Once you have kids, everything changes.

How many times have you heard that?  Yeesh.  It is true.  But, I feel like it is also a given.  I guess everyone wants to sound smart.   Except when I forgot this and surely sounded foolish:  When we put an offer in on the short sale in Eagle Mountain, I was on the phone telling my mom all about it.  Her question, “How are the schools?” …. ….. I am such a nub.   I hadn’t even thought about the schools.  I was so embarrassed and quickly muttered through, “Oh, well everything out there has been built in the last 5-10 years.  It’s all new.”  Pah!  That means nothing.  Heads up.  I am glad she didn’t look too much into my obviously dodgy statement.

Needless to say, I have started to do some research on schools.  We are really not sure how long we are going to be in this house that we hope to buy soon, but I am guessing Greta will make it to elementary school before we move again (that is such an outlandish thought).  Of course we want her to attend a good school where she will learn a lot and her talents will blossom.  We will definitely go the public school route, because that’s what Chris and I both had growing up and felt we not only got a lot from the public school system, but we were able to be examples as well.

There is an excellent site called greatschools.org.  It not only gives a rating to every school in the nation based on their test scores, it also gives the community rating, any reviews that were written AND links to homes available in the area that are for sale.  BINGO!  Guess what, the public elementary school in Eagle Mountain got a 3 (on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest).  Yikes.  I looked up the elementary school, middle school and high school that I went to in Pittsburgh for fun, they received a 9-9-8 respectfully.   The schools in Rexburg that Chris went to ALSO got 9s and 8s.  There is no way that I am sending Greta to a school that got a 3 to save a few bucks on a house.

The red circular number is the greatschools.org rating and the stars to the right are the neighborhood reviews.