After having signed the new contract, for my new awesome job in the US, it was time to decide where to live – but more importantly, which school district to live in.

See, in the US you want to make sure, if you have kids that is, to live in a good school district.  Or at least, that’s what we’ve been told.  They even have web sites where schools are being rated based on feedback submitted by parents, teachers, etc.  I assume that someone reviews the comments before they are published, to ensure they are not too personal or just targeted to make the school look bad … posted by students.

The catch is, if you live in school district A, then your kids cannot attend a better school which might be in district B.  It makes sense, somewhat.  You have school in a certain village and that school is attended by the people who live around it.  It’s a great way to get integrated with the community, for the kids to make friends and us parents to talk with other parents.

If you have a kid with a disability, then it’s even more important to get into a school district that has good services for your child.  School districts have to provide services, but they might not be able to cater for the child’s needs on the school and will have to “ship” the kid to another school within the district.  This comes at no extra cost to the parents 🙂

Stating that a school is better is not fully accurate.

All schools have to comply with the same academic curriculum.  The difference is normally the school location and the size of classes.  Higher densely populated areas will often result in larger class sizes.  This in turn gives teacher less time to spend with each student.  There’s therefor a higher risk of kids falling behind and top students get more attention.

The South American flower (the missus) did a lot of research before leaving the Green Isle and had narrowed it down to about 5 school districts within a 15 miles radius of my new job.  Each school district had one elementary school, so only 5 schools to visit!.

Now we just had to find rental properties that would allow pets!