Buying in Lake Forest (Huntsville, Madison: rent, house, neighborhoods)

[lapalina]

Hi,

I currently rent a house in Lake Forest, and I love living in this neighborhood. My husband and I are thinking about buying here, but with a little one on the way, we're concerned about the quality of the schools that are zoned for our subdivision (Williams Elementary).

Should I be concerned about the schools here in Lake Forest? Clearly I won't be needing them for another 5 years, so I suppose the school zoning could change....

[Big Grumpy]

I live in Lake Forest and have two children at Williams Elementary now with another scheduled to start in Fall 2016. You should be concerned about the school and it's highly doubtful that any zoning change would affect where children from Lake Forest would attend school in the future. There may have been an opportunity to have the neighborhood zoned for Madison City schools initially but that boat has long since sailed.

You will find that a lot of the families that live here send their children to private schools be it Madison Academy, Westminster, or John Paul Catholic. None of those options are cheap. Madison Academy is $7k a year, Westminster is around $5k, and John Paul is in that same ballpark as Westminster. That's not in Randolph territory but multiply that by 2 or 3 and you're forking out some serious cash for kids to attend grade school.

I'm actually considering relocating to the Madison City limits to get into the Madison City schools because we don't care for Williams and because we don't really want to spend $14k+ on elementary school for three kids. So, yes it's definitely something you should consider before you buy a home here. There are no easy alternatives if you purchase and then find that you don't care for the school.

[FatTails]

Don't live in Lake Forest if you want good schools.

[CP79]

What is bad about Williams Elementary?

Serious question, not trolling.

[LCTMadison]

They will not rezone Lake Forest out of Williams. There is not another HSV city school close by.

HSV City Schools was under a lot of pressure from military brass to improve Williams Elementary but how long that will take or if that will happen remains to be seen.

So many LF families are utilizing the private schools (like Grumpy said) that those schools are running on wait lists now. There has been a dramatic increase in those private school's attendance since LF started to boom again with the builders that have been building over the past few years in LF.

[Big Grumpy]

We have a non-biological child who has struggled with speech and learning disabilities. My wife has had to fight Williams Elementary for EVERYTHING to get my daughter the help she needs. The school faculty and staff are frequently unresponsive, make commitments that they do not keep, especially in regards to IEP services, and seem unwilling to address bullying at the school.

My daughter is 7 and was knocked down a flight of stairs because a girl didn't like my daughter looking at her. The school did nothing. They didn't even call us to let us know what happened. My daughter told my wife and my wife called the school principal the following morning. Two teachers indicated that they SAW this incident happen but failed to do anything. The principal's fix was to tell the girl to stay away from my daughter. Problem solved.

If you have a child that excels without much help from the teachers then you'll get the impression things are okay. They tested my daughter for several issues and said she was "average" and didn't qualify for services BUT they were telling us she was probably going to fail and be held back. My wife told them "If she's average and doesn't qualify for services then why are you planning to hold her back? Either the teaching is inadequate or the testing is inadequate. All told, the school checked her vision and said it was fine. Checked her for Auditory Processing Disorder and said her hearing was fine. Performed language development testing and said she was fine.

My wife eventually took her for an outside evaluation to Vanderbilt University. The doctors there told my wife that our daughter needed vision therapy, occupational therapy, prescription eyewear, and also suffered from Auditory Processing Disorder. Most of these findings were in direct conflict with the school's findings. The school also tested my daughter for ADD and ADHD prior to the Vanderbilt visit and held onto the results for three months before providing them to us. By the time we got this diagnosis confirmed and got her to a psychologist for a full psychological evaluation and got a prescription for medication we had lost her entire first grade year.

My daughter has done a little better this school year with medication but is still a full year behind in her reading and math. Recently, after noticing a downturn in her test scores, we asked if the school was providing her with the required one-on-one time with the special education staff that was initiated during the first grade year. We were told that they weren't providing her with the agreed upon services because the school downsized the special education staff from two teachers to one teacher this year and this single teacher can't service all of the special education students within a single week.

On top of all of this, one of the special education teachers from last year told my wife (before she took her to Vanderbilt for evaluation) that some kids can "only do so much". With the way things are going this year with lack of intervention during the school day, we've now been forced to get an advocate involved on our behalf to get the school to do what is federally required by IDEA and FAPE simply because my wife is exhausted from fighting them.

Another issue is the socio-economic status of the kids that make-up the school. The majority of students in the school come from lower income families and lower middle class families. The remaining students, a minority, come from middle class and upper middle class families. That disparity is changing to some degree with the building of several pricier neighborhoods along Zierdt and Beadle roads, but has been slow to take shape in the school. The result is a school where you have many kids with little to no parental involvement/support at home juxtaposed with kids who do and kids with significant street knowledge mixed with kids who are purposely not exposed to such knowledge. The problem is that the former group forms the majority and ultimately dictates what goes on at the school, what is talked about during the school day, and even the pacing of teaching.

When a teacher tells you that "you don't want your kids going to school here", you kinda take notice. When you see how other educators elsewhere in town react when you tell them where your kids go to school, you take notice.

Here's a link to look at test scores, reviews, ratings for Williams Elementary:
James E Williams School - Huntsville, Alabama - AL - School overview

[needtosellmyhome]

Originally Posted by Big Grumpy

Here's a link to look at test scores, reviews, ratings for Williams Elementary:
James E Williams School - Huntsville, Alabama - AL - School overview

Wow, it has actually gone up since the last time I saw it! We moved to Lake Forest about two and a half years ago and at that time it was rated as a 3 out of 10 and it now says 5 out of 10. I am not sure how reliable that is though?

My next door neighbors in Lake Forest moved away last year because of the schools and they bought a home in the City of Madison. Their kids went to Williams for only one year and they said that one year was enough.

My kids have long been out of school so the schools weren't really much of a concern except that it could affect resale. Homes have been selling pretty well here the last several years though.

[Reactionary]

"was rated as a 3 out of 10 and it now says 5 out of 10"

The Wardynski Effect? IIRC he got rid of the principals at both Williams ES and MS.

[Big Grumpy]

Originally Posted by Reactionary

"was rated as a 3 out of 10 and it now says 5 out of 10"

The Wardynski Effect? IIRC he got rid of the principals at both Williams ES and MS.

This is the second year for the principal at Williams Elementary. Some of the improvement may be from the principal but some may actually be the influx of new kids from the Benton and Breland developments on Zierdt and Beadle. Hard to quantify exactly though and there was really nowhere for the rankings to go but up.

[captainmom]

Thanks lapalina for posting this question. I wanted to ask about LF since our family is relocating to Huntsville in a few months and one of the areas on our house hunting list is Lake Forest but the school rating concerned me. The elementary, middle & high school seems like the lowest rating I have seen on the current home listings I receive from the Huntsville & Madison area schools in our price range. I hope the rankings move up regardless if we move to that area or not.