Urban or suburban for large progressive family? (California, Hale: sale, homes)

[barretts08]

I'm not too worried about schools. We have been homeschooling while living abroad and like it just fine. If we had a good school option we would consider it, but if not we can keep homeschooling. And I do think we would like some aspects of suburban life, we kind of have one foot in both lifestyles. We do have 4 kids and I am a stay at home mom. I have no problem with minivans it's just that we are also highly educated (my husband has a ph.d) and we are well traveled.

Can you explain the difference between old and new briarcliff? Also, I see briarcliff is in Kc school district, do you know anything about these schools? The high school is North Kansas High which has a great schools rating of 4! Now, I'm quite averse to standardised testing, so I'm not entirely turned off by low test scores. I believe education should be more whole-person focused. I'm actually quite skeptical of schools with great test scores as I worry all they do is teach how to take tests.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by WiseOwlSaysHoot

I'm sorry but this is just not true any more. I know you haven't lived in KC for quite some time and the non-private school options in KCMO have been improving drastically. It seems like every year there is a new charter school opening.

The difficult part would be having a 9 year old as some of the better schools don't accept transfers and some of the promising new schools don't offer grades that high yet (they are adding grades each year as they go up). Still, there should be some options. I hear a lot of great things from parents at Crossroads Academy in Downtown and they allow transfer students, currently go through 8th grade, and are adding a high school next year.

Yea, I know there are some great options other than private or the KCMOSD. I'm so used to people ignoring those types of posts that I tend to just not post about them. Good call on the correction though.

[luzianne]

Originally Posted by empires228

JoCo republicans tend to be pretty moderate until you get out into Olathe and into places like Gardner. JoCo, Shawnee, and Riley County all had a pretty good democratic turn out. Hillary had 41.1% of the votes casted in JoCo with Trunp at 46.7 and Johnson at 5.2. Platte and Clay County MO voted 40% Hillary as well, and we knew before the election that Jackson and Wyandotte County were going to be blue once the results were in. On the other hand, Lafayette County, Johnson County, Missouri, Cass County, Miami County, and Leavenworth County all voted republican by a fairly wide margin.

Agreed. I've lived in Johnson County for a long time and though it once was pretty conservative, it tends to lean pretty liberal now. I would say that is true in most of Johnson County. South of 119th in Leawood and Overland Park the population tends to be highly educated/high income/liberal. Yes, there are some megachurches. But also a lot of synagogues and the Jewish population tends to skew liberal. Also a lot of Middle Eastern and Asian people, white collar professionals. If people are thinking Johnson County is full of blue collar Southern Baptists, they're wrong.

[zach_33]

To me it is mostly a matter of finances. If you honestly have no qualms about home schooling, then the financial considerations of needing good public schools kind of go out the window - that tilts the decision *heavily* in favor of urban living. Brookside is a great option. I love that Coleman Highlands area that was mentioned also. Anything in the area around Roanoke Park is kind of a dream location for this city in my opinion (north of 39th, east of State Line, south of 35th, west of Southwest Trafficway)- I rarely see homes for sale in that area and they are usually either really dumpy or really expensive.

Socially, though, I think it would be easier for your children to assimilate into a community if they attend the schools that other kids in the neighborhood attend. In Brookside, you would find a hodge podge of families and empty nesters. The families are probably fragmented between public charter, Catholic, and private schools. That's good and well (I suppose) if you can afford Private schools, figure between $10k to $20k per kid per year depending on the program, or if you are willing to "roll the dice" on the public charters, that are heavily pursued by all the well-heeled Brooksiders looking to get a deal on free high end public education. I can't afford that, the gamble on not getting into the public charters or the price tag on the private schools, on top of the annual maintenance requirements of an older home like those beauties in Brookside.

In the burbs like Briarcliff, its going to be mostly kids in the local public district. Personally, I'd target it. I would also choose Park Hill South over NKC schools even though one is probably less diverse and more snooty. Neither is going to be particularly progressive but you might want to scan your neighbors pick up trucks for confederate flag stickers before you close on the house (ha ha - dark humor there, only a handful of alt-right freak shows in the core KCMO area, but they do exist).

You have a tough decision there. You will definitely need to see the place from the street level to get a feel for it.

