Eves Road / Holcomb Bridge Middle (Atlanta, Roswell: apartment complexes, renting, house)

[defari]

Hello,

I am currently renting in Buckhead, and have been for 5 years. I just got married and have no kids, and we are looking to purchase our first home. We are looking down Eves Road, because we want to buy a home south of Alpharetta for close to $250K, with decent access to 400/141/I-85. I don't know much about East Roswell, and was just wondering if this was a good area? As we drive down HBR to I-85, the road and shopping centers/neighborhoods become slightly less appealing, although I know there are some great homes off of Nesbit Ferry and Peachtree Corners. I guess Holcomb Bridge Middle School has gotten less than stellar reviews and I was wondering if that meant that East Roswell/ Eves Road was not a great area?

I appreciate any thoughts on the matter!

[rackensack]

Originally Posted by defari

Hello,

I am currently renting in Buckhead, and have been for 5 years. I just got married and have no kids, and we are looking to purchase our first home. We are looking down Eves Road, because we want to buy a home south of Alpharetta for close to $250K, with decent access to 400/141/I-85. I don't know much about East Roswell, and was just wondering if this was a good area? As we drive down HBR to I-85, the road and shopping centers/neighborhoods become slightly less appealing, although I know there are some great homes off of Nesbit Ferry and Peachtree Corners. I guess Holcomb Bridge Middle School has gotten less than stellar reviews and I was wondering if that meant that East Roswell/ Eves Road was not a great area?

I appreciate any thoughts on the matter!

I live just off Fouts Road, across the street from East Roswell Park, just south of Holcomb Bridge. We've been here four years now and haven't regretted moving here for a minute. We have East Roswell Park (with a large rec center, softball and soccer fields, tennis courts, playgrounds, walking trails, a dog park, and a disc golf course), Kroger, Ippolitos, Moes, Cafe Au Lait, Kohls, RiteAid, Monterrey's, and several other businesses and a post office within walking distance. A brand-new SuperTarget, Marshalls, Einstein Bros. Bagels, Panda Express, and others are less than a half-mile away. The Atlanta-Fulton County Library system is building a new library at Fouts and Holcomb Bridge, on East Roswell Park land donated by the city of Roswell.

I've never had reason to feel at all unsafe anywhere in the East Roswell Area (with the possible exception of trying to cross Holcomb Bridge Road on foot). Traffic on HBR is really the only significant downside to the area, and since I work from home when I'm not traveling to customer sites, I can avoid it at the worst times (usually).

The "worst" areas of East Roswell tend, naturally, to be areas with a clustering of apartment complexes, as opposed to single family homes. That means, in general, the area just east of 400, along parts of Holcomb Bridge Road, and in the area near Nesbit Ferry and HBR. However, the "worst" areas of East Roswell are still far better than many other parts of the north metro area. And if you're looking at single-family homes to buy, you'll be somewhat insulated even from those.

Our two older kids entered River Eves Elementary in third and first grades, respectively. One is now in his second year (7th grade) at Holcomb Bridge Middle, the second is a fifth grader at River Eves, and our youngest is in kindergarten at River Eves. All of them have had very positive school experiences. With the exception of an individual teacher or two, the faculty and staff have been outstanding. My son and daughter both had a third-grade teacher who was selected as Fulton County Elementary Teacher of the Year, and I can attest to the fact that in her case it was a very well deserved honor -- if the other teachers don't quite measure up to that standard, it's only because she sets the bar so high. Mr. Pinnock is now in his second full year as principal, and there's a new assistant principal; what few weak points the school may have had in the past are being addressed. My wife's very active in the PTA at River Eves, so I get a "inside view" of what's happening; nothing I've seen makes me believe that our kids would be any better served at any other school.

Our son's first year at Holcomb Bridge went extremely well, and he's off to a good start again this year; my wife and I have been uniformly impressed by the ability and commitment of both the teachers and staff. Obviously, no school is perfect for every student, but overall I think HBMS is an excellent school.

If you're basing your perception that HBMS "has gotten less than stellar reviews" on the GreatSchools.net ratings, you have to consider that those ratings are based solely on test scores. Student socioeconomic status has a significant impact on standardized test scores, which you can see clearly reflected if you compare both test scores and demographics between HMBS and other middle schools in north Fulton County -- Autry Mill has the highest test scores and the lowest percentage of economically disadvantaged students and students with limited English proficiency (7% and 4%); Haynes Bridge has somewhat more disadvantaged students (19%), and slightly lower test scores. Holcomb Bridge has close to 40% economically disadvantaged students and 13% ESL students, and as a consequence has lower test scores. If you compare subgroups, however, on the CRCT, and look only at the "Not economically disadvantaged" subgroup, the difference is much smaller. HMBS has a much more challenging demographic than Haynes Bridge or Autry Mill (a lot more apartment complexes within the district), but there's no reason I can see for thinking that that results in an inferior school experience for the majority of students.

As for the "parent" reviews on GreatSchools.net, they're almost worse than useless -- many are obviously written by students, and some of the rest are clearly written by someone with an axe to grind. If you compare to other schools, however, you'll find many of the same kinds of comments about other schools with much higher ratings.

In other words, I don't know that there's much use for the ratings in general. You can use GreatSchools.net to get factual information -- the size of the school, the demographics, the student/teacher ratio, and, to the extent that they matter, test scores. But there's no substitute for visiting the school itself and talking to other parents if you want to know what a school is really like. Since you don't have kids yet and your interest is likely more to do with property values than with actual educational quality, I guess I'd say that I'd be surprised if people looking for homes in the $250K-$350K range would consider being in the Holcomb Bridge Middle School district a negative that would make them less likely to buy. Certainly it didn't for us four years ago (our house is squarely in that range).