[Russiamomto3]

My husband is considering a transfer from NJ to Florida. We've wanted to move South for a while now. My question to those from Florida is do any of you know about the Lakeland area? The position is in Lakeland, but we are willing to live within 30 minutes or so of the company. I've found some beautiful homes, but I can't seem to find any schools that we would send our kids. I know that schools is Florida aren't the same as here in NJ, but we'd like a school where the kids are safe, comfortable and able to learn from teachers who want to be there for the children.
Any information is helpful. Thanks

[AngFL]

I don't know much about the Lakeland area, but I don't think it is a very big "city" type place, more like a town? It may have grown a lot by now. It wasn't known to have much there years ago.

We live in the Jacksonville area, so more of a city with suburbs, etc. We moved here from the suburbs of Orlando. Jax is much less of a "city" than Orlando (not even including the "tourist stuff" to the south of the city), but it is okay. I do sometimes miss the stuff we had in Orlando, stores/shopping, other things that we don't have much around here due to a smaller city. We never visited the attractions much in Orlando, so I'm not really missing that, although we would go to Sea World frequently b/c for Florida residents you pay for 1 day and you get until Dec. 31 of that same year for free. So when we lived 45-50 min. away it was great, now we are 2.5-3 hours away, so it wouldn't do us much good.

We chose our current neighborhood for the school. It is an "A" school (on the Florida state school rating system) and it is a Presidential Blue Ribbon Award school, which is national recognition. It is 1 mile from our house and is only a "neighborhood" school, right in the middle of a planned community of homes. You can go to Greatschools.com and look up different things about the schools. For example, the free/reduced lunch rate is 2% of the student population, the student/teacher ratios are less than the state average and other stuff is there to give you an idea of how well the school is doing and how well it is run by administration/county, etc. If you are looking for excellent private schools, you would need to live in a bigger city in Florida. We have 2 in the Jax area that are top notch. Kindergarten at these schools is over $6-$8k per year, 9th grade would be about $14k per year.

I say all this--but I grew up in a VERY small town near Pensacola FL, so I haven't always lived in the larger areas, but I could NEVER live there again (my hometown).......as I've become too accustomed to having more "stuff" close by/nicer neighborhoods, curbed streets, manicured roads with landscaping, all that stuff that the little country towns don't have.

Good Luck!

[angelkisses0102]

We are in South Florida and I am not familiar with the Lakeland area but I will offer this up. The school districts here are county wide..so there is a lot of variablity even within the school district.

Our district is huge...7th largest in the country...so we have huge differences. Our 'home' elementary school is great! It is an A rated school (how Florida rates their schools) and in this particular school they offer many programs that other schools in the district do not. In fact the teachers have to agree to work at this school due to the extra hours they require. Like mentioned above our school is in a planned community and is 1/4 of a mile from our home...we can even walk the kids to school.

Our middle school is awful and we will not send our kids there...but the high school is very good so they will go there when the time comes and if nothing changes.

I am highly impressed with our school, the programs they offer and the teachers. I have my DS is the special needs pre-K and what they have done for him is amazing. Next year in K he will still be in a 'special' program whose goal is to get him to a typical classroom setting by year end. I have my DD in a multi-age classroom (a totally different way of teaching) after a disaster in K she is thriving in 1st grade and will continue on for 2/3 as well. DS has an extensive IEP and DD is being tested for the gifted program...they can accommodate both kids successfully!

Good luck...

[angelkisses0102]

I should have mentioned that we are from New York and used to smaller school districts which were very good schools. We had low expectations for Florida and have been pleasantly surprised.

Also, there are so many alternatives to public school...at least around here. We will probably send the kids to a Christian school for middle school. We recently looked into our Church's school...it would be about $7500 total per year to send both kids...not that bad?!? So maybe a private school would work?

Good luck...