Married mom looking to relocate to a good school district. (Allentown: transplants, apartment)

[Mamilux]

First of all I'd like to say hi to everyone in this forum. This is my first post. I'm a married mom with three wonderful children. My children are of public school age (10, 8, 7). I'm currently attending Kingsborough Community College in NYC. My husband will be retiring in another year. Our current situation is that we would like to move to the Lehigh County area as soon as my husband retires. I plan to continue my studies in one of the Lehigh County colleges. A good school district is very important to my husband and I. After researching various school districts we have narrowed it down to North Whitehall. Our only concern is how accepting the community might be to a hispanic family. We want a quiet town as we are a quiet family. Will North Whitehall be a good choice for us? How about Whitehall? Please help.

[kmom]

Hi!

You can consider Emmaus to stay and I understand Parkland School district is a good place.

[toobusytoday]

North Whitehall is fairly rural and pretty. Parkland is a great school district but, as another poster pointed out on a different thread, quite spread out. The High School is huge. There is a thriving Hispanic community in the Allentown area, not so much towards North Whitehall, but I don't think it would be a problem.

Whitehall is a different kettle of fish. It's pretty built up and most of the residents have probably been there for a long time. Not sure how easy it would be to make friends. Whitehall is also in Whitehall-Coplay school district which is not nearly as good as Parkland.

[Mamilux]

Originally Posted by toobusytoday

North Whitehall is fairly rural and pretty. Parkland is a great school district but, as another poster pointed out on a different thread, quite spread out. The High School is huge. There is a thriving Hispanic community in the Allentown area, not so much towards North Whitehall, but I don't think it would be a problem.

Whitehall is a different kettle of fish. It's pretty built up and most of the residents have probably been there for a long time. Not sure how easy it would be to make friends. Whitehall is also in Whitehall-Coplay school district which is not nearly as good as Parkland.

Thanks for the information. We are considering looking for a rental apartment or home just to get a feel for the area. We plan on living in the North Whitehall area, or neighboring towns for at least a year before we decide on buying a home. We currently have our children in private school here in New York as the public schools here are underperforming to our standards. After thoroughly researching the various school districts in the Lehigh vicinity, we have decided to choose the Parkland school district.

[toobusytoday]

That's such a good idea Mamilux. I wish we could have done that when we moved, not that I would have chosen a different place but I think it's less stressful looking around for a bit. Hope you like the area!

[NomadicNotion]

It's such a coincidence, I just posted a similar question, mine sounds different but I meant to ask the same thing, word by word. (I'm looking for info on Greensburg, PA)
Also similar... my children: My daughter is 10,my boys are 8 &7.
At different places where we lived I had them enrolled in private schools but for the past 2 years they were part of the gifted and talented program of the public school curriculum of south TX. (They all have attained commending performance)
Every state is different in terms of standardized testing and even subject content for each classroom, I just need to do some more research and need all the help I can get.

[Mamilux]

I noticed that North Whitehall is very rural. Not too sure if we want to live that far from Parkland High School and the other two middle schools in the Parkland school district. We would like to live as close to the schools as possible. We might lean towards South Whitehall although property taxes in South Whitehall seem to be higher than in North Whitehall. We are also considering Upper Macungie even though we have learned that Upper Macungie is growing by leaps and bounds and is literally bursting at the seams. Upper Macungie's property taxes seem to be a bit lower than South Whitehall's. The one good thing that we have have going on our side is time and patience.

[KristyLiz]

After a long search, we decided to move to Macungie. The East Penn SD appears to be very well rated and the schools are relatively close to our new house.

There is a lot of growth in that area right now, and since we wanted new construction and also wanted to be with transplants like ourselves, Macungie fit the bill.

Yea, it's not cheap and the taxes are on the high side - but I just got a good feel from the community.

Best of luck!

[KristyLiz]

Originally Posted by toobusytoday

most of the residents have probably been there for a long time. Not sure how easy it would be to make friends.

This is key for me. Having relocated a few times, I know how important it is to be amongst other transplants.

I've found that when you move into a very established area, where people have grown up and have lots of family and friends, they are less open to making new friends.

Yea, people are nice and all, but actually getting close to the natives is tough.

[toobusytoday]

I've thought about that ^ quite a bit and it really is true. Now that we have been here for ten years I have a few groups of friends. My husband and I have couple friends, I have some girlfriends and some Mom's that I know through our kids. I'm not nearly as anxious to make more close friends because I'm already happy emotionally and pretty booked time-wise. Locals that have friends plus family that are nearby are even less likely to reach out. This is not to say that you aren't welcomed, just that it's harder to make close friends in a community where there are few newcomers.