Anyone lives near a high school? Good or bad?

[moonsky]

One of the houses we are interested is in a gated community across the street from a high school. The house itself is a few blocks from the entrance. Anything bad I should know about living near a high school?

[WolfpackMom]

There would be lots of traffic before and after school but that would be outside of the community so you might consider how much that will affect you trying to get to and from home (turning in and out of neighborhood). Also keep in mind you will hear all the football/soccer/etc games that are played on the school's outdoor field.

[momof2girls]

A friend lives directly across the street from a HS and says there is lots of noise from kids and cars during dismissal. When her DS was 4 he drew a picture of his then pregnant mom smoking b/c he always saw the HS girls smoking coming out of the school! He is now older and likes to look out the window at the HS girls leaving school. Talk about early onset puberty! Also, I know some schools have parking issues and the kids park their cars on the surrounding streets taking up lots of spaces. If it was a few blocks away from the school, I would have no problem.

[sarahsthreads]

We live one street away from the back of our school campus - so there's one street of houses and all the athletic fields between us and the actual school buildings (ranging from pre-K to 12 - every child in the district goes to that campus). We hear the marching band practices and football games when we're outside or the windows are open, but it's not loud enough to bother sleeping children. There are houses in the neighborhood that have yards backing right up to the campus, which might have more of a noise issue. We really don't mind any school noise we hear - it's never that late into the night, because it's a school.

We don't, however, have to deal with any campus traffic, because we're on the back end of campus. I think that might be a negative if the only way in or out of your community is that one entrance, and you have to wait for lines of buses at the start and end of the school day.

Sarah :)

[billysmommy]

I think it all depends on how the school/fields/parking lots are set up.

We live right across the street from our town's high school. The school itself is set back from the road and has it's own road to get to it. Most of the athletic fields are behind the school although the softball field and an outdoor basketball court are directly across from our house. We can hear the football games when our windows are open or if we're outside but it doesn't bother us. The boys love watching the marching band practice on the softball field and we always go over to watch the softball games. We also play on the softball field and ride bikes on the basketball court all summer which is a huge bonus for living right here.

There is a little extra traffic between 7-7:30am but there is a stoplight at the end of the road the school is on (about 150 feet from our driveway) so we've never had a problem getting out of our driveway. We really don't notice any extra traffic in the afternoon.

They're building a new high school right now, next to where the one is now so the boys (Ds2 especially) are enjoying watching all the construction equipment and seeing it be built. We don't notice any extra noise from where our house is but friends of our live across the street (next to where the construction is) and they have a lot of complaints about the noise and their lights shaking, etc.

[zag95]

I'd be concerned about kids smoking- I'm a former HS teacher, who is now saying at home and subbing. The "tough" kids, will walk across the street from HS campuses, and smoke, and drop their butts around. Even though districts may have drug-free zones, there will always be kids (and adults) who break those rules. Other than having police come by (and they can't be there all the time), that is something to consider.

[septmama2b]

I live one house down from the corner, and on one side of the street is a High School, and the other is an Elementary School. We can hear the bells, and the announcer during football games, but it's no big deal.
The elementary school is much more of an inconvenience. It is nearly impossible to got out of my neighborhood during drop off and pick up. The parent's are really rude, they won't let you in. I avoid driving at those times now, it just makes my blood pressure go up. We rent so it is only temporary.

[Tondi G]

our apt is behind a high school. We have the football field between our street and the school buildings. We hear kids walking down the street sometimes. We have the noises of the band practicing and the bright friday night lights for the football games but overall it isn't an issue. sure would be easy to get my kids to school if they ended up going there in the future.. open the front door and say "Bye guys have a great day"... watch them walk up the block and into the gate!

we love having the field to run around on, on the weekend with our kids. Recently took the kids over there and let them ride their bikes around the track. There are bonuses to having a high school field across the street!

[TwinFoxes]

The house itself is a few blocks from the entrance.

Since the house is blocks away, I think a lot of the problems that could be associated with living near a HS won't really come into play. I wouldn't buy a house directly across from any school, but blocks away wouldn't bother me, unless I would be commuting past the school during pickup/dropoff. Is it on the same street?

[MamaMolly]

Our former townhouse backed up to the HS driveway. If you think of it like an L, our subdivision was in the crook of the L, with the driveway being the long part and the school being at the bottom part.

