Best Public Schools--what Makes Southlake Desirable?

Short answer is the state's ratings. That's all most people have to go by when they say a school is "top rated."

When we finally started looking for a bigger house, we really wanted to stay in Grapevine. Grapevine/Colleyville is a highly regarded school system and was one of the reasons we wanted to live there in the first place. There are some homes in Grapevine that feed to the Carroll (or Southlake) school district so we looked at those houses too knowing that Carroll is a highly ranked school district as well.

After talking to several people who lived in a mid to upper class neighborhood in Grapevine that attend Southlake schools, we chose to stay away from the Carroll school district because we found that there seems to be a lot of pressure to "fit in" FINANCIALLY. We didn't want our kids ridiculed if they weren't wearing the right clothes are carrying the correct handbag and a lot of people we spoke to said that's exactly what their kids began experiencing as soon as they started going to school there. I'm sure that's not true for everyone, so mamas who have kids who go to Southlake schools, please don't start PMing me saying that I'm wrong 'cause I'm going by what I was told from several people that I met personally who experienced this phenomenon. I mean, even the costs for their extracurricular activities were outrageous.

Now, if that's how you live and money is no object, the schools are supposed to be really good, once again, based on state standardized testing and measurements. I personally think their high ranking is probably because the parents have the means to pay for tutors and whatever extra things are needed to help their kids succeed in and outside of the classroom. Given the community's average household income, you know the kids come from parents who are probably better educated, more ambitious, or at least more successful financially than most. I don't think there is anything wrong with that, and of course, I'm sure the faculty have something to do with the kids' success in school as well.

In my opinion, however, to be sure it's really the school that's fostering the student's success, not just their circumstances, I think if you find a "blue ribbon" rated school in a "regular" neighborhood, THAT is a school worth looking into. That's when you know it's the teachers and the administration that are making the difference. Not just the parent's influence and/or their big pocket books.

I don't know about Southlake/Carroll. I have heard that is it a nice place and good schools. We did a little looking around over there a couple of years ago because my hubby travels weekly and it was close to DFW. We opted not to be there due to the air traffic noise. We love DFW but not the jet noise overhead.

We all do research, seek out opinions and options to make the best decision for our families. It is nice to have a forum like this available so you can get many opinions.

When we moved to TX, we specifically chose Plano due to schools. At the time we did not have children but we knew that we would. We have lived in the same 3 square mile area since we moved here 20 yrs ago. We bought a pre-owned home when we moved here then we proceeded to build 2 others. My address is Allen but we are in the Plano ISD.

We have 1 daughter, 13 yr old. Her elementary school is a Blue Ribbon top notch school that people will transfer to get into. Her middle school is very good. She will more than likely be going to Plano Central for High School.

If things were to change and go South on us as far as quality of education etc, we would either move to Highland Park ISD (Excellent) or put her in private school.

Keep in mind, not ALL schools in PISD or any ISD are good. Check out the ISD website to get breakdowns of student/teacher ratio, test results, etc.

Kudos to you for being proactive with your child's education. It would be nice if a lot more parents were like you.

We are in Grapevine Colleyville on the Colleyville side of things (Grapevine address, Colleyville schools). We moved from a different suburb STRICTLY because of the school district. We did a TON of research looking at the various school districts. TAKS testing, student teacher ratio, graduation rate, SAT/ACT scores, AP/college prep classes, college rates, PTA hours (this shows parental involvement), available extra curricular activities. All of that added up for us to be here. Southlake does just as well, but the housing is soo much more expensive, so we opted to go where we are. We LOVE it. The kids LOVE it. And I know my kids are learning. It helps that we are in an area that has quite a few SAHMs, so the school has plenty of volunteers. We like the convience of being in the middle of DFW, so Dallas or Fort Worth is close. We have family all over the metroplex, and this makes it easy to get to any of them. Traffic patterns are easier than Southlake, plus we can get to Southlake when we want. Plus we are west of the airport (most of the runways are north/south). We get less air traffic noise than my SIL who lives in north Arlington.

My friend, who is a big researcher before she makes a decision, chose a home in Southlake over Plano. She considered all sorts of thing, but proximity to airport is n/a for them since hubby is a doctor.

Go to www.greatschools.net you can compare all the schools you want on there. They break it ALL down for you. Race, Financial, test scores....etc.