Need suggestions on School/Living area in South MA (Boston: 2015, house)

[ramsdesk]

Dear Friends,

Am new to this part of US (RI/MA). For my work, I will be shuttling between Quincy and Cranston - few days a week alternately. Am looking for suggestions for best school district, based on national ranking on scores, great teachers, more AP subjects and diversity - I have two kids, one is in High School and other is in Middle school.

Would like to live in south MA - wherever best school districts are available - either in RI or MA is fine.

I did some research.. the schools that come up are Sharon in MA, Dover in MA.

Request your opinion on these schools or suggestions for better ones and also the best place to live in.

Truly appreciate your help.

Thanks much.

[jayrandom]

South MA isn't really a region. Sharon would be a lot more convenient for your commute. Dover probably has a slightly better ranking in terms of schools. Most of that is probably demographic, as Dover has the second highest household income in the state. Sharon is slightly more modest and more diverse. Don't expect much in terms of diversity in most parts of suburban Boston. You might also consider Medfield, Milton, and Westwood, too. All have good schools and are not far from the route between those two locations.

As for the absolute best school, that's basically an impossible task to identify with certainty. Certain schools are 'feeders' for Ivies, but the competition there can be enormous and, at least for some kids, demotivating. I've had coworkers in certain too distcits complain about how competitive the schools are.

I'm assuming budget isn't a constraint if you're considering Dover. If that's really the case you might want to consider elite private high schools. If school performance is the one and only criterion, those are generally going to be better than any public school.

[ramsdesk]

@Jayrandom - Appreciate you taking time to respond and your inputs. Thanks first.

Am not in for private schools primarily due to high budgets. As you said, school performance is not the only criterion, but it is indeed primary and other key factors are cost of living and decent homes (perhaps around 400k).

You mentioned about Medfield, Milton and Westwood - I did look for their ranking in www.niche.com; here is what I found
Medfield is #36
Milton is not ranked
Westwood is #21
None are in Top 10 or even 20.

I love your point on schools being competitive specifically those that are 'feeders' for Ivy. Completely agree here. Am open to your suggestions, if I may request, on what parameters should I look for in deciding the school. While ranking is important but they could be subjective too. Am ok with those schools that encourage kids that are above average (say 80-90% range) and help kids to get into the >90% range.

Please do suggest. TIA

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by ramsdesk

@Jayrandom - Appreciate you taking time to respond and your inputs. Thanks first.

Am not in for private schools primarily due to high budgets. As you said, school performance is not the only criterion, but it is indeed primary and other key factors are cost of living and decent homes (perhaps around 400k).

You mentioned about Medfield, Milton and Westwood - I did look for their ranking in www.niche.com; here is what I found
Medfield is #36
Milton is not ranked
Westwood is #21
None are in Top 10 or even 20.

I love your point on schools being competitive specifically those that are 'feeders' for Ivy. Completely agree here. Am open to your suggestions, if I may request, on what parameters should I look for in deciding the school. While ranking is important but they could be subjective too. Am ok with those schools that encourage kids that are above average (say 80-90% range) and help kids to get into the >90% range.

Please do suggest. TIA

If you don't want practical advice don't ask for it. In the corridor you've identified (essentially the i-95 corridor to Rhode Island) those are generally considered good schools. Dover is probably the best, but with a median home price of $950k and the second highest household income in the state, it probably should be. Medfield was #4 in US news rankings:

https://www.usnews.com/education/bes.../massachusetts

And Westwood ranks higher than Sharon on Niche:

https://www.niche.com/k12/rankings/p...on-metro-area/

You are measuring poorly defined and noisy signals. Ranking noise and assigning meaning to the rank doesn't make it less noisy, only more misleading.

The truth is that all the school districts in the area are pretty good. There are parts of the US where only the highest ranked districts are worthwhile. Which is probably worth remembering now that I've seen your budget. Forget every town mentioned so far. Your budget is too small. $400k won't buy anything in any of those towns. Just look on Zillow or Trulia or Redfin.

