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I grew up and went to school in South Orange/Maplewood. It was a lot of years ago, but my mother continued to live there until 5 years ago so I kept up with local news. I am also a teacher in an urban district.
South Orange and Maplewood offer beautiful homes with a nice community feel and great diversity. They also include outrageous taxes and, in my opinion, lousy services for those taxes.
Now for the schools, I didn't care much for them when I was a student...and I was a very good student. Back when I was a student I saw two of my friends get jumped by "out of towners." Through the years I continued to read issues regarding race relations and again, just last week, there was a major disruption to a pre-prom thing sponsored by the school in Grove Park. At the time, it wasn't known whether the fight was caused by CHS students or "out of towners" again.
In my opinion, and it is just my opinion, I chose not to move into my mother's home to raise my daughter mostly due to the schools. I live at the shore now but if I had to move back up north I would prefer to buy a smaller home in Livingston or Cranford. These towns are much less diverse but the school environment is more to my liking.
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