We rented in summer and didn't even think about it, a mistake we won't make again! Lula's bedroom was at the back of the house, so she was awoken daily to the sound of SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEECHING teenage girls who hadn't, like, OMG!!!, like seen their friends in LIKE OMG!!! five minutes. SCRREEEEEEEEEEECH! Then busses in the afternoons blocking intersections for a good 30 minutes, and all the honking from the kids.

THe very, very worst part was the marching band. Practicing at about 7 in the morning. And football games. So loud!

I do NOT miss that place!

[egoldber]

Do you share the main exit for your community with the high school? Is there an alternative exit? I work down the street from a high school and people plan their departure and arrivals around the high school bell schedule because it backs up traffic for 20ish minutes at arrival and dismissal times.

I would observe the arrival and dismissal process before reaching any conclusions.

[GaPeach_in_Ca]

I live very close to our high school & junior high (they share a campus). We're not close enough that people park on our street except for maybe once a year (back to school night?). I don't really notice it too much because we leave after those schools start. They start before 8 AM. We also are gone during the day when they dismiss. I only notice the traffic if I try to go somewhere during their start times. I think that's happened once. Our street is also far enough away that we really don't get cut through traffic. The streets directly perpendicular to the school get quite a bit.

I would definitely go by on a school morning to see what the situation is. If you're in a gated community a few blocks away, I think the only issue would be traffic at arrival/dismissal times.

[MMMommy]

Traffic and the sheer number of cars would deter me alone. Also, I notice that high schoolers aren't the most careful of drivers, and they tend to speed. I would worry about that, as well as loitering. I wouldn't even move to a home on the same street as a school, but that is just me.

[sandwish]

Growing up we lived near the HS twice. Once our backyard faced the field. Quite noisy but not as much traffic. The second time we lived a few streets away. Our house had two ways to get to so we were able to avoid traffic. But we could hear games, band, and people parked near our house for events.

That said. I always thought if I had HS kids at home I'd want to live near that distance. Your kids wouldn't need a car. And if they wanted a ride from someone they were usually first off. I'm always concerned about HS kids driving.

[newg]

My neighborhood is less than a mile from our HS. So my neighborhood shares the same road as the highschool. The only time traffic would bother us is if we're trying to turn out of the neighborhood right at the same time kids/buses are going to school in the morning.
One thing I do like is that we can just walk to the HS for football games, homecoming parade.....and the DDs will be able to do the same when they are in school (there will be no "mom I missed the bus, can you drive me!?"....they can just walk :).
We can hear band practice in the summer/fall when the windows are open.....but it is not horrible.
The only thing we really hate is the fireworks that go off during some of the home football games. I really wish the school would alert the neighborhoods that surround it, so we could all be prepared at 8:00+ when they start blasting and the kids get woken up.

[Kindra178]

We live two blocks from the high school and absolutely love it. Very rarely do we have overflow parking on our block, but when we do it's just for graduation of the high school and middle schools, who hold their graduations there.

We use the high school as our playground, and it's so nice to walk two blocks to basketball, football, soccer and baseball games. The basketball games are really a nice winter activity. We enjoy the book fairs as well. I like seeing the high school kids walk by because it gives our neighborhood a lively feel. There isn't a ton of traffic at pick up, and a small amount of traffic at drop off. I think because it's high school kids, many walk and there is less drop off. I don't really notice trash or anything like that. Living by the high school is seriously one of my favorite things about my current house, which I don't really love at all.

[AnnieW625]

We live 3/4 of a mile from a large high school (4000+ students) and I wouldn't want to live in the three block radius of the campus. The kids are well behaved for the most part, but it's just not something I would want. We aren't home during the day so it really wouldn't impact us at all, but I would hate to have to deal with the trash that is often left on the sidewalks near the bus stops and such. I personally think that the number of kids who go to the high school, where pick up takes place, and then parking would be my top concerns.

[belovedgandp]

We live less than 1/2 mile from the high school and back to the main road that gets to the school. Traffic at start and end of school is the main issue. I can hear the marching band practice, but it is distant enough to not be an issue. The big athletic events are held at a district stadium and not at the high school grounds so we don't have that many evening events to avoid.

I will say, our neighborhood park is a teenage hangout. It is in the 1/2 mile between my house and the school. In general during the day we're fine. Sometimes there are some louder obnoxious ones around right after school dismissal. There is a wooded area that