Need help choosing right Elementary school (Dallas, Plano: apartments, homes, transfer)

[Raiden]

All,
So, we are moving to Dallas from Charlotte, NC. Unlike Charlotte, NC and our Mecklenburg county, I find Dallas very confusing. Firstly there are many school districts. I have come across few Coppell, Irving, Dallas, Carrolton Farmers Branch etc. Each one of them obviously have some very good elementary schools.

I am going to work at Regent Blvd and had zeroed in few apartment communities near W Royal Ln and N MacArthur Blvd intersection however they fall under Carrolton Farmers Branch district which has few good schools.

I have some basic questions.

1. Is it possible to get enrolled in a school of a different school district?

2. Is there a website for entire Dallas area where after entering the address, it will show the home school. I have come across several websites, one per the school district but wanted to know if there is anything at one level up.

3. If I live in Carronton Farmers Branch school district, does it mean I can get my child enrolled to any good public school of tihs district? How that's decided? Is there a school boundary map per school district? Can someone please explain how it works.

Apologies for asking some stupid questions but I am just overwhelmed by the amount of information.

Thanks a lot in advance for your help.

[TurtleCreek80]

1. You MUST enroll your kids in the school district your home/apartment is fined for if you want free schooling. In Texas, our school districts are "independend" (ISD) which means there is no inter-district relationship. Each district is operated and funded independently- the bulk of funding comes from local property taxes paid by homewowners & commercial property owners who live within the district boundaries. Some districts allow transfers IF the transfers pay tuition. This is uncommon and basically rare.

2. I believe all of our local districts here have specific elementary school boundaries- if you live within x street by x street area, you go to xyz elementary. Some allow transfers if the local school is over it's max enrollment or for a specific student need (ie, extreme learning disabilities where another school has the specialized staff and the local school doesn't- again, rare. Some school districts have open enrollment for high schools, but again- rare. I think Garland ISD is one of the only to do so.

3. The best advice I can give you is to research school districts (and specific school "feeder" patterns from K-12), print the school zone map for those specific schools you would want your kids to attend off the district's websit, and ONLY look at apartments/homes within that area. There's a 99.9% chance the neighborhood school will be the one you use.

FWIW, Carrollton-Farmer's Branch isn't a very good district. It has an excelled Talented & Gifted program for those who "test in", but overall it's a bottom performer and has a lot of problems. The district came close to splitting in two recently. I would focus on Coppell, Lewisville, Plano, and Grapevine-Colleyville if you are trying to stay central/ northwest of Dallas.

[racehorse]

There are Exemplary elementary schools in CFB but I don't believe any are in Irving. My son went to an Exemplary school and had a great experience.