School Districts

[snickers]

can someone give me a link to school district rankings for houston and the surrounding areas (I am even looking as far as Galveston)...I am so blown away by the low cost of housing that I don't know how to judge it. Here around Chicago - if you are in a good school district...a normal person can not touch a house in the area!!

thanks for the input!!!

[pineda]

Texas Education Agency

Great Schools

Klein ISD

I put the website for Klein ISD on there because it's our district and we really love it! Last year, Klein Oak High School became an official International Baccalaureate program school. I believe the only other IB schools in the Greater Houston area are Bellaire, Lamar (maybe), and Awty International (private school). You may want to take that under consideration if something like this is of any importance to you. To some, it may not make a bit of difference if their school has the IB program or not. To others, they move specifically to this area so that their children can attend. Only children who are members of the Klein district can attend the IB school in this area. If specific areas of study appeal to you and your children, you would be wise to request interviews with spokespersons at the schools who have programs that you're interested in. Some schools may gear more towards athletics or art or music programs and you can better find all that if you visit the school personally. Good luck in your endeavors, I'm sure you'll be happy wherever you land!

[Houstonrush]

I teach in the Klein district. It is a great school district. Spring, Cy Fair, Katy, Friendswood, Ft Bend, and Conroe ISD are also some of the best in the Houston area.

[CincoRanch-HoustonResident]

Don't forget about Katy I.S.D.

[snickers]

Thanks for all the info!! ;-)

[SpaceCity]

How is The Woodlands?

[Houstonrush]

SpaceCity that is Conroe ISD. There is not a Woodlands school district.

[_neXXes_]

Spring Branch ISD (Not the same as Spring ISD). The best high schools in Houston without question are Bellaire (Houston ISD) and Memorial (Spring Branch ISD).

Houston Chronicle's Houston Area Schools Report Card

[pineda]

Most excellent website!

I was surprised to see, though, that the TEA rating for all four Klein ISD high schools was Exemplary, while Memorial was one rung below that at Recognized and Bellaire was two rungs below at only Acceptable. That was interesting!

[UrbaNerd]

Fort bend isd. You'll find the link here: www.google.com

[snickers]

awesome info everyone! thanks!!

[Houstonrush]

Spring Branch is a great district south of I-10, but I would not send my child to Spring Branch if his or her school is north of I-10. It is like two totally different districts.

[_neXXes_]

Most excellent website!

I was surprised to see, though, that the TEA rating for all four Klein ISD high schools was Exemplary, while Memorial was one rung below that at Recognized and Bellaire was two rungs below at only Acceptable. That was interesting!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

TEA ratings mean little. Notice that Bellaire is 25% low income, which brings down some of the criteria that determine TEA ratings. Bellaire is without a doubt MUCH better than any Klein high school regardless of all Klein HSs having much better TEA ratings. There is a reason many wealthy families send their children to Bellaire and Memorial instead of paying for expensive private schools.

Not to mention living in Memorial or Bellaire may be much more conventient for snickers when considering commuting to work.

[ricco67]

well, there is also the matter that you have to have trade-offs in every aspect of where you live. You lose one thing to get another. Granted, getting good schools is an important issue, but the best of schools won't help you if you, as a parent, won't get involved in your child's studies. In otherwords, be involved no matter if you pick a private, good public school, or a crappypublic school. either way your child will need the motivation and the drive, not the district.

Ricco

[debmartin]

one of the best tools available to review school districts is www.har.com. just click on "find a home" and you will see the "school finder" link at the bottom of the page. you can then search by name of school, or even by district or county. once you select a district, you can view the stats such as student population, number of students enrolled in gifted/talented and special ed. you can review the percentage of low income students as well as obtain breakdown of student and teacher ethnicity. TAAS/SAT scores are also available district-wide as well as by individual campus.

the really great thing about this is that once you settle on a school, you can look at available homes (sale or rent) by using the school's zip code for your search criteria.

in all fairness i cannot highly recommend hisd, except to mention secondary programs like health careers, criminal justice and hsvpa. there are some great elementary schools such as poe, river oaks and the few others sprinkled in the more affluent sections of town like bellaire, west u and the villages such as hunter's creek, piney point and bunker hill.

we are fortunate, however, to be surrounded by cyfair, conroe, ft. bend, clear creek, klein, kingwood, and katy districts just to name a few. all of these great districts are adjacent to good living, so it's just a matter of narrowing down what area works best for your overall family needs. good luck and welcome to houston!

debmartin

[pineda]

Bellaire is without a doubt MUCH better than any Klein high school regardless of all Klein HSs having much better TEA ratings. There is a reason many wealthy families send their children to Bellaire and Memorial instead of paying for expensive private schools.

If you are not speaking from extensive personal experience, i.e. having attended Bellaire and Memorial and ALL the Klein ISD high schools, I would have to dismiss your rant as simply that, a rant. Otherwise, I think I would put more stock in the TEA than whatever you have to say.

[BayouCityGirl]

My school is in District 1 -Franklin high school (El Paso Texas)

2,639 People :-O Whoa! that's big for a city like El Paso LOL!

