Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I was wondering what your thoughts were regarding school districts in Suffolk county Long Island. Aside from the usual statistics, can anyone offer a real world opinion on this? Figures lie, and liars figure.
I live and work in the Three Village School District and I have to say it is pretty good. I work with very competent and caring teachers. I also believe Port Jefferson School District is excellent (not to be confused with Comsewogue which is in Port Jefferson Station). Other good ones are Smithtown, Shoreham/Wading River, Miller Place, Rocky Point and Sachem-just to name a few. I don't know much about Eastern Suffolk.
I live and work in the Three Village School District and I have to say it is pretty good. I work with very competent and caring teachers. I also believe Port Jefferson School District is excellent (not to be confused with Comsewogue which is in Port Jefferson Station). Other good ones are Smithtown, Shoreham/Wading River, Miller Place, Rocky Point and Sachem-just to name a few. I don't know much about Eastern Suffolk.
Northport, Half Hollow Hills (mostly Dix Hills), Cold Spring Harbor are very good, too.
I teach in the Sachem School District and my children attend Rocky Point schools. I am very happy with both districts. I think most of the teachers are highly professional. They constantly strive to research and implement successful methods of teaching to their students, especially in the areas of literacy and technology.
Yeah CSH is rated well, but the taxes are OBSCENE-the budget goes up every year, and I can ASSURE you, while it is a good, smaller school, a "public private" it is NOT as good as it appears on paper. The School Board is all about maintaining property value and looking good on paper and statistics. If your child is on the top or bottom end, the school is good-you are paid attention to. If your child is in the middle of the pack, a B or C student, they are lost and not concentrated on. The school is nice, the fields are nice, the budget is HUGE, but it really is not all it claims to be! There are many families in the district that send to Private School or Cathlic School. They do that for a reason!
Unless you love the area and property in CSH, I would not make a decision based on the statisics of the district!
FYI, I grew up in CSH and went to CSH, and my folks still live there and pay out their butts for the school, so I am not blowing smoke!
Be aware that some school districts are especially large (Longwood and Sachem come to mind particularly). Also, someone from out of area might not be aware that the Smithtown school district, for instance, covers much more than just than the houses within the community of Smithtown: it also covers the communities of St. James, Nesconset, Nissequogue, Head of the Harbor, Kings Park, and Hauppague. Home prices in those various communities range from $400,000 to $12.5 million depending on where it's located! So it'd be a mistake for someone to look for listings only in the community of Smithtown if it's a particular school district they're after.
The easiest way is to go to www.mlsli.com and do a search based on the dropdown list of school districts. That will show all listings within the district.
By the way, the $12.5 mil house is for sale in Head of the Harbor: a 14-room Colonial on 11 acres, with property taxes slightly under $60,000/yr. Admittedly that's a bit extreme, but there are still two or three pages of listings from $1-$3 million and change....
Half Hollow Hills has always been a good district. Parts of Dix Hills is in that district but not all; some parts of Dix Hills are in the East Northport district, and others share a school district with Wyandanch.
nymom, I was surprised to see Miller Place on your list. I was under the impression that Miller Place was similar to Bay Shore, Bellport and Shirley in economics/demographics. But I haven't been out that way in years, so perhaps things have turned around dramatically...??
Last edited by OvertaxedOnLI; 01-14-2007 at 08:49 PM..
Reason: added question
Lindenhurst is the best school district in Suffolk County.. I'm proud to be part of the district.. It's a very diverse district with caring and professional teachers..
Location: Concrete jungle where dreams are made of.
8,900 posts, read 15,947,320 times
Reputation: 1819
The Smithtown SD encompasses a large area, from moderate housing to expensive housing, just like any other school district. St.James is probably the most affordable area.
Lindenhurst is an okay district. Its ratings on greatschools averaged 8/10, which is good, but there's others that are just as good or got a 10 rating.
You can look up schools in certain towns on greatschools.net
Miller Place was ranked #72 in the country.
Cold Spring Harbor #16 in the country
Sachem #992
Smithtown in the 400's
Three Village also
All these school are good. Miller Place & CSH are among the smaller districts.
I attended Sachem and when I went to school YES. It was considered one of the better schools. I don't know anymore. I wouldn't want my children to go there BECAUSE of the size. I think it is way too large. You child definitely can get lost in the shuffle and it's extremely not just a little, but extremely competitive.
I've been looking into districts since August. I wanted to be in the Jericho school system but did not want to pay over 50K in taxes. CSH was another district that was appealing to me, I also loved the area but again I just couldn't find a home I loved there and the ones I did love were 4 million dollars. I had no problem spending 2M but they were old ranches that needed work. So forget it.
I'm moving and building a home in QUOGUE the school district is a public/private school. I was very impressed when I took the tour knowing that they have the small class size and focus on many different things that the larger schools cannot. They offer computer classes everyday and foreign language along with many field trips each year for every grade. They also offer pre-k.
I hope I'm making a good decision and if I do not like the HS. Then I will send my children to the private school in East hampton "the Ross School"
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Best school district
