Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Florida > Tampa Bay
 [Register]
Tampa Bay Tampa - St. Petersburg - Clearwater
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 05-31-2007, 08:37 AM
 
Location: Clearwater, Florida
2 posts, read 6,084 times
Reputation: 10

Advertisements

Dunedin (not Dunedine) is a very nice community. It borders the northern edge of Clearwater. There is decent, affordable housing in these areas, especially with the real estate market so slow; if you are looking to buy a home it's a good time to find some bargains. Taxes and insurance will be an issue wherever you live but try to avoid the low-lying areas (hurricane evacuation zones, flood zones) where the insurance rates are sky high if you can get it at all. More rentals are coming on the market too since many houses aren't selling at the moment.

Dunedin Middle is a pretty good school by reputation but does have a rough edge, as many of them do. If you have a choice, Coachman Fundamental Middle in Clearwater is a very good school. Oak Grove in Clearwater is another of the better middle schools in the area. The fundamental elementary schools are good bets too, Curtis in Clearwater, and Tarpon Springs. Don't know too much about other cities in the county since I live in Clearwater/Dunedin. As a teacher you'll have to contend with the intense focus on the FCAT test. I grew up here & the schools were pretty good, but I decided to homeschool my own kids.

Traffic is always a problem but worse during winter & spring break. Be prepared for heat and humidity from May through October. Many people love living here and I hope you will be one of them. Good luck!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 05-31-2007, 08:03 PM
 
Location: Tampa Bay Area
169 posts, read 1,067,659 times
Reputation: 172
Pinellas County Schools (http://www.pinellas.k12.fl.us/Schools/ - broken link)

This is the list of schools in the distict. You probably already have this info.

Depending on what you teach (I'm going to assume it's middle school level since that's what you mentiioned in your original post) you may want to check out the Florida School Indicators Report (this is of the whole state so you'll have to select for Pinellas and type of school)

Florida School Indicators Report

It will give you an indication of what % of students are on subsidized lunches and what the teacher/student ratio is and the budget for the school, age of the plant, FCAT scores (which is an issue in the news at the moment), incidents of violence, absenteeism... and you can select a number of schools and compare them against each other... for example Safety Harbor middle (which is in a very nice area) has a pretty high incidence of violence (which they do break into sub-categories like theft vs. property etc..) and Dunedin has a pretty high absenteeism (over 21 days) ranking. It's a great report and the two websites combined should give you a good idea of your options.

As for housing in Pinellas - a steal runs $120/sq.ft. anything less is going to be in an undesireable area or really needs a lot of work (are you handy?). Mid range is $130 to $165/sq.ft. A nice home in Pinellas will cost you $165-$199/sq.ft. and anything over $200/sq.ft. will either be very very nice, or have water views or access to the water...

One caveat here "Water" here can be a pond. To the non-Floridian world one says "water views" and we all think "Ocean" - here "water" has a LOT of different meanings - it can be a man made oversize retention pond that a builder put in to get a premium for the lot and to meet the stormwater drainage requirements for the development or it can be open gulf see-to-the-horizon views. Make sure if you want "water front" that you tell the agent you're working with what your idea of "water" is - if you care.

There is very very little new construction in Pinellas although there are some nice townhomes going up in Tarpon and Clearwater. Only one or two new housing developements and both of those are in North county. Some tear-down rebuilds in south county.

SW Pasco is just over the county line and homes there are more affordable - I have seen brand new construction moving in this market at $125/sq.ft. and taxes there are lower. There's Holiday/New Port Richey (and Trinity which is a new sub-section of New Port Richey that has really grown in the last few years.).

You'll love it here! The people are friendly, the traffic's not as bad as other parts of the country and the weather, you just can't beat it (except for the storms which never last very long anyway)
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 06-05-2007, 07:32 AM
 
20 posts, read 88,321 times
Reputation: 18
Hi again! I actually just got back from the area for my job placement, and we loved it (even though we never got any beach time)! I found out yesterday morning I will be teaching Reading at Clearwater Intermediate, my first choice. Any information on this school? It's hard to find info on it other than stuff on greatschools.com and their own website.

We will also be getting an apartment on the outskirts of St.Petersburg
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 06-05-2007, 07:38 AM
 
Location: Central Florida
442 posts, read 2,907,370 times
Reputation: 223
Safety Harbor .. thats where i grew up .. its nice...Dunedin is Nice and if i were to move back i would choose dunedin!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-01-2007, 08:23 AM
 
4 posts, read 18,143 times
Reputation: 11
I moved here from Bryan, Ohio, a very small rural community in NW Ohio.
We live in Seminole and love it. Small town feel to it. Schools are top notch
and very respected state wide. Music program and sports programs are also
top notch, but known most for parental involvement at all levels. I read somewhere a while back also that teachers at the Seminole Schools have the longest tenures of any other schools. Once they go to Seminole, they stay for their careers. Great place to live.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Florida > Tampa Bay

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top