, so I am hopefully to get some specific recommendations on elementary schools.

I will be working at the new Tarrant County Community College on the Trinity River. Also looking for neighborhood recommendations as we would live to have work, school, and home relatively close to each other. Thanks!

[loves2read]

schools in FTW are not great in the sense that the district is well-rated and all schools are equal in their rankings--there are some elementary schools in FTW ISD that have recognized (2nd highest) rating but only 1 elementary rated exemplary or#1...that is a discouraging record...
I am not sure if FTW has full day kindergarten==I know that Keller has half-day right now but most other local ISDs have full day...

you don't say where you are moving from--if you are not from TX be aware that school districts do not have to run congruent with city/county lines--many ISDs are in 2-3 towns and some are in 2 counties at a time--
your local address zones your children for local schools and that can be changed if/when the school board has need to redistrict--Keller has been through this for past few years and it has become pretty acrimonious--Birdville has been through it as well when it constructed the third high school

ISDs set their own tax rate and it varies although most districts are close to their tax cap because the state does not provide all the funding necessary to run a district...
most elementary schools are well within a 2 mi limit--most walkable but some school zones do have busy streets to cross--just depends--some students in districts are bussed from local school area to another school to level classes--some students attend a school out of their zone for special magnet programs and then it is usually the parents' responsibility to get child to school--not the district's...

the price you pay for your house kind of determines the areas you will be shopping in--
is your spouse's commute a factor?
you say you want to be close--what does that mean--do you want to use public transportation--if so that means staying inside FTW city limits pretty much--unless you can use the TRE--train in/out of FTW downtown that has stations in S Hurst and Richland Hills and Euless area
what time do you have to be at work--will you need day care before/after school

are you willing to drive 30 min each way (or less)--

these are districts that have more exemplary rated elementary schools than FTW and are within a 30 min drive each way from the east side of FTW--most areas are safe, have good parks/recreation activities/shopping/chruches/medical facilities--except for Carroll ISD which is almost totally in Southlake the other ISDs are located in 2-3 different towns...
HEB ISD
Birdville ISD
Grapevine-Colleyville ISD
Southlake Carroll ISD
Keller ISD/Keller city limits in the southern section east of 377
maybe Northwest ISD--around Haslet
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
these ISDs I would consider less desireable
Eagle Mtn-Saginaw--north and north east of FTW
Azle
Arlington ISD--SE of FTW
Aledo ISD--west of FTW
Burleson ISD--south of FTW on I-35
^^^^^
Crowley
White Settlement/Castlebury
I would not really recommend because I think you can find similar priced housing in better ISD/areas with about same drive time

[Mommy2Ava]

Great information, thanks!

I will likely be working downtown (near the courthouse) so we would like to live and have our school close in. It doesn't necessarily have to be walk-able, we just don't want to spend 30 minutes communing each way. We are coming from a 10 minutes commute, so we are spoiled :-)

[LSUTigerGirl]

Could you tell me why Eagle Mtn-Saginaw ISD is not desirable?

I moved to Fort Worth from Louisiana and will be looking for a teaching position come August.

I am looking for school districts around my zip code of 76108 that would work for me. I am willing to drive 25-30 minutes.

Let me know your opinion on this.

I personally don't rank a school based on its testing scores because those things are not a basis of how successful you will be in life, its just how well you test. I am looking for a school system with a positive attitude about learning.

[loves2read]

I based that opinion on the number of national merit scholars they have each year for one thing--even though that is a high school issue--it speaks to the quality of education in the district

and frankly I do think that TAKS scores give insight into how well a district can adapt its teaching to meet needs of its students--
think in that area there is growing number of ESL students and economically disadvantaged into what was in past a fairly solid anglo, blue/white collar community without many high-income families--even then it did not have signifiant numbers of national merit scholars--those demographic changes mean there are children who need help to come up to grade level...sometimes districts flounder when they attempt to address those needs---
Eagle Mtn has high degree of teacher stability--that can have +/- factors if teachers with tenure and the district admin are not willing to learn/adapt to new stituations...

frankly if you can get a job there--take it--anyone who can get a job teaching this next year has won a major battle as far as I am concerned...it is going to be hard...from the signs I have seen
and frankly I find it hard to decipher what you mean by positive attitude about learning
I know that in HEB--my former district--there IS a positive attitude about learning--there is good teaching--but lots of pressure to perform on TAKS--the district has designed its curriculum to test for TAKS--they have all kinds of mock tests and want to know how students in any grade level are correcting the weaknesses that testing shows--their TAKS scores have improved significantly in past 3 yrs--they have significant # of ESL, lower socio-economic kids--the district is doing a good job of bringing skills to those students--it also has some programs for the above average students--with Suzukie Strings, core-knowledge, the pre IB and IB strands that start in jr high--
but it is not a perfect district--there are bad teachers and weak admins--there are kids who don't care and parents who don't take responsibility for their childern---
having to have special needs students who are really disruptive because of emotional/behavioral problems is one of the biggest issue to better teaching in the classroom--putting students who might really need to be in self-contained classroom is so expensive that whenever possible admins are usually encouraged to deal with the situation in a regular classroom environment--and that most of the time hurts the regular students more than it helps the special needs one...

it is not a perfect district but there is good teaching going on...the only districts that do not pay more than lip service to TAKS prep are those where students come from upper income, very homogenous demographics and kids will succeed on TAKS anyway---
Grapevine Colleyville has that rep--but some areas do have kids who come from other demographics and in those schools TAKS testing is probably more of a concern...especially at the middle/hs level
Southlake Carroll is the district in Tarrant county who probably has the least to worry about--Carroll does not pay its teachers all that well and has been very behind times with computer infrastructure and other issues that other districts have done better to address/modernize

[LSUTigerGirl]

A place with a positive attitude about learning means a place where they truly care about the kids and not just about being the best on the TAKS test. Teaching is not about teaching for the test, but educating our students to be happy, productive global citizens.

[loves2read]

I would not bring up that POV when/if you get job interview
while thats sounds like the theory behind edcation--frankly it is not what most of it is about here

you might be happier teaching in private or charter type school but remember a religious school will have a bias to promoting education through the veil of that religious philosophy...
and charter schools still have to take TAKS

[momgag]

Originally Posted by Mommy2Ava

I prefer public, unless public schools are horrible. I have heard schools in Ft Worth are great, however, so I am hopefully to get some specific recommendations on elementary schools.

In my opinion, the best elementary in FWISD is Alice Carlson Applied Learning Center, near TCU. This elementary pulls students from all over the district, but I think you have to get in by lottery for kindergarten.

[ask76]

Look up school ratings here:
Measuring Up