[zach_33]

I can see now that there is just an itty-bitty section of Briarcliff west that falls into Park Hill district. Literally zero for sale in that part of Briarcliff West at the moment. It's pretty much all NKC. Well, there's always NKC, and Riverside... and I know somebody else mentioned Liberty - that's supposed to be great also.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by barretts08

I'm not too worried about schools. We have been homeschooling while living abroad and like it just fine. If we had a good school option we would consider it, but if not we can keep homeschooling. And I do think we would like some aspects of suburban life, we kind of have one foot in both lifestyles. We do have 4 kids and I am a stay at home mom. I have no problem with minivans it's just that we are also highly educated (my husband has a ph.d) and we are well traveled.

Can you explain the difference between old and new briarcliff? Also, I see briarcliff is in Kc school district, do you know anything about these schools? The high school is North Kansas High which has a great schools rating of 4! Now, I'm quite averse to standardised testing, so I'm not entirely turned off by low test scores. I believe education should be more whole-person focused. I'm actually quite skeptical of schools with great test scores as I worry all they do is teach how to take tests.

I don't know much about NKC high school. I do know the NKC district is good. The district has four high schools. Staley and Oak Park will be the newer parts of the district while NKC and Winnetonka serve a more diverse population of older neighborhoods with new infill and lower income to affluent.

So the lower portion of the NKC district is generally much more diverse and will have more social problems, kids on free lunches etc. That's not always a bad thing though. I mean NKC High has many very affluent areas that I'm sure many parents use the public schools. I know we were in Blue Springs high area in Blue Springs which covers more diverse areas of the city while Blue Springs South is more affluent school and tends to rank higher in test scores etc. I don't think there was much actual difference. If anything, Blue Springs high has more to offer in the way of college credit classes etc because it's larger. I don't think my kids would perform any different in one vs the other.

The ONLY way to really find out about schools is to somehow get in touch with some people that live there and have kids in the district. Drive around Briarcliff and talk to existing residents when you are looking at homes. That's what we have always done.

[Okey Dokie]

Originally Posted by barretts08

I'm not too worried about schools. We have been homeschooling while living abroad and like it just fine. If we had a good school option we would consider it, but if not we can keep homeschooling. And I do think we would like some aspects of suburban life, we kind of have one foot in both lifestyles. We do have 4 kids and I am a stay at home mom. I have no problem with minivans it's just that we are also highly educated (my husband has a ph.d) and we are well traveled.

Can you explain the difference between old and new briarcliff? Also, I see briarcliff is in Kc school district, do you know anything about these schools? The high school is North Kansas High which has a great schools rating of 4! Now, I'm quite averse to standardised testing, so I'm not entirely turned off by low test scores. I believe education should be more whole-person focused. I'm actually quite skeptical of schools with great test scores as I worry all they do is teach how to take tests.

Anything that is north of the Missouri River (like Briarcliff) is NOT in the Much-maligned Kansas City, MO school district, even if the house is within the city limits of Kansas City, MO. In the case of Briarcliff, it's going to be the North Kansas City district (except that tiny part as someone mentioned is in Park Hill). "Old" Briarcliff (east of 169 Highway) was developed in the 30s through the 60s. "New" Briarcliff, aka Briarcliff West, is west of 169, was developed beginning in the 1980s and I think there is still some building going on. Howver, if your housing budget is 350, I doubt there's anything in Briarcliff West that will be in that price range.

North Kansas City HS is undergoing a huge renovation. It still will serve a portion of economically challenged students.

[James Bond 007]

If you home school your kids I don't know what's the fuss about finding a "progressive" place. Not that there's even going to be much difference in the curriculum of a suburban school district vs a center city one in case you did decide not to home school.

If it's local politics you're worried about you're not going to find too much difference either. It's not like even the Liberty city council is pushing all kinds of controversial politics on everyone.

If it's just a more urban setting you're interested in then you can just say you might want a more "urban" setting. "Progressive" implies politics, not city form.

[barretts08]

I'm most interested in making friends with like minded people. I have a friend from California who lived a few years in KC and is now moving back, he said he had a hard time making friends because people only wanted to talk sports whereas he was interested in more intellectual topics.

[TabulaRasa]

Seriously?

I don't talk sports, ever, and haven't wanted for conversation or friends, here.