Fort bend vs. Lamar isd (Houston, Austin: house, elementary school, pros and cons)

[Pizerguy]

Hello all,
We are planning a move to Houston in spring of 2016. We really like the Sugarland area.
We have looked around first colony and greatwood. It seems like schools are much better in the first colony area zoned to Clements. We would get more house for our 450k budget in greatwood, but looks like schools are not quite as good as first colony area after kids are out of elementary school.
Any thoughts or information would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

[NTexas2010]

https://www.city-data.com/forum/houst...on-thread.html

[NTexas2010]

Anecdotally, I am a product of LCISD and grew up in Greatwood (though not George Ranch, because it was built after I graduated). The high school that Greatwood is zoned to (George Ranch) is one of the best in LCISD and pulls similar demographics to those of an average Fort Bend ISD high school. In my opinion, Clements is a successful school because of the highly affluent demographics it pulls from, and highly affluent families continue to move to areas zoned to Clements. Typically LCISD keeps their schools under 2300 students; Fort Bend opts for larger schools over that number. George Ranch currently is over the 2300 number and will be re-categorized as a "6A" high school next school year, but I suspect LCISD will re-balance its own attendance boundaries to even out populations between its high schools and move it back to 5A status in subsequent years.

There are pros and cons to sending your child(ren) to larger schools - more opportunities come at the cost of a more academically and athletically competitive environment, where a top 10% student from one school may fall closer to middle of the pack against the tough academic competition Clements HS creates.

On paper, Clements is the superior academic school. But the contrast and gap between Clements and George Ranch (or LCISDs other top-tier school Foster and the upcoming Fulshear HS) is not night and day. Both would be fine choices.

[sphilip02]

If you want Ft Bend schools, another area for you to look at is Aliana which is very close to Greatwood.

[Failed Engineer]

You can try New Territory, which sits between First Colony and Greatwood price-wise, but has very good FBISD schools.

[hbcu]

depends on what your kids do....if you want tradition, smaller class ratio and areas where sports mean something, the schools on the east end offer it...Clements is more for academics as its pretty vanilla over there in terms of traditions......dull...same with Austin, Kempner, etc...

Those academic rigorous schools at times causes the middle of the road kid to fall through the cracks so think wisely....

[Pizerguy]

Thank you for all of the good information. I appreciate it.