Research for the Move to Florida
I have been doing lots and lots of research lately to narrow down the town we will move to and also on the school districts, schools, and gifted programs. also looking into the magnet schools in each county. Since we heard horror stories from former SE Florida residents (only 2 so not a scientific study at this point) I delved into the school research with a vengeance. Just as background for those not familiar with Florida, SE Florida has 3 HUGE school districts, and the ones we are looking into are Broward (around Fort Lauderdale up to Deerfield Beach) and Palm Beach County (starting at Boca Raton going up to Palm Beach area and Jupiter). So eahc district has 100s of elem. schools, much different then here in PA where the districts are much smaller and organized mainly by the towns.
We have narrowed down the area to Boca Raton for a combination of reasons, including schools, neighborhood, and location. So far what i have found out is that PBC district does have a full time gifted program for elementary school, and then after that (middle school) there are gifted classes but not 100% gifted curriculum (but from the sound of it mostly gifted i.e. math, social studies, etc. are still gifted). I found out that the better schools are found in Boca Raton, Palm Beach Gardens, and Jupiter. also that there are certain elem. schools that have the gifted program, so if not zoned for that school, but a different school, your child goes to the school that has the gifted program. Did not find out specifics yet, but that the gifted kids move at a faster pace and may have some enrichment. No math league, no music lessons and no choir or band (at least at a Boca school I called, one of the A rated schools). I found out that the 2 schools that are in the area of Boca we are looking into, are both A rated "10" schools that have the full time gifted classes. also found out they do have a "gifted advisory council" which has meetings every so
often for the parents/teachers/administrators (they have this also in Bensalem and its wonderful). I am waiting to hear from the ESE woman at the Addison Mizner Elem. school (one of the schools Shayna may go to mentioned above) for more details on what the gifted kids do. Gifted is part of the Exceptional Student Education dept. (In Bensalem same thing as Special Education).
we also found a great (we think looks great on thier web site) Magnet Middle school in Broward County for Marine Science. Of course, there are summer programs/camps in Palm beach area for marine science so that may be an option if we decide on PBC.
In my research it seems that the "bad" neighborhoods and also poorer schools are located in West Palm, Boynton Beach and Delray. Still trying to find out more on this topic.
The BIG cool thing I found out about Florida's education system: they have FREE Pre-K for ALL Florida 4 year olds!!! It is voluntary of course. I think its a great thing! You can choose ANY pre school you want out of hundreds. YAY! Thank you Gov. Bush for that bill you passed in 2002. the only other states that have this are Georgia and Oklahoma.
I joined some local Yahoo groups to meet some local Broward and Boca moms. So that seems very promising. They have play dates and outings, and a few have kids the same age as Skyler.
Another nice thing about Boca (besides wonderful parks, nature center, Sea Turtles, great snorkeling, playgrounds (one is 3 stories with water play inside it), water parks, museums (both art AND science and children's), theater, concerts, NYC quality restaurants, amazing mall -I mean best mall-food court has crepes) is the town has standards for the way it looks and the architecture and rules to keep it less trashy: like no car dealerships allowed and no billboards allowed, and the homes follow a standard following the Spanish/med. architecture style of Addison Mizner making it a very aesthetic town. Hence, we have been finding the most aesthetically pleasing houses there...the kind that make you say "ahhhhh" and give them names like "The Three Palms."
Anyway, if anyone stumbles upon this that knows ANYTHING about the area and ANYTHING about the schools in SE Florida (either district) or knows ANYONE who lives there or has lived there...please let me know what you think about it, any information will be helpful!
We have narrowed down the area to Boca Raton for a combination of reasons, including schools, neighborhood, and location. So far what i have found out is that PBC district does have a full time gifted program for elementary school, and then after that (middle school) there are gifted classes but not 100% gifted curriculum (but from the sound of it mostly gifted i.e. math, social studies, etc. are still gifted). I found out that the better schools are found in Boca Raton, Palm Beach Gardens, and Jupiter. also that there are certain elem. schools that have the gifted program, so if not zoned for that school, but a different school, your child goes to the school that has the gifted program. Did not find out specifics yet, but that the gifted kids move at a faster pace and may have some enrichment. No math league, no music lessons and no choir or band (at least at a Boca school I called, one of the A rated schools). I found out that the 2 schools that are in the area of Boca we are looking into, are both A rated "10" schools that have the full time gifted classes. also found out they do have a "gifted advisory council" which has meetings every so
often for the parents/teachers/administrators (they have this also in Bensalem and its wonderful). I am waiting to hear from the ESE woman at the Addison Mizner Elem. school (one of the schools Shayna may go to mentioned above) for more details on what the gifted kids do. Gifted is part of the Exceptional Student Education dept. (In Bensalem same thing as Special Education).
we also found a great (we think looks great on thier web site) Magnet Middle school in Broward County for Marine Science. Of course, there are summer programs/camps in Palm beach area for marine science so that may be an option if we decide on PBC.
In my research it seems that the "bad" neighborhoods and also poorer schools are located in West Palm, Boynton Beach and Delray. Still trying to find out more on this topic.
The BIG cool thing I found out about Florida's education system: they have FREE Pre-K for ALL Florida 4 year olds!!! It is voluntary of course. I think its a great thing! You can choose ANY pre school you want out of hundreds. YAY! Thank you Gov. Bush for that bill you passed in 2002. the only other states that have this are Georgia and Oklahoma.
I joined some local Yahoo groups to meet some local Broward and Boca moms. So that seems very promising. They have play dates and outings, and a few have kids the same age as Skyler.
Another nice thing about Boca (besides wonderful parks, nature center, Sea Turtles, great snorkeling, playgrounds (one is 3 stories with water play inside it), water parks, museums (both art AND science and children's), theater, concerts, NYC quality restaurants, amazing mall -I mean best mall-food court has crepes) is the town has standards for the way it looks and the architecture and rules to keep it less trashy: like no car dealerships allowed and no billboards allowed, and the homes follow a standard following the Spanish/med. architecture style of Addison Mizner making it a very aesthetic town. Hence, we have been finding the most aesthetically pleasing houses there...the kind that make you say "ahhhhh" and give them names like "The Three Palms."
Anyway, if anyone stumbles upon this that knows ANYTHING about the area and ANYTHING about the schools in SE Florida (either district) or knows ANYONE who lives there or has lived there...please let me know what you think about it, any information will be helpful!
posted by shoshanamom @ 11:16 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home