Austin Texas?

[disneymomto5]

My husband got a job offer in Austin. Can anyone offer a good school area or any advice? I have a 7th grader and 10th grader.

 

[Shanti]

My husband got a job offer in Austin. Can anyone offer a good school area or any advice? I have a 7th grader and 10th grader.

I've lived in Austin since I was three, and have been a teacher in the area for 15 years. There are many public school districts in and around Austin, charter schools and private schools. Unless you say otherwise, I'll assume you're talking about public schools only.

The districts that have some of the highest-performing middle and high schools are (in no special order):

• Austin ISD, which serves most of Austin, but not the outlying suburbs, which are extensive
• Round Rock ISD, which serves Round Rock (north and northeast of Austin) and a small part of Northwest Austin
• Eanes ISD, which serves West Lake Hills (southwest of Austin)

Both Austin and Round Rock ISD have high performing and lower performing parts of their districts, which are closely tied to neighborhood income levels (schools here are neighborhood schools, and it's difficult to impossible to get a transfer into one of the best schools in your district).

In both Austin and Round Rock, the best-performing schools are on the west side of town (the affluent side), and the struggling schools are on the east side of town (the traditionally poorer side, though east Austin gets more expensive by the day).

West Lake Hills is an expensive (think "millions per average home") suburb of Austin, so it does not have the socioeconomic dichotomy that Austin & Round Rock ISDs have.

Austin ISD:

• Austin ISD's best performing regular high schools are Anderson High and Austin High, in that order. Its highest performing regular middle school is Murchison Middle School (which feeds into Anderson).

• Austin ISD also has an excellent, extremely high performing magnet high school program, the Liberal Arts and Science Academy (LASA), and two magnet middle school programs, one at Kealing and one at Fulmore. However, your children would have to be accepted into these programs and applications are competetive. The curriculum, particularly at LASA, is rigorous and challenging. (I attended 20+ years ago and have fond memories.)

• Austin ISD also has a middle and high school program for girls (targeted primarily at underprivileged girls, but open to all Austin girls via application and acceptance), the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders.

Round Rock ISD:

• Westwood High School has been ranked as one of the top performing regular public high schools in the state. I've taught for several years in two of the elementaries that feed into Westwood, so I'm very familiar with the demographics here. It is an area with a big Asian population, and many families attending put a very strong emphasis on education for their children. Getting a high class ranking at Westwood is extremely competetive.
• Canyon Vista Middle School has similarities, but is more low key. It feeds into Westwood.

Eanes ISD:

• Westlake High School is very high performing. However, the issues related to a non-diverse (think 90% white, within a city that is very diverse) community of wealth are in play in Westlake. Drugs, entitlement, materialism & bullying are problems here noticeably more than in the other districts where I've worked, but of course, no school community is isolated from social problems.
• Because West Lake is so expensive, it has relatively few families with children (not enough to completely fill the schools), so some Austin district students apply for and receive conditional transfer to Eanes. These students tend to be high performing, and they contribute to the challenge of getting a high class ranking at Westlake High.
• Both middle schools in Eanes are high performing, but Hill Country Middle School's reputation has a slight edge on West Ridge.

Fyi, if you're wondering why I mentioned class rankings twice, it's because a high class ranking is a prerequisite for acceptance to the University of Texas at Austin.

There are other good public schools in the area, but my time isn't limitless so I wanted to give you info about the highest performing schools, and some background info on the top-performing districts.

There are many other districts in the area, some that will have good schools, average schools and/or struggling schools. I would avoid Manor ISD and Bastrop ISD.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

 

[supersnoop]

I'm a big fan of Pflugerville. The schools are good and the traffic is reasonable. A lot will depend on the location of his office. Austin has some of the worst traffic in the nation, but if you stay off the highways, or stick to the tollways, it's not bad at all.

 

[sweetvixendreaming]

So, we are in Pflugerville, too. We have wonderful elementary, middle, and high schools within walking distance.

I will second what the first poster said about Round Rock schools, though, as I have taught east of I-35. The populations tend to be more apathetic and less academically inclined as a whole, but there are pockets of awesome at both Cedar Ridge and Stony Point. I also taught at a charter school in town and have friends at other ones. Please feel free to ask if you need any help, and welcome to Austin!

 

[BruinEd03]

Check out the city-data forums for Austin: http://www.city-data.com/forum/austin/

 

[disneymomto5]

Thank you for your replies, it is very helpful.