Grandview School District (Kansas City, Independence, Lee's Summit: 2013, house, neighborhoods)

[ThinkAgain11]

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[SIZE=3]My wife and I bought a newer house in the Grandview, Mo areaabout 2 and half years ago. We are in the Meadowmere Estates Subdivision rightnext to Meadowmere Park and The View Community Center. Despite some of thenegative opinions and feedback from others regarding Grandview as a whole wehave fallen in love with the house, and the neighborhood. The only concern wecontinue to have is about the school district. Our 4 year old we’ll be startingschool soon and we don’t know what we should do. We have several friends withyoung children in the district and the reviews are mixed. I hate to even typethis but it seems that our Caucasian friends are in a hurry to move so as toget out of the district while our African American friends think it’s a greatschool district. I would say maybe this is because of different expectationsdue to socioeconomics but we are all pretty much in the same boat financially soI am not sure what to make of it. Also, while checking the Grandview SchoolDistrict Website recently I ran across a link to the Missouri Department ofElementary and Secondary Elementary (DESE) that basically states that theGrandview School District is actually one of the Best in Missouri. It is evenrated better than some of the school districts that we just assumed were betterif for no other reason than word of mouth (i.e. Raytown, North Kansas City,Independence, Raymore-Peculiar, even Fort Osage). I have attached the hyperlinkbelow to the announcement. It would be great to get any thoughts on what this reallymeans or specific insight into the Grandview School District. [/SIZE]
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[SIZE=3]http://www.csd4.k12.mo.us/Documents/News%2013-14/8-23-13%20news/APR%20STORY.pdf[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=3]Thanks![/SIZE]

[kcmo]

If you are happy there, then I would hope you would just stay. This topic has been beat to death in this and probably just about every other metro area forum on city data.

Metro KC has over 2 million people and I would think that there are more than one or two school districts worthy of sending your kids to.

Sounds like you are a concerned parent and responsible enough that your kids will do fine in any decent district and Grandview has never been a bad place. It's more racially diverse, but I don't' see how moving to Raymore or Lee's Summit is going to be that much better. They might have higher test score or something, but does that mean they are better districts? Not really.

Grandview has always gotten a bad rap anyway. Like Raytown. Both Grandview and Raytown seem to bear the brunt of the image problem that South KC (Ruskin, Hickman Mills etc) actually has because they are easier to identify with that area of metro KC. 90% of people in metro KC have never seen Grandview from anything other than 71. There are lots of nice neighborhoods there.

[ThinkAgain11]

Thanks for the advice and information! I have read most of the comments regarding this particular topic in the city data forums but most seem to be from more than a few years ago. I guess I was looking for more recent observations. As a graduate of the Kansas City School District I am a little sensitive to the schooling issues in the metro area because I know firsthand how job opportunities can be impacted.