[Peabody99]

You should have stated your budget in the original post. To say you want Sharon or Dover is misleading, people will assume you looked at housing costs and can afford it. For 400,000 you should look at (maybe) Foxboro, North Attleboro, Wrentham, I'm not too familiar with that area of the state but have friends that live in MA near RI.

[Dm84]

$400k will not get you what you want in terms of public schools. The sooner you accept this the happier you will be. $400k can buy you a nice house in an average school district. Again, average.

[alidmc]

Originally Posted by ramsdesk

@Jayrandom - Appreciate you taking time to respond and your inputs. Thanks first.

Am not in for private schools primarily due to high budgets. As you said, school performance is not the only criterion, but it is indeed primary and other key factors are cost of living and decent homes (perhaps around 400k).

You mentioned about Medfield, Milton and Westwood - I did look for their ranking in www.niche.com; here is what I found
Medfield is #36
Milton is not ranked
Westwood is #21
None are in Top 10 or even 20.

I love your point on schools being competitive specifically those that are 'feeders' for Ivy. Completely agree here. Am open to your suggestions, if I may request, on what parameters should I look for in deciding the school. While ranking is important but they could be subjective too. Am ok with those schools that encourage kids that are above average (say 80-90% range) and help kids to get into the >90% range.

Please do suggest. TIA

Rankings don't really mean much. That number 10 school today could be 44 next year. Also, the top 10 and 20 schools are in very wealthy towns. Those high rankings come from supplemental education-enrichment programs, tutoring, etc. that those parents pay additional for. Can you afford to spend thousands of dollars per year on supplemental education so your child can be a high performer in these schools?

[mwbms28]

Can you buy something in Walpole for $400K? Location-wise, Walpole would work well for you, and it's a pretty nice town to boot.

[ramsdesk]

@Jayrandom - Thank you once again for sharing the links and comments. Pardon me if I have said anything inappropriate. As I am doing this search for the first time myself, natural inclination was to look at these ratings and now I realize they are very subjective. And yes, I did check the US News ratings and the niche one. Quite different. @alidmc also said same comments. Concur with both.

On median home prices, I looked at the below two sites, they state that Sharon is in the $450 to $500k range. Dover, ofcourse is >$850k.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2013/09/...WXJ/story.html
Best Places to Live 2015 - Single-Family Home Prices in Greater Boston
https://www.trulia.com/home_prices/Massachusetts/

Anyway, I get it now. Going by what Jayrandom said, Medfield, Westwood seem to be nice school districts with $500k to $600k home budgets.

Thanks to everyone for taking time to respond to my queries.

[bugelrex]

Originally Posted by ramsdesk

@Jayrandom - Thank you once again for sharing the links and comments. Pardon me if I have said anything inappropriate. As I am doing this search for the first time myself, natural inclination was to look at these ratings and now I realize they are very subjective. And yes, I did check the US News ratings and the niche one. Quite different. @alidmc also said same comments. Concur with both.

On median home prices, I looked at the below two sites, they state that Sharon is in the $450 to $500k range. Dover, ofcourse is >$850k.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2013/09/...WXJ/story.html
Best Places to Live 2015 - Single-Family Home Prices in Greater Boston
https://www.trulia.com/home_prices/Massachusetts/

Anyway, I get it now. Going by what Jayrandom said, Medfield, Westwood seem to be nice school districts with $500k to $600k home budgets.

Thanks to everyone for taking time to respond to my queries.

What is your priority in terms of education vs housing quality?
I think for 600k, you might be able to find a 1,500 sqft cape in horrid condition needing updates, perhaps busy location, generally a very low quality home... but you would be in a very good school district

For example: Newton which has one of the best school districts in MA. Some real 'crap holes' in the 600k range.. but if your budget is tight and education trumps EVERYTHING else...

https://www.redfin.com/city/11619/MA.../sort=lo-price