Seattles schools vs E. coast city schools (find a job, school district)

[41Willys]

Unless I find a job downtown my hope's of Island living are pretty slim. So I need some opinion's about Seattle public schools for my 12 year old daughter. Looking at the safety of the school's. Are there alot of fist fights, drugs, and racial tension? Here on the east coast I would never send her to city schools because it is just too rough. I live in New Jersey but its the country part of the state and the schools have very little of what I'm talking about. So if any east coasters see this I would love some input from you if you have any knowledge of this.

Living rite in Seattle would be huge!! But I'm not sure how the inner city is there. Thank you in advance!

[CityGirl72]

The whole Seattle school district is bad - all the good schools are on the Eastside

But if you have to, then the best areas are in the North East Corner of Seattle, I hear Nathan Hale is good - it's in Wedgwood. That's where my son will go.

[Anders15]

can you pick school zones? how does that work?

[CityGirl72]

You can not pick a school zone, per say

The school you will get is determined by where you live (your address).

The district is divided into "Clusters" - you can ask (when you sign up) to go to a different school in your cluster. If you prefer a school OUT of your cluster - you will be put on a waiting list and priority goes like this:

1st Priority to the school - is if you live by it
2nd Priority is if you live in the cluster
3rd priority if you have a sibling already in the school
4th Priority (out of cluster) is whomever lives closer

So you see you CAN try and get into any school but you can be on the bottom of a waiting list.

We put my son in an out of cluster school by waiting list - but because we lived close in proximity (as the crow flies it was less then a mile) - he was accepted immediately. And it's a darn nice school - I think number 2 in the district for Elementary, if I remember properly.

[scirocco22]

Although we tend to badmouth the Seattle school district a lot here on this board, I still think it would be much better than a lot of east coast inner city schools.

I haven't done a lot of research about it in while but from what I'm remembering from studying it years ago, Seattle schools were superior to a lot of inner city schools across the nation.

--'rocco