Relocating to Geneva area from Sugar Land, TX (Elgin, St. Charles: how much, homes)

[jo4razorbacks]

We'll be relocating to the Geneva area from Sugar Land, TX & need areas in the vicinity to consider. We are not familiar at all with this area, but have seen posts of people recommending St. Charles. The main concern is schools as we have an upcoming 4th grader, 6th grader & 10th grader. I found a couple of homes with acreage in Wayne but the realtor.com website has N/R for the school ratings. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Drover]

Part of Wayne is in the St. Charles school district and part of it is in the U-46 school district. You don't want any part of U-46.

I find Geneva to be touch nicer than St. Charles primarily because downtown STC has a few to many 20s-oriented bars and Geneva has one of the nicest downtown shopping districts, well, anywhere. Other than that, you could flip a coin between the two. St. Charles has a better reputation for schools, but the difference is probably negligible, if warranted at all. There is an advantage in high school athletic and performing arts facilities in favor of STC (particularly East), but unless you want your kids to be on the swim team I don't think it particularly matters.

The black sheep of the area is Batavia. (St. Charles, Geneva, and Batavia taken together are referred to as the Tri-Cities.) Its downtown is smaller and its schools don't have the same sterling reputation even though they're just fine. That makes it the relative bargain of the area.

If you want acreage and have the means, the STC school district portion of Wayne is the way to go.

[Drover]

Here's a link to the St. Charles East HS attendance map to help you determine which parts of Wayne to consider:

http://district.d303.org/sites/distr...STC%20EAST.pdf

[madpaddy]

Geneva, St Charles, it's really a toss-up. Rural Wayne is nice (as long as you're in St Charles District 303) but your kids might feel isolated. How much acreage are you looking for?

[jo4razorbacks]

Thank you so much. We would like to have 5-10, so we could have some horses. We saw a home online, but unfortunately it seems to be in the U-46 that we should avoid.

[Drover]

Come to think of it, the U-46 portion of Wayne is in the South Elgin HS attendance boundary, which is pretty new and the best of the 5 conventional high schools in the U46 district by a long shot. Also, Wayne Elementary is a fine school too. I'm not sure where they'd go for grades 7-8 though.

Seriously though, if you can afford 8-10 acres in Wayne, can't you afford to put your kids in private school if that's the difference between buying or walking away from an ideal property?

[jo4razorbacks]

That's probably true, but my mother was a public school teacher for nearly 40 years & they've always attended wonderful public schools. In TX, we pay a heck of a lot of taxes for them, too.

[madpaddy]

Originally Posted by jo4razorbacks

In TX, we pay a heck of a lot of taxes for them, too.

You will pay a heck of lot of property tax in Wayne/St.Charles/Geneva too

[jo4razorbacks]

I can see that from my searches online.