Where are the Best Schools?

“Where are the best schools” is an often-asked question when sellers move into a new area. Having your neighborhood feed into the “the best school” is important for both your children and your wallet! I have found strong demand for homes that feed into the better schools. When a Realtor is asked by a buyer where the top schools are in the area most Realtors will point clients to the Internet (aka wild west of information). Agents do not do because they don’t know where the schools are its just that the liability is so great. Being accused of “steering” clients into a neighborhood is a fast ticket to a lawsuit and having your license revoked! Having said this, I AM NOT SUGGESTING WHICH SCHOOLS ARE BEST. My goal here is to simply put the information that I’ve gathered from the many sources I use into one blog and let you make your own judgements.

So, here we go!

I have scrubbed the web and found both free and cost school ranking systems. I picked three Elementary schools in my market area (Disclosure HERE: one of which my son attends). Having lived in and around Loudoun County for over 20 years I am very familiar with each of the three schools and the neighborhoods that feed into each school. I’ve also sold houses that feed into each of these schools.

The three elementary schools that I will use to test out the school ranking websites are Catotian Elementary, Evergreen Meadows Elementary and Sycolin Elementary. All of which are a few miles apart and located in Leesburg Va( Loudoun County).

The government website:

I have found that Virginia loves to give you information like, class room make up, teachers higher learning achievement, SOL pass percentage, number of fights there are each year etc etc..What the Virginia site does not do is rank its school’s by performance. You will not find anywhere in this huge data base a school ranking. I’m sure its just an oversight….

Virginia releases an annual report card on each school and school district. Again, lots of info but no snapshot ranking system.

The free websites:

Two of the biggest free websites are Great Schools and School Digger.

Great Schools: I found this site less informative of the two sites. It gives each school a ranking from 1 -10(10 being the highest and best score). The site also allows for public comment. I found the comments not helpful and very suspicious at best.

School Digger: I thought this site was the better of the two free sites. It ranked schools based on total number of schools in the system. The site also featured lots information broken down many way different ways.

The pay sites: One the biggest pay sites available is PSK12.com. I found that the material found on this website are the same as could be found either on the government website or the free sites. The only advantage I found with this website is that it has few advertisers and is cleaner in appearance and presentation. If this is worth money to you, spend away.

So, how did my test subject schools do compared to where I thought they would rank? Overall, I found the schools ranked inline with my expectations with only a few surprises.

The test schools:

Great Schools       School Digger

Catoctin Elementary:  3                   889 out of 1119

Evergreen Meadows :  7                    309 out of 1119

Sycolin Creek :              7                     95 out of 1119

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) years

Catoctin Elementry : 08′ Made AYP   ’09 Did Not Make  ’10 Did not Make

Evergreen Meadows:  08′Made AYP  ’09 Made AYP ’10 Made AYP

Sycolin Creek: ’08 Made AYP   ’09 Made AYP  ’10 Made AYP

**** Quick note here: Loudoun County as a whole did not met AYP as a county****

Want more information on SOL’s as well as other schools in Loudoun County? Click here! Want to find great homes near great schools then call or email me for a free list.

Take care,

Chuck

Serving all of your Ashburn, Chantilly, Fairfax, Herndon, Reston, Leesburg, Mclean and Loudoun County area Real Estate needs!

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