Moving to the Houston area, need help, please. (Longview, Spring: for sale, to rent)

[Sunshine11]

We are relocating to the Houston area and I need some serious help.

My husband is doing a job transfer and we have some area's to choose from that are fairly wide scattered across the region.

Here's what I would like to see in a community:

Small rural, nice, friendly area, within 30-45 minutes of an airport (either one is fine). I have two high school aged children: 1 girl, 1 boy.
They would like to participate in sports. Both are decent at sports in a larger school, but less opportunity to play based on numbers.
Sports: basketball, volleyball, bowling, possibly tennis

Therefore, we would like to find a good school around 1A or 2A in size with a friendly, accepting community and good school record for education and athletics. (sports record doesn't have to be top notch, but I would like education to be of good standard), and little crime within communities.

We plan to rent for the first year to make sure we like the area.

Here's the area's we have to choose from:

Sugarland, Houston, Webster, Longview............meaning location of work sites, so he needs to be in a decent driving distance (30 minutes or less would be nice)

I was looking at friendswood, but think the highschool is too large, and am wondering what about Seabrook, Stafford, Sealy, Wallis

or can you suggest any other area's?

private schools are not out of the question, but i would need to investigate tuition costs.

Also, what about finding a fairly nice rental? Is it possible that their may be houses on the market for sale that the owners may rent because the market is not that great? or is the housing market fairly stable (in selling) as far as those area's?

Thanks a bunch in advance for any help.

[Trae713]

The requirement for a 1A or 2A school makes this pretty difficult. Longview is way up there in NE Texas, by the way. Sealy would be about 90 minutes or so to either airport. Wallis may be a good choice, and they are starting to build more homes up there. I would have said the Katy High School area, because it had everything you listed, except for the 1A or 2A school.

[Poltracker]

You might consider some place like Harleton outside of Longview (30 minutes). Very rural, small schools, good school record according to the stats and about 1 hr from Shreveport airport. Hallsville, east of Longview, has larger schools but similar school record. Not too many schools in the Houston area that are 1A or 2A but somewhere like Crosby or Huffman might meet your description, not sure about their record though. They are less suburban than most areas around Houston and about 45 min. to the airport or less.

[Sunshine11]

does that mean nothing around Friendswood or Webster would meet that 1A or 2A criteria?

3A may be okay, but we are in a 4A school district right now in the midwest. The sports are all so political and it's really disheartening to see so many talented kids who have played sports year round and are 'decent' talent, but because the number of kids in the schools are so high, there simply is not enough spots to allow them to play.

We don't plan on getting college scholarships from sports or anything, if fact, more likely to get academic scholarships, but they both really would like to play sports.

Thanks again for all your help.

[Poltracker]

Friendswood and Webster are heavily populated suburbs, they are not rural and both are in 4A/5A districts. You will have to go pretty far out to get into a lower category but then you have to watch school quality. Huffman is 3A, Crosby is 4A. Longview Spring Hill (the better high school in Longview) is 3A. You might also consider Cleveland or Cold Spring. They are rural (3A) but about an hour drive from Bush IAH in Houston.

You could work out of Sugarland and look toward the more rural communites out that way, but it would be a long drive to Hobby airport and a longer one to Bush IAH.

[Premont]

You'd have to be out in the sticks like Anahuac or Rice Consolidated in Altair.

[EasilyAmused]

You're going to have to drive a long way to find 1A or 2A around Houston. So far in fact, I don't think commuting would be realistic.

[Sunshine11]

Huffman (I am thinking it's Hargrave high school, correct?) looks like it might be a possibility with a decent selection of classes offered. Does anyone here have children who attend or have attended this school?

It does not appear it's that far out from Houston. How's the education level there?

Crosby appears to be too large for what we would like in a school.

Anyone have an opinion about Seabrook? It appears to be a nice area.

Also, we will need an area we can find a fairly nice home to rent.

I am really fond of the Sugarland and Katy area, but there does not appear to be a school district the size we are hoping to find.

Thanks again for all the help. I truly appreciate it.

If anyone else has input, please advise. I will continue checking this thread and investigating the schools mentioned or suggested here. The more info. the better.

[DanielWayne]

Originally Posted by Sunshine11

Anyone have an opinion about Seabrook? It appears to be a nice area.

Seabrook is nice, but there are no small schools there. We live next door in Webster. All the Clear Lake towns feed into about 4 very large 5A schools. Friendswood is quite nice, too, and has that small town feel. I'm from a town of less than 20,000 people, so I find Friendswood very appealing. It's also one of the better areas in Houston as far as academics and low crime. But Friendswood high school is 4-A. Katy and Sugarland are more densely populated than Clear Lake, or at least seem that way when I have driven through. Also be aware Seabrook got hit hard by Ike.

The closest small, but good school district to Webster that I can think of is Mont Belvieu/Barbers Hill. That's about 30 mins North/Northeast from Webster. It used to be 3-A, and it is known for being a good school district (wealth from nearby chemical plants), but that area has been growing, so it may be larger now.

[Sunshine11]

thanks for the info. I will check that area out. A town of 20,000 or below would be nice, but wouldn't that be about a 3A school?

Are there any new highschools out the way of Friendswood or Seabrook that might end up being smaller schools?

Maybe I am stretching. I was just really hoping to find that small school. Any idea's for private schools that are not extremely expensive? (i.e. christian schools and such).