[J.A.S.O.N.]

www.gisd.org

[H-Town Man]

I substitute taught at the Klein schools last year. It surprises me that Klein Forest is considered exemplary. I'll just leave it at that (this is not to comment on the faculty, just the student environment). Klein Oak is a nice school, but the most high achieving students there were basically bummed out that they weren't at Klein or Klein Collins. Those two schools seem to have the highest morale, and strongest academics.

Btw, this is funny... I went to Klein High School, back before Klein Collins was built. As far as we were concerned, when you went north or south (to Oak or Forest), you left the acropolis. It was like leaving Rome for Carthage. I'll never forget, after the Klein band directors got outvoted by the directors of Oak and Forest on some issue of music policy, our director giving us this speech that "the two runts don't tell the stud how to do his thing." (something like that, anyway)

[Montrose1100]

I substitute taught at the Klein schools last year.  It surprises me that Klein Forest is considered exemplary.  I'll just leave it at that (this is not to comment on the faculty, just the student environment).  Klein Oak is a nice school, but the most high achieving students there were basically bummed out that they weren't at Klein or Klein Collins.  Those two schools seem to have the highest morale, and strongest academics.

Btw, this is funny...  I went to Klein High School, back before Klein Collins was built.  As far as we were concerned, when you went north or south (to Oak or Forest), you left the acropolis.  It was like leaving Rome for Carthage.  I'll never forget, after the Klein band directors got outvoted by the directors of Oak and Forest on some issue of music policy, our director giving us this speech that "the two runts don't tell the stud how to do his thing." (something like that, anyway)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Klien Collins highest morale, and strong academics? You must mean the teachers, because all I hear from students there are F's on Progress reports, and this is the begging of the year... The test scores are really low there, but the teachers are very good.

[pineda]

Klein Oak is a nice school, but the most high achieving students there were basically bummed out that they weren't at Klein or Klein Collins.

Maybe last year this was true, because when Klein Oak went down to a 4-A school athletically, there was a sense of sadness because we would not be playing against Klein district schools anymore.

Plus, when Klein Collins opened, it's hard not to notice that a $100 million school looks nicer than Klein Oak and far, far nicer than Klein High. Pretty schools are nice to go to. It's the same anywhere.

This year, however, is different. Klein Oak is a 4-A school and is expected to win its' division. Although the students are required to travel a little further this year, other districts (like Spring) have been doing this for years.

Last week, at a reception for the new International Baccalaureate program at Klein Oak (the only school in the Klein district to receive the program) there were 45 students with their parents and teachers who were very excited to be at Klein Oak and be a part of this innovative and challenging program. The enrollment program opens again later this fall and there is already a waiting list of students from the district wanting to get in this program.

Personally, I think the attitude at Klein Oak is one of excitement this year!

Klien Collins highest morale, and strong academics? You must mean the teachers, because all I hear from students there are F's on Progress reports, and this is the begging of the year... The test scores are really low there, but the teachers are very good.

How many students have you actually talked with? "All I hear... are F's"? "The test scores are really low there"? Where do you get your facts from???

[H-Town Man]

I don't want to darken anyone's pride in their local school. Basically what I heard from students at Klein Oak is that the teachers don't stay after school with them the way they do at Klein, the academic extra-curricular activities (like Academic Decathlon) aren't very strong, etc. When I told students I had graduated from Klein, it made an impression on them.

In a perfect world, all the schools would be equal. But schools are the hardest things to build up - it takes years to gather the kind of faculty and tradition of academic success that makes for a well-oiled machine. When I was at Klein there were teachers who had been there for thirty years, who had Ph.D.'s and had taught college, who had come to Klein from other schools because it was where they wanted to teach, etc. You just don't get that overnight. The IB program is a nice thing, but the bread and butter of competitive high schools is AP - who has the most AP courses. AP classes are created on demand, so having a lot of them means you have students who want to push the boundaries.

I don't know what the current tallies of AP courses are at the different schools, but I would trust that more than any other statistic (not that statistics are very trustworthy) in comparing the schools. One very good indicator of a strong math/science program is whether the AP Calculus class is Calculus-A, or if there is also a Calculus-AB, which means that it is taught with vectors. When I was at Klein we had the students interested and faculty who were willing to teach the AB, but the administration was sluggish to create it. Some of my friends in college from Cy-Fair schools had had it. As it was, almost every student in the Calculus-A classes scored a 5 (perfect) on their exam, so it was kind of ridiculous that we didn't have the AB.

Now that I think about it, it's kind of ridiculous that we even worry about comparing high schools. If there's anything that students in our suburban high schools need, it's not competitive academic programs, it's an atmosphere that is conducive to one's finding oneself, and not just rushing to get into a good college and make money. Looking back, I wish that I had done something like FFA, which could have really given me a new perspective, but instead I was just rushing to stack up my AP courses and GPA (which the teachers and counsellors encouraged). That left me with a lot of things to figure out my first year in college.

[CincoRanch-HoustonResident]

All Katy High Schools, except Mayde Creek, are 5-A Schools.