Davis School District vs Canyons School District (Salt Lake City, Layton: houses, college)

[Jane12345]

My family is considering a move to the Salt Lake City area, and we are looking at houses in either Davis County (Layton, Farmington, Kaysville) or Cottonwood Heights. We are a mixed race (Indian/white) couple with an 8 year old daughter. One of our main considerations is the quality of schools, from elementary through high school.

We’re coming from Minnesota, where the public schools are some of the best in the country. But even here there are some downsides that we’d like to avoid in our next school, if at all possible. We’re not interested only in test scores, but also in diversity, non-academic offerings like art and music, schools that aren’t huge and where kids don’t care about labels and what kind of car they drive (the snob factor). This may be totally irrelevant in Utah and if so, I’ll be glad to hear it. But there is a lot of that where we are today, and our daughter is only in third grade!

I have poked around on schooldigger and great schools, and the Davis and Canyons districts seem to be pretty comparable as far as rankings, test scores, racial make up, etc. I’m wondering about the intangibles that aren’t captured by the sites. I’d appreciate any thoughts on the districts, either separately or compared/contrasted.

[Coffeequeen]

Check out canyons SALTA magnet program, you will want to have your child tested in the open window that is usually non negotiable. Many Indian kids excel in this program so if this is what you would consider diverse, then the SALTA at Sunrise would be worth considering (I would pick sunrise over Peruvian park if that is the option). The feeder middle school is IB at Midvale middle and then IB high schools which are often are topped with successful Asian students, IB programs are not boundary restricted. Davis probably has its own magnet, as does Granite, they are all worth considering. The districts are fond of calling their language immersion programs magnet programs too so don't be distracted by that. Utah diversity is tricky, your most diverse schools will be title one or close to that. Your best academic programs will be only diversified by similar Asian kids.
I would ONLY live in Cottonwood heights vs your other options though.

[markg91359]

Originally Posted by Jane12345

My family is considering a move to the Salt Lake City area, and we are looking at houses in either Davis County (Layton, Farmington, Kaysville) or Cottonwood Heights. We are a mixed race (Indian/white) couple with an 8 year old daughter. One of our main considerations is the quality of schools, from elementary through high school.

We’re coming from Minnesota, where the public schools are some of the best in the country. But even here there are some downsides that we’d like to avoid in our next school, if at all possible. We’re not interested only in test scores, but also in diversity, non-academic offerings like art and music, schools that aren’t huge and where kids don’t care about labels and what kind of car they drive (the snob factor). This may be totally irrelevant in Utah and if so, I’ll be glad to hear it. But there is a lot of that where we are today, and our daughter is only in third grade!

I have poked around on schooldigger and great schools, and the Davis and Canyons districts seem to be pretty comparable as far as rankings, test scores, racial make up, etc. I’m wondering about the intangibles that aren’t captured by the sites. I’d appreciate any thoughts on the districts, either separately or compared/contrasted.

I can't speak for the Canyons School District. I educated two children in the Davis School District and was quite pleased. Any school district in Utah is going to have a high pupil/teacher ratio in most classes. Prevailing values cause many here to have large families and--at the same time--many resist property tax increases to pay to educate all those kids. However, if I had to pick a school district in the state based on quality, the Davis School District would rank very high. Davis High School in Kaysville is a particularly excellent high school. My kids did a lot of running to keep up with their classmates. There are endless concurrent college enrollment classes and AP classes. The musical program at Davis is excellent. The Marching Band continuously gets second place in the entire state when competitions are held. This year they were invited to march in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

If you are going to live in Utah--and use the public schools--you can't do much better than Davis. Although, I suspect the Canyons District is pretty good too.

[Jane12345]

Originally Posted by Coffeequeen

Check out canyons SALTA magnet program, you will want to have your child tested in the open window that is usually non negotiable. Many Indian kids excel in this program so if this is what you would consider diverse, then the SALTA at Sunrise would be worth considering (I would pick sunrise over Peruvian park if that is the option). The feeder middle school is IB at Midvale middle and then IB high schools which are often are topped with successful Asian students, IB programs are not boundary restricted. Davis probably has its own magnet, as does Granite, they are all worth considering. The districts are fond of calling their language immersion programs magnet programs too so don't be distracted by that. Utah diversity is tricky, your most diverse schools will be title one or close to that. Your best academic programs will be only diversified by similar Asian kids.
I would ONLY live in Cottonwood heights vs your other options though.

Thanks for your response Coffeequeen. I wasn't aware of the SALTA magnet programs, I'm actually not familiar with magnet programs at all; I'm a product of public schools and we have only ever considered them for our family. But I will look into the UT magnet programs since they sound like what we're looking for.

Question -- can you comment more on why ONLY Cottonwood Heights? Feel free to PM me if you'd prefer. Thanks!

[Jane12345]

Originally Posted by markg91359

I can't speak for the Canyons School District. I educated two children in the Davis School District and was quite pleased. Any school district in Utah is going to have a high pupil/teacher ratio in most classes. Prevailing values cause many here to have large families and--at the same time--many resist property tax increases to pay to educate all those kids. However, if I had to pick a school district in the state based on quality, the Davis School District would rank very high. Davis High School in Kaysville is a particularly excellent high school. My kids did a lot of running to keep up with their classmates. There are endless concurrent college enrollment classes and AP classes. The musical program at Davis is excellent. The Marching Band continuously gets second place in the entire state when competitions are held. This year they were invited to march in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

If you are going to live in Utah--and use the public schools--you can't do much better than Davis. Although, I suspect the Canyons District is pretty good too.

Thanks for your response. What you say makes a lot of sense (about the high number of kids and low property tax base, resulting in high student/teacher ratios). The ratios are definitely much higher than we see in Minnesota, or California where we were before. However, I'm sure there are lots of areas where you can get a good education in Utah's schools, and it's nice to hear Davis is one of those places. We're not looking for the super best cream of the crop, but we are looking for somewhere that will offer a good basic education plus extracurriculars, plus some challenges to stretch the kids. We'll definitely keep Davis on the list.

[Coffeequeen]

why ONLY Cottonwood Heights?<<<<<

Out of your options, it would be the only tolerable option IMO. I live too far south in SL county for my liking and have often regretted it, but not enough to move ($$ LOL).

[grandisp]

I can't speak for Davis (though there is a good charter in Kaysville or Layton i think?) but Canyons isn't really that great. We live in canyons but our oldest goes to private school (if we could afford it they all would) and middle two we open enroll into Granite district. Granite isnt great either but the Oakridge-churchill jr high-skyline hs track is ok, as is the morningside-wasatch jr-skyline track. Schooldigger and the like just rate schools based on flawed sage testing mainly. Certain schools and districts will rank higher becsuse they have fewer ESL students, etc. They all have really whittled down programs though