Maplewood/Montclar/Verona (Irvington, Bloomfield, West Orange: neighborhood, catholic schools, taxes)
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I love that their birthdays are so close! All NJ towns have a different cutoff date. Most (including Montclair, Verona, and Maplewood) are October 1 or October 15. You will sometimes see September 1, 15, or 30. I haven't seen any Novembers, and only one December so far. (It is driving me crazy that I cannot find this. *Please someone tell me if you know anything besides Marlboro...*) However, NJ only cares about cutoff dates when it comes to enrolling for pre-k, kindergarten, and first grade. After first grade, any transfer from any district with any birthday will be enrolled. So there may be some children with birthdays later than October 1, but likely... yes, your boys will be the youngest.
HOWEVER, I have been researching a lot about Montclair schools since this post, and I think you will be impressed with the schools! Montclair does not send children to a school based on where they live. Your boys are able to chose which middle school they will attend based on what they want to learn. I think, because of that, redshirting shouldn't be a problem.
Montclair is also home to New Jersey's only public Montessori school. They will do just fine.
We toured Glenfield and Mount Hebron and have been impressed. My husband and I are watching the high school video posted on the district page. They are doing great things at the high school. If a student can develip a sense of innee drive I think they can do well. There's no hand holding, that's for sure. But I also see the hallway fights that students put up on youtube, and that makes me uncomfortable.
@ nykstevenyg Thanks for your post. We're also looking in all of these areas and have similar questions/concerns about West Orange. You would think that if Maplewood/S Orange and Montclair prices are sky high then there would be spillover in WO and the schools would eventually improve...
@ nykstevenyg Thanks for your post. We're also looking in all of these areas and have similar questions/concerns about West Orange. You would think that if Maplewood/S Orange and Montclair prices are sky high then there would be spillover in WO and the schools would eventually improve...
I suspect that will be the case. the biggest difference though is montclair, maplewood and SO all have train stations(Montclair has 7 actually) and a nice downtown but WO does have the jitney and they are building up the downtown. Of all of the towns WO has the best chance for significant improvement potential.
I don't know why people question the West Orange school system, yet praise districts like Montclair and Maplewood/SO. If you look at the rankings all three of these districts are quite close and have very similar demographics.
I agree though that West Orange will improve as a town. Montclair and MSO have become so popular that people will continue to get priced out. It is already happening from what I have learned in talking to some neighbors that have moved to our neighborhood in WO recently.
Anecdotally, from the Maplewood/South Orange message boards, it seems that a significant number of people try to find houses in M/SO, have no luck, move to West Orange (especially the Saint Cloud area, which is very close to South Orange and has gorgeous houses), and are very happy both with the town and with the schools.
Thanks for the feedback pinkydapimp and ansky. It's hard to know what the right decision is when making your next major move and I've found a lot of helpful info on this board over the past year. Lately it seems every other post is about these towns. I find the bidding wars right now absolutely OUTRAGEOUS, even if I WAS able to drop 700k + on a property. I know that the schools are just part of the draw (along with the culture), but for ex is the Montclair elementary magnet system that worth the extra price tag (confession: I am intrigued by them)? And it doesn't seem that SO and Maplewood are THAT much better than WO (high school) I take the greatschools ratings with a grain of salt.
@ansky you seem to have a lot of valid points about WO. I sent you a PM about schools so not to hijack this thread
Anecdotally, from the Maplewood/South Orange message boards, it seems that a significant number of people try to find houses in M/SO, have no luck, move to West Orange (especially the Saint Cloud area, which is very close to South Orange and has gorgeous houses), and are very happy both with the town and with the schools.
St Cloud is not close to South Orange. Gregory is probably what you're thinking of; it's just to the west of South Orange on the face of the first ridge. St Cloud is on the other side of the first ridge from Gregory. (There's a small area of St Cloud bordering South Orange, but there's no road or path crossing the border)
There's a rough map of the neighborhoods a city-data person did:
I think St. Cloud especially lower St.cloud is getting the people priced out of South orange/Maplewood.
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