Richardson vs Lakewood living (Dallas, Coppell: crime, credit, homes)

[LI77]

I am a working medical professional and have a 6 month old child.
We are new to Dallas and looking for a good neighborhood with excellent school system and lots of kids.
UP/ HP is out of our budget at this moment.
I work at UTSW. I would like to get some input/suggestions on where to buy the house.

[mami2emily]

I know you will get lots of feedback very soon from people who live in those places. I'm a recent transplant so won't be of much help. What I can tell you is that you're looking at two different price points from what I have learned here. Lakewood will be a little pricier. Also, many will tell you private school is a must for middle school and beyond if you choose Lakewood. Hopefully Lakewooder will jump in and tell you how the community is rallying behind Woodrow Wilson H.S. and their newish IB program...which is also scheduled to arrive at the middle school level. Had we not settled on HPISD I would have loved to be in Lakewood...it is a very charming community and very family-friendly.

The only parts of Richardson I have visited, along Main Street and Greenville (east of 75) have not impressed me much. I know there must be more family-friendly areas to Richardson but I have yet to discover them. We are usually in Richardson for dim sum on weekends, and the occasional jaunt to an Asian market.

Best of luck on your search.

[Lakewooder]

Not denigrating Richardson but it's more of a suburb whereas Lakewood is more of a small town like the Park Cities even though it's in Dallas. In Lakewood you will have many more wealthy people but you will also have a lot of poor people attending the schools (actually it's around the state average but more than Richardson and HPISD, which has 0% economically disadvantaged). Most of the wealthy parents see the diversity as a good thing. Those who don't go private but that's only about 20-25%, just a bit more than the Park Cities. In recent years parents starting in LECPTA Home have made a pact to go public all the way and have raised hundreds of thousands to secure IB and also created a foundation About Woodrow Wilson High School Community Foundation to ensure the success of all neighborhood schools. A couple of years ago there was a bit of a scandal when one prominent public school parent pulled out and sent her child to Greenhill. However, the child is now returning and is applying for IB at Woodrow.

There is much more to Woodrow than IB - however that program is expanding from IB Diploma Programme to also offer IBCC where students can take two classes and get a certificate after testing (not 24 college credit hours like the diploma grads). That is in conjunction with finishing one of the four college prep academies at the school. Woodrow still offers 22 AP and 8 dual-credit classes and has been well-known for AP (Newsweek and Washington Post top high schools in America) for many years. J. L. Long Middle School was selected as an IB Middle Years Programme candidate school last year and is already offering the curriculum.

[TurtleCreek80]

Lakewood pro's vs Richardson- more architectural variety & charm, prettier geographic setting (White Rock & all the park space), more community spirit & events, closer to UTSW/ more shopping options & variety/ city events

Richardson pro's vs Lakewood - bigger lot sizes & homes for the same or less $$, the ability to get into a much better high school (Pearce), a better high school (Richardson), or a comparable high school (Lake Highlands) vs Woodrow, a more competent city council/ city management if you choose a home actually in the city of Richardson (vs just RISD schools), more variety of diversity- lots of Asians & Indians along with blacks/ whites/ Hispanics vs majority Hispanic & white in Lakewood / Lakewood schools.

Crime is probably a wash.

[Pete53FR]

I like the convenience of Lakewood. Richardson is good also. Either way you will do well. Your work is very easy to get to from any place in Lakewood. Richardson much harder.

[Squirl]

Originally Posted by LI77

I am a working medical professional and have a 6 month old child.
We are new to Dallas and looking for a good neighborhood with excellent school system and lots of kids.
UP/ HP is out of our budget at this moment.
I work at UTSW. I would like to get some input/suggestions on where to buy the house.

Coppell

[Lakewooder]

I just attended a rather high-level fundraising meeting at Lakewood Country Club on Thursday. These folks are seriously committed to the schools in our area - that extends to making wholesale changes on the school board. Some of those have already happened. An example of that is the recent closings of many schools. It took a lot of courage to do that and those same members have many other things in the works - they have already abolished seniority and forced placement. Some of the criticism you will hear is based on lagging information and stereotypes with a few fumbles along the way. Some of those doing the fumbling in the administration may not be around much longer. There has been quite a shift in the last few months.

Many would actually say SOME Richardson ISD schools are on their way down while Lakewood schools (which always have had a critical mass of AP kids) are on the way up. I have heard one Dallas city leader say that by virtue of IB, Lakewood will have its own 'virtual school district' - meaning the curriculum stems from IBO, not TEA or DISD. A RISD high school principal actually called the previous Woodrow principal seeking information on 'how to get IB' has they had lost students to Woodrow.

According to The Washington Post, two RISD high schools are "better" and two are "worse" than our high school. But they are all on the list of top high schools in the nation based on AP participation. I would say those schools have a larger number of students performing well and some are better. They do not have the same percentage of economically disadvantaged students. We are a smaller school, but have grown by 200-250 since implementing IB. With the school closings, the need for room for IB expansion and falling enrollment in the Fair Park area there is a possibility that some of the attendance zone lines on the southern end may be changed. This would result in fewer students in the disadvantaged category. I see good things and bad things about that. Personally I am very happy I went to school with some kids who were poor. I think it helped me (in the middle) as well as the wealthy and poor.

You can put numbers to some non-academic things like sports (we are top ten in the area in all-sports competition) but community feeling, school spirit, close (and famous) alumni network, history and tradition are hard to quantify. We have that in spades. Even HP was a little bowled over when we had 2-3 times their crowd at a recent playoff game.

[LI77]

Thank you very much for all your suggestions.

[BigDGeek]

I live in Richardson and if all you ever see of it is Greenville and Main, yeah, it looks a little old and tired. I live west of 75 near Heights Park and my neighborhood is beautiful. Richardson High School and Pearce are basically identical nowadays in terms of standardized test performance. The elementary school in this neighborhood is rated exemplary. The city management is outstanding.

[Macbeth2003]

Though I obviously support OED/Lakewood as a place I prefer to live over Richardson. I've got to say one major pro of Richardson is the fantastic Richardson Library. One of the best chosen collections in Dallas, knowledgable librarians and open 7 days a week!