SellAustinTexas

The Washington Post recently printed a pair of articles on an issue important to many homebuyers – selecting a home with good schools. In one, they offer “10 Ways to Pick the Right School District.”

- Visit the school and ask to speak with the Principal. On a tour of the school, see if it’s well maintained, and if there is artwork and schoolwork on the walls. Prepare your questions and ask to speak with the Principal…if the Principal is unreachable, that may be a bad sign.

- If the district has gone through several recent superintendents, this also may be a bad sign.

- Talk to parents. Ask the school for the contact info of the officers in the PTA. Talk to parents, and listen.

- Listen to your kids. With young kids, this may not matter so much, but jr. high and high school children will have opinions. See if the schools have extracurricular activities they’re interested in.

- Check the data. There are many, many statistics and reports available to help in your choice, if you look online.

- Look for a challenging high school in the neighborhood. When looking at school stats, don’t just look at test scores, since those can be misleading and are affected by a number of variables. Examine college level Advanced Placement courses, college level tests, and other such statistics.

- If an Elementary School meets your standards otherwise, don’t look at test scores. Plenty of elementary schools with low test results have great teachers interested in raising the achievement of each and every child.

- Make sure the middle school has a strong math program. It is to a student’s advantage to study algebra before high school.

- Don’t count on a top high school to get your child into a top college. The more brilliant the student body is, the more your child may lose out in the competition for the most prestigious colleges.

- Go with your gut. Unscientific, but trustworthy. Take everything into account, then do what you believe is right.

In our next blog, we will look at more advice for picking a home and school district, and why it may or may not be as important now as you think.