How to pick a school before you buy a home?

<<>> The other day I read a real estate forum. A potential buyer ask Realtors about several different locations. Guess what. Every single location was the perfect location.

Nothing but smoke and mirrors from every one of those Realtors. Why did they do that? They are all thinking about their commission check, that's why. Every single location has its disadvantaged and advantages. So the first step on how to research an area before you buy is never ask a Realtor, because Realtors are trained to sell. If you ask several Realtors and they tell you every single area that you are interested in is the best for you, I’d get worried about your checkbook, if I were you.

Researching schools

If you have children, you’ll want to research the schools. My first experience with schools is that most parents will tell you that their school is the best. School forums may give you some clues about the school, but in the end, it’s what you really want your kid to get out of school. Many people think is just about getting book smart and having teachers that teach so that kids can pass these standardized tests.

We’ll its not. It’s about passing tests but it’s also about making friends, learning to socialize and learning to get along with other children. It’s about the safety of your children and overall size and structure of your chosen school. It’s about life.

When my kids went to kindergarten, I thought it was the absolutely dumbest thing a parent could do. But that’s what you do, so off we went. My daughter stayed at home with her mother for the first five years of her life, so needless to say she was a little sheltered.

But think about this. You guard your kids with your life. I mean any moment you’re ready to DIE for them under any situation. You teach them not to cross the busy street without you. You teach them to chew their food. You teach them not to run with sharp objects. You hold their hand in the stores. You feed them. You bath them and you care for them when they’re sick. You tell them not to talk to strangers and not to take candy from strangers. Next, you PUNT them into the school system with all of these strangers.

I look back at these experiences now and realize it was one of the best thing that we could have done for our child, because it teaches children real life skills that they will have to learn in life to survive and in the end, this is what it’s about.

The first thing you want to do is find the general area that you’ll be living in. This will be defined by your job. Drive around neighborhoods, go into stores and get a feeling for the neighborhood. You are really the only one that can figure this out. Some people like to live directly in town, while others wouldn’t think about living in town. They want a place out in the county.

My daughter’s kindergarten teacher was brilliant. She really mended well with my daughter and taught her a lot. My experience was that this was a good school. The teacher really knew how to teach, but as the saying goes, with every cloud, there’s a silver lining. In this case the cloud overshadowed the silver lining. The schools were jammed pack with foreign students to the extent that the children would have to learn several languages to have friends. We rented in an area with heavy populations of renters. As a result, many of the children would leave before the end of the school year. Once my daughter did find a friend, they would move to a different school. So, in this case, while the school teachers were good the ability for our daughter to socialize and make friends was terrible.

The next year we decided to buy a home. Schools were important to me and we wanted to get it right this time. So I completed all of my on-line research. I’d find a home. After this, I’d review all of the comments and check the test results on how the children were doing in their mandatory testing. This school rated better than average for the group.

Once my daughter was in school, I quickly learned that this is not what I envisioned when I thought of a country school. This school was adding so many children per year and so underfunded, that they were buying trailers and setting up classes in these trailers. The children got out of school at around 3:00pm and my child had to each lunch at 2:00 to 2:30pm because the school had to rotate all of the children through the lunch room so that all of the classes could eat.

Finally, a happy median. We finally found a school that was small enough so that the children can make friends and eat during lunch. Most of the teachers do a good job with communicating and teaching our children. My children are able to make friends and keep fiends, learn and have fun at the same time. Ones my daughter went to middle school things changed again. The schools are overcrowded and many of the teachers are more concerned about what new songs they just downloaded to their MP3 player than keeping a good teaching environment in the schools. Back to the drawing board.

I know that you won’t want to hear what I’m about to tell you, but stay with me on this one. The only thing that we can do is to do our best and help our children select the best schools for them. You’ll always get teachers that you don’t like and your children don’t like. It’s just like in real life when your first boss is really nice and you can’t stand to be around your next boss. So here you go.

Step by step guide on how to pick a school.

Get a list of all of the schools and complete some basic online searches and read school forums and community forums to find out the top three schools that are considered the best in your area.

Set up an interview and tour each school. This is one of the most important steps, so don’t skip this one. Find out what the inside of the school looks like, how the atmosphere is and how the children behave. You will learn if the schools seams too crowded and if the teachers seam concerned about the children or their laptops. If school has not started, your best information might be from the teachers and other parent that let their children go to the school of your choice.

Select the school that best fits your personality and your housing budget. If you’ve found you don’t like the schools in the area that you can afford to live, start calling around and asking around. There are a lot more choices than you may think. Consider private schools, on-line schooling, other alternative schooling paid by our tax dollars.

My wife and daughter found a school in our area that is funded by the state that offers a different learning environment that gives the children the life skills as pretend jobs such as journalism, cooking, becoming a lawyer, working in a restaurant, caring for outdoor life, fish and pets which is tied in with basic learning skills more traditional with other schools.

So keep an open mind and look around, you may be surprised.