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Last year I had a quick little post about one of the tools that is easily available to everyone… for free. And we like free tools. Since I posted that, we’ve moved. And just like I counsel prospective buyers, we spent a LOT of time looking through GreatSchools.org to find out about the schools in the areas we were looking. We eliminated a lot of houses because we weren’t sold on the schools.
Even if you don’t have kids, schools are an important consideration. When it comes time to sell, a prospective buyer might have school age children… and if the schools in your area have a top rating, there will be more demand in the area. If the schools are bad, less demand and lower prices. Of course, keep in mind that schools move up and down in the ratings all of the time. Also keep in mind that “Your Mileage May Vary” on schools… a great teaching in an average school might work out better than a crappy teacher in a top-notch school. And school boundaries change over time as demographics shift and schools are built and closed.
Gwinnett County has a pretty good school system compared to others in the Atlanta area. And within Gwinnett, there are a few clusters (we organize schools based on what high school they will feed to) that out-perform. And within those clusters, there are some middle schools and elementary schools that out-perform others in the same cluster.
My best piece of advice is that #1 isn’t the thing to focus on. Focus on long term trends for the school and the area. Schools pop in and out of the #1 spot all of the time, but there always seems to be a core group of schools that are near the top. When you are looking at having kids in school for the next 14 years (our situation), looking past this year’s #1 and seeing schools that have decades in the top tier becomes more important.
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