A lot. Do you have kids in school?

We just went through this. If you have ever had to try to work with the administration at a public school for a specific need/situation your child might have, you'll find out how completely hosed you are and stand no chance in getting the school to make any sort of accommodation, even if its incredibly minor and requires no additional resources or work on their end. Just wait until you find out you're getting a DFACS case opened under "educational neglect" against you for your straight-A kid that you're moving mountains to try and support. Then you realize how broken parts of the system are. Whatever grade/score some website gives a school is just a sliver of a breadcrumb of the whole picture.

It's been a learning experience for us recently. I've learned if you need anything remotely outside of the rigid framework of public school, you'll have to go private or home school. You'll eventually lose in a battle with public school. Our neighbors have had to pull their kid out a lot for some kind of specialized therapy, the school is telling them that they too will get a DFACS referral and eventually sent to truancy court if they continue trying to help their kid. So unfortunate when you get to peek behind the curtain and see how it all works. The big machine is blind, unable or unwilling to think critically, and just crunches numbers in the end and hands out punishments to the parents. I truly hope you don't have to experience this.

 

An aggregation of experiences (subjective), but also actual objective info. Does the school have a sport your kid wants to play? How are the coaches of that sport and have they had success? Does it have a club your kid wants to participate in? How active is the PTA? Does the school host community outreach events? Does it have a specific honors program? Does it offer a foreign language you want your kid to take?

Ask any teacher and they will tell you greatschools rankings should never be the deciding factor of a school.

My kid’s school is a 7/10. Greatschools shows it as lower than a neighboring school (9/10) due to inequality of scores, even though it’s well known in the community that our school is top notch, if not better. Our school has a 15% Hispanic population and many of those kids speak English as a 2nd language. Their test scores are lower than the non-Hispanic kids, and greatschools flags that as inequality. (Even though the primary English speaking kids score in the top 10% in the state).

All I’m saying is you need to peel the onion back a little and dig. Don’t rely on a single website to make a decision for you.

 

frankly that sounds like all schools who receive public funding. a poor teacher? good luck getting rid of them with their union. if a parent has a very specific example, like you, it’s doubtful you’ll stumble on a parent who went through the same thing. not only that, but administrative turnover frequently happens and what was once a solution provided is no longer. homeschool seems to becoming more of an option now that no child left behind is kaput.
niche.com does a good job with thousands of real world parental and student reviews.

 

At the risk of making people absolutely RAGE on here, we moved nearish to PTC a couple years ago from Nashville, and Tampa before that, and it’s one of nicest places I’ve ever lived, by an order of magnitude. Fantastic schools, great restaurants and breweries in nearby Senoia, low crime so much to do. I’m early 40’s so maybe if you’re younger and all about nightlife it’ll be quiet but for someone who likes suburbia, I don’t think it can be beat for the money. We’ve really enjoyed it. Yeah you might see a guy you’ve flown with at Publix, but I thought that was sort of neat that we’ve had a built in friend group since we moved here.

 

You’re going to end up with some pretty gangsta kids lol

 

First rule of APC, you don’t talk well of PTC!

I did enjoy learning about the War of Northern Aggression while in Georgia.

 

Lol. Straight up B Rad Gluckman running Joel Cowan Parkwaaaaaaaay

 

Depends on the reasons . I mean “smart” is subjective to one’s individual circumstances and position in the **** pile .

 

I’ve lived north of Atlanta my whole life. (Except for that decade or so that I was in the military). I grew up in East Cobb and the wife and I lived in East Cobb for about 10 years before recently moving to Canton. The area we were out just got to be too busy. Every square inch of real estate was developed beyond its capacity. Traffic was getting to be too much and the noise never stopped. We lived in an older neighborhood with larger (1/2 acre) lots and when we were in our backyard it was never quite. Constant mowers/blowers of the yard crews and traffic from the nearby roads.

We were nervous about leaving the top tier schools we were used to but have been truly surprised at the quality of schools we’re currently in. Our kids were even dreading the move but have actually thanked us bc they’re so much happier.

The Canton area was very rural when I was growing up but it is getting developed. There’s still lots of pasture land but there are also a few big neighborhoods. It seems that the area is also getting pretty affluent. Lots of houses that are between $750k and $1.5mil and any that are being built are in that range.

Currently we’re about 15-20 minutes from Alpharetta and Roswell, 20 minutes to the Marietta Square, Milton is only about 10 minutes away. And even downtown Canton is having some great new places open. Hundreds of excellent restaurants available very close.

Traffic to the airport is way overblown. I’m 55 miles to the employee lot and it takes about 50 minutes normally. The worst I’ve had is about 1:20. But if you leave at the wrong time it could be really bad. You just have to put a little bit of thought into it. I sit short call in my pool without worry. I’ve had them call at 4:00pm on a Friday for an immediate assignment and I just did my normal thing and never heard a peep about it.

 

I completely agree. We love the south side; it's great for families, and I am just close enough yet far enough from PTC to enjoy everything it has to offer.