A room by any other name...

[melissakd]

No, my dear, Stu and Gloria are telling you I'm not cool. Thanks for the vote of confidence. I could use it just now.

MelissaKD

Well you've always been OK in my book for what that's worth.

Yay! I'm OK! Thanks!

About schools and school districts: My dad taught junior high school his whole career, so I do have thoughts about this even though I don't have kids. I might take a look at a given school. Have a heart-to-heart with the principal or a teacher there. What exactly is bad about it? Big-city school districts in particular can have problems funding even the necessities, denying kids the chance for music or art classes, etc., because the tax base has eroded. That would be a deal-breaker for me. But the single biggest factor is the parents. If a child's parents give a good gosh darn, that child does well. If the child lacks parental support, whether he/she is worrying about where the next meal is coming from, or he/she sees Mom consistently blame the teacher instead of the child for bad grades, that child does not do well. One school where my dad taught drew from an almost entirely impoverished area, and he said it wasn't fair to the kids with promise, who weren't deadbeats, because they were not exposed to kids from any other circumstances or with any other values. There was no one to model ambition or achievement or self-respect. (That school has since been closed as a neighborhood school pursuant to the No Child Left Behind act, and the students dispersed to other middle schools. It then reopened with a magnet-only Montessori program. I had my suspicions of NCLB but I consider that a success story.) Anyway that's my piece and now I've spoken it.

MKD

[mross_pitt]

Yinzermama,
Did you ever look at this one? Not much yard. So many nice houses in that area, yet the school problem keeps people away. Seems the area is still borderline as to whether its improving or getting worse. I remember when it was for sale last time(need to sell real estate on the side....I think I know every house in PGH, what it sold for in the past,etc).

http://www.prudentialpreferred.com/property/index.cfm?fuseaction=propertymls&MLS=868289

Mrs. mross has told all our neighbors how I suffer from porch withdrawal, so they invite me to sit on their porch. Nice, but not quite the same.

[YinzerMama]

I have not seen it in person but I have seen the ads for it. It's right on Negly, and even though it is on a corner so that helps some... I don't know about RIGHT on Negley. Highland Park kids try to get into Dilworth - the magnet - and if they don't I think they go to Fulton... which is the one I hear about where if they don't get in the magnet, they move. I have a friend on Heberton, in HP, was at her house a few weeks ago for a party, and met some of the neighbors, that was what I heard. We really don't want to move again because of schools... We're really hoping to find something in squirrel hill that feeds to Colfax and Allderdice. And has at least a little yard, and a porch, and a swing, and will hold 4 kids, and won't have a goofy goofy tiny room (had to rule one house out for that, it's goofy tiny room was tinier than our current goofy tiny room and ours is tempered by the fact that is has a BIG closet - this goofy tiny room had a goofy tiny closet. It was a foursquare at beechwood and monitor we had high hopes for)... and ideally starts with a 3. LOL We're aiming big. Looking at what we'd pay to get those things, we started thinking, maybe city isn't so logical after all. City near my dad (Lincoln Place) is cheaper, feeds to mifflin and dice which is good, but tends to not have many 4 bedroom houses. Since our boys are 7 years apart, we don't want them to share - my husband is adamate they don't share, I think it would be less than ideal but considering it would open up a lot of possibilities. But allowing for that, one house we saw with 3 bedrooms that looked great... the 3rd bedroom was goofy and tiny. It would have to be a decent size to share. The girls will share so their room also needs to be big enough to share, ideally without relying on bunk beds, because I hate bunk beds... (it's a pain to change the sheets on top...)

So I'm really learning Shaler is a great place to be if you want an affordable old house with land, a garage, and decent schools LOL Maybe we ended up here for a reason...