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Old 10-05-2015, 10:46 AM
 
91 posts, read 161,282 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PinkLadyK View Post
I don't know about the gifted/talented stuff, but VOE is fine from what I know, and Memorial HS is excellent. Your issue will be Spring Branch Middle. Can you tolerate 3 iffy years for the good bookending of elementary and high? Might be worth it since they spend the least amount of time in middle.
Perhaps! Upon reflection, I went to a crummy Middle school and survived just fine. It's a good question you bring up and not one to be taken lightly. (Do you have specific or anecdotal experience with Spring Branch Middle? Especially on the GT front. I am scraping for anything. )
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Old 10-05-2015, 10:49 AM
 
91 posts, read 161,282 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghost Town View Post
Well I am subscribed to spotcrime.com alerts, and what I see is robberies/assaults happen pretty much every day in Spring Branch. I am not an expert in this neighborhood, but I've been there few times. It looked kind of run down to me with lots of sketchy characters.

I've seen one apartment complex: it was like after WWII with large craters in the ground kind of after heavy bombing. This was pretty scary experience. I don't know how they live there like this.

In general, it looked worse than even 3rd world country to me. And it is in the US, in one of the most financially successful cities!

However, Spring Branch is pretty big, and I am assuming there are some good parts as well, but I would not like to be surrounded by all these sketchy characters, run down houses and crappy apartment complexes. So I would definitely prefer League City if commute time is not an issue.
I will not disagree with some of your points. The border of Long Point is not far away, and things do appear to get sketchy from there. We, too, have questioned crime and outdoor safety for our kiddos. (They run around fairly freely here.) Maybe I have a secret hope that SB will change quickly for the better. LOL! But, I am not over there enough to know the trend.
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Old 10-05-2015, 11:01 AM
 
Location: Florida
2,447 posts, read 2,554,108 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mod_Momma View Post
I will not disagree with some of your points. The border of Long Point is not far away, and things do appear to get sketchy from there. We, too, have questioned crime and outdoor safety for our kiddos. (They run around fairly freely here.) Maybe I have a secret hope that SB will change quickly for the better. LOL! But, I am not over there enough to know the trend.
It seems to me that your house will be more in Hedwig Village rather than Spring Branch. I am not sure about your actual location, but in Houston area everything is pretty complicated and mixed like in Rio de Janeiro and depends on particular block or so. If you will be closer to Hedwig Village, then it is probably fine.

From my experience, the area where I settled, seemed quite nice to me in a first 3-4 months or so. (Not a Spring Branch, and it has better crime statistics in general). Then shootings started to happen later on regular basis. So crime map search might not give you much help, and it could take a while to figure out what's going on actually living there.
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Old 10-05-2015, 11:20 AM
 
Location: Beautiful Northwest Houston
6,301 posts, read 7,542,069 times
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Have you considered living in one house and leasing out the other until you can be more confident in which one you would want to live in ?
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Old 10-05-2015, 11:21 AM
 
91 posts, read 161,282 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghost Town View Post
If you will be closer to Hedwig Village, then it is probably fine.
Perhaps unfortunately, the location is central Spring Branch and just a bit south of Long Point Dr. (which makes me question this somewhat). Is it worse the closer we get to Long Point?

The streets WITHIN the neighborhood are all very nice and a lovely mix of remodeled 50's homes and scrape/rebuilds. There are families with young children. We know the property value is appreciating strongly (as are the taxes :-( ).
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Old 10-05-2015, 11:29 AM
 
150 posts, read 219,093 times
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You would be very lucky to be zoned to VO with GT kids. Did you know it contains the SBISD school for the highly gifted? Also, SBMS is highly desirable to all my village friends.

You will find many "went to MHS" parents, but also many other educated, accomplished, worldly adults. I would recommend joining Racquet Club as that can provide the sense of community with other VO parents instead of church.
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Old 10-05-2015, 11:49 AM
 
91 posts, read 161,282 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Memorialite View Post
You would be very lucky to be zoned to VO with GT kids. Did you know it contains the SBISD school for the highly gifted? Also, SBMS is highly desirable to all my village friends.

You will find many "went to MHS" parents, but also many other educated, accomplished, worldly adults. I would recommend joining Racquet Club as that can provide the sense of community with other VO parents instead of church.
Thanks for all the above info, Memorialite! I was not aware VO contained the GT program. Also, it is very interesting to hear about SBMS. Any insights to share on why the ratings might be so low? And what makes it so desirable? I "get" that some schools approach learning differently (hence great education, but lower ratings) and am okay with that. We just want to understand more about that school. It seems to be a sticking point for us.

I really appreciate your creative suggestion on how to connect more with the community via the Racquet Club. I'm not sure that we'll be keen on paying the $10k initiation fee just to have more community. But, your point is VERY well taken and still worthy of consideration. :-)
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Old 10-05-2015, 12:38 PM
 
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Parts of Spring branch is very diverse. South of I10 is good looking with beautiful houses where North of it , I am notn too sure. Area around Wilchester elementary has some apartments and they are flooded with Asians who are in Wilchester. The rest around Memorial drive are wealthy whites. ( and probably cons christians as posted by some other members) . The houses range from 400-1m .

And last Friday Spring branch schools were on a lock down for some hours due to a crime alert by FBI.( a credible threat near the very middle school) .
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Old 10-05-2015, 12:45 PM
 
Location: Florida
2,447 posts, read 2,554,108 times
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I would be extremely cautious. Especially if it is not far from Longpoint. Yes, it is better to rent a house first to get more familiar with the area (if possible). The problems might show up only after a couple of months. I also considered Spring Branch less than a year ago, but I did not care about schools at all and considered mostly proximity to work, crime situation and house price.

Carefully check area demographics within 5 blocks radius. This will tell a lot. Maybe ride a bike several times and look at every corner.
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Old 10-05-2015, 01:04 PM
 
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All three of those schools are good. Valley Oaks was just completely rebuilt. MHS is one of the best in the city. Cornerstone Academy is the charter for GT students and would be around the corner from you. SBMSA is a great sports rec league. It is a great area, convenient to everything and very diverse.
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