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Old 08-27-2016, 04:15 PM
 
19 posts, read 25,492 times
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My family and I will be living in the Pittsburgh area for my husbands job. His job is located in Cranberry Township, but we are interested in a few different areas. One of our main priorities is choosing a good school for my daughter. We are interested in Cranberry, McCandless, and South Fayette in the south hills. The commute is not a huge concern for us. I have heard that the schools in Butler county aren't near as good as the Allegheny county schools. I have also heard that both Seneca Valley and North Allegheny are fairly large. People have told us that the Cranberry area has been built up recently, and that with the money coming in we should expect the schools to get better. I also wonder at what point a school population gets so big that they build another highschool in the area (does that happen often)? Obviously it would be nice to have a short commute, and a great midsize highschool. Can anyone share any positives/negatives of these different areas? Other suggestions are also welcome. Thanks.
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Old 08-27-2016, 04:33 PM
 
Location: Downtown Cranberry Twp.
41,018 posts, read 18,008,136 times
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If he's working in Cranberry which is where I live I'm not sure he's going to want to commute from one to other just for the school.

Large areas=large schools.

As far as McCandless and Cranberry and as far as Allegheny County vs Butler County school choices there's North Allegheny, Pine-Richland, Seneca Valley and Mars all within a relatively close area. You're not going to go wrong with any of them but North Allegheny is the best.
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Old 08-27-2016, 04:48 PM
 
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Thanks. He's originally from the south hills, which is where we always assumed we would end up when we were able to move back to PA. We never thought we'd end up liking Cranberry, so it confused us. I think if it were not for the school size, and it not being as good as the Allegheny county schools we would choose to live there. We do like the idea of being close to family in the south hills, it's a hard decision to make.
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Old 08-27-2016, 05:06 PM
 
Location: Pittsburgh
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I've heard Seneca Valley put off building another high school because the Catholic school moved to Cranberry. The school board figured that would take care of some of the population increase. I am not sure when the last time your husband lived in Pittsburgh (sounds like years ago) but currently the top areas to move are mentioned in Erieguy's post. Certain neighborhoods in the South Hills are declining rapidly.
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Old 08-27-2016, 05:39 PM
 
Location: Downtown Cranberry Twp.
41,018 posts, read 18,008,136 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by twkxo View Post
Thanks. He's originally from the south hills, which is where we always assumed we would end up when we were able to move back to PA. We never thought we'd end up liking Cranberry, so it confused us. I think if it were not for the school size, and it not being as good as the Allegheny county schools we would choose to live there. We do like the idea of being close to family in the south hills, it's a hard decision to make.
Not sure what research you've done but I'd look further in before making assumptions about the quality of schools from the one county/area to the other.
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Old 08-27-2016, 06:02 PM
 
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From what I have seen and heard, Seneca valley isn't rated as highly as schools like pine Richland, north allegheny, upper st. Clair, mt. Lebo, and south fayette. If I'm wrong, please correct me. I've researched school rankings and test scores, and talked to people we know in the Pittsburgh area. If there are other places to find information at, i'd love to check them out.
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Old 08-27-2016, 06:17 PM
 
Location: Downtown Cranberry Twp.
41,018 posts, read 18,008,136 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by twkxo View Post
From what I have seen and heard, Seneca valley isn't rated as highly as schools like pine Richland, north allegheny, upper st. Clair, mt. Lebo, and south fayette. If I'm wrong, please correct me. I've researched school rankings and test scores, and talked to people we know in the Pittsburgh area. If there are other places to find information at, i'd love to check them out.
Pine-Richland, SV, North Allegheny and Mars schools are all within 40 minutes of each other and from Cranberry they're all within approximately 20 minutes.

As to the other schools you've listed, family and commute times comes more into play as far as that decision goes...but the quality of schools can be found in both areas/counties.
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Old 08-27-2016, 07:13 PM
 
2,218 posts, read 1,932,450 times
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The difference between the schools listed in this thread is going to be negligible on the individual level. If your kid can succeed in any of them, he/she would thrive in any and all of them. You should live in the place you enjoy the most, if you can find a house you like at a price you can afford.
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Old 08-27-2016, 11:42 PM
 
3,589 posts, read 3,352,296 times
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This area has so many great schools, we tend to look at the school rankings of the region and conclude that a district is not good because it is not a top 10 district, but if you look beyond this region you will see many of our districts are in the top 1/4 in the state. I like to use chartiers valley as an example, it is a top half ranked school in the state but it just won an award for having the best math program in the country, USC and Lebo can't claim that.

My dad owned a real estate company, he always told people to pick an area their family will be most comfortable, I think if your child was in the mars area district over south Fayette they would benefit more from having your husband home for the extra hour a day than they will from the few percentage points in the scool rankings.
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Old 08-29-2016, 10:12 AM
 
Location: O'Hara Twp.
4,359 posts, read 7,483,988 times
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If the OP is worried about the size of the school and has a commute to Cranberry I would look at Hampton (10 minutes on the turnpike) or Mars.
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