[ale] Way OT: ATL Neighboorhoods and Schools

[George Allen]

Thank you all for the thoughtful and amusing feedback. I do like the
Cobb county area, which seems to have a consensus. I work in Marietta,
but currently live close to Decatur. She works near Emory, and it's
much easier for me to drive out to Marietta against traffic than it
would be for her to drive with traffic... but of course, that wasn't
the question.

So - we do like the Candler Park/City of Decatur/Oakhurst
neighborhoods. I'm not convinced about the schools though. Earlier
this year after getting married we put a bid on a short-sale in the
Lindmoor Woods area (un-incorporated North end of Dekalb inside the
loop). Then again, Dekalb almost sounds like it's trying to follow in
the steps of Clayton county a few years ago by the radio reports. The
short-sale has been in bank-limbo for months, so if it falls through,
I probably will give Cobb county a serious look.

As long as I'm still working for the Army, I don't know that I can pay
for private school, but I do know several co-workers that have gotten
fed up and home school.

Personally, I bounced around about a dozen private schools in Texas
with my Dad while he was working petro-chem jobs, but (1) Texas has
money - most of the schools were pretty good, and (2) my Dad and I
went to libraries religiously and he 'un-officially' home schooled me
much more effectively than the schools did. (Also, Georgia's public
libraries suck compared to those in Texas.) Either way - between
home-school, Gifted&Talented programs, robot-building or hanging out
in a library with your Dad, I agree that it's critical to teach your
own kids yourself, and make sure they have opportunities to do keep
learning things that are interesting enough not to kill off their
curiosity and joy of learning. So the G/T program is a good point.

On another note - we don't have kids yet either. But a since a
mortgage lasts longer than kids stay kids, I figured it best to think
ahead. At the very least - I know if we have kids, they'll have fun
and enjoy learning OUTSIDE of school - there's too much interesting
stuff in the world not too. I just hate the thought of kids getting
stifled into zombified ambivalence AT school. :)

So, we'll keep researching and see what happens. Thanks!

-George


On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 6:21 PM, Neal Rhodes <neal at mnopltd.com> wrote:
> Three primary thoughts.
>
> A. I know nothing of Cobb schools.  My daughter is trending towards
> completion of a PhD in Quantum Optics Physics at Georgia Tech, and my son is
> trending towards completion of an undergraduate coop degree in Computer
> Engineering.  Both went through Gwinnett County schools.  (Parkview)    My
> son was captain of Academic Bowl team.    The entire time I was aware of it,
> the two top schools in the state every year in academic bowl were Parkview
> (Gwinnett) and Brookwood (also Gwinnett).    Both of my children advanced
> placed at least 20 hours of courses in high school that were accepted by Ga
> Tech, maybe more.
>
> B. Both my children were in the "Probe" classes from middle school through
> high school, and I recall that my son only took one class in the general
> prison population.   (Spanish).   There is a marked difference between the
> advanced curriculum offered in Gwinnett and the over drivel.  That
> difference is that if a student screws up, mouths off, jacks off, etc, they
> get chucked out of the Probe sequence into the general classes where chaos
> reigns.        My impression is that they experienced no "speed bump"
> between the level of work they were expected to deliver at Parkview and what
> they had to do at Ga Tech.     We met and got to know most of the gifted
> teachers and thought they were excellent.   Only one was a complete clown.
>
> C. As such, I would counsel a parent to consider if their child can hack the
> gifted program, and whether the gifted program will continue in their county
> of choice.    Budget cuts may still be a comin'.
>
>
> On Thu, 2012-12-27 at 17:54 -0500, Wolf Halton wrote:
>
> Smyrna, specifically Campbell Hi, is where our daughter went, and they had a
> very good eating for academics as well as good arts and music programs (6
> years ago, anyway).
>
> Wolf Halton
> http://sourcefreedom.com
> Apache developer:
> wolfhalton at apache.org
>
> On Dec 26, 2012 11:37 PM, "George Allen" <glallen01 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So my wife and I have been looking at houses here in Atlanta for a
> while, and I thought I'd ask the list. If you want your kids to become
> educated people, smart enough to run linux and grok math, science,
> civics, etc. then what areas are best?
>
> Thanks,
> -George
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