This is the start of the school year. Some of those yellow buses have already started coming down our streets picking up our kids. There are private schools opening their doors prior to Labor Day. The real rush comes after the "end of summer." As I see kids waiting on street corners and watch buses pick them up, I think ,"what does the school and those kids mean to this community?"
Schools are an assets and bring value to real estate. The stronger the school system the more buyers sense value in that community. Even buyers without children are concerned about schools and how it will effect resale. Buyers so many times will turn to me and ask me what I think of the schools in the area. Sometimes I have to laugh as the couple has not even conceived a child, yet they want to know what school their child will go to. Under law I cannot make a judgment call on schools. I would not want to as it is a very personal choice as to how one values a school. I do get frustrated when a read in the paper test scores and my buyers start judging schools just by those scores. I was raised in Edina and raised by children in Edina. Six years ago my husband and I moved to the Lynnhurst neighborhood. I now have such a different impression of both school systems.You need to walk the halls, smell the paste, listen to the faculty interact with the kids, see the school plays, watch the band march down the football field to really get a sense of what happens within the walls of the building. A parent cannot just send their child to school to get educated. The family, in harmony with the school ,surrounds the child with learning opportunities. A magazine called "School House Magazine" gives a good outside perspective on public and private schools in the area. Web sites of school districts are a start. You do need to ask yourself who created the web site and is this PR on the district? Most likely so.
Kids keep our neighborhoods alive. We might get frustrated with some of the actions of some kids, but I do think we all get great enjoyment out of our door bells ringing on Halloween. That brick structure in the middle of our neighborhood calls families to come live with us and keep generations living in our houses. Even the outer -ring burbs are getting older and their neighborhoods are changing. We go in cycles from the baby sitting clubs,to PTA, to the trees getting tpeed. Then a hush falls over the street as the kids move on. In the course of 18 years the kid who sold you pizza for his or hockey team is somewhere else. Then if you listen carefully, you will hear the cries of a baby as the new child moves in next door. It starts all over again. Thank goodness it does as we need to fill our houses and schools with bodies that just don't like to sit still but want action and to learn.
So, as we start this school year let's smile and enjoy the buses as they roll through our neighborhoods. Stop when the stop sign is extended. Don't get frustrated as none of us have to be somewhere that fast. Laugh as you see these kids with back packs that almost pull them down. You might even wave and smile giving them encouragement. After all, as adults we really do have it better then them. We've been there and we know there is life after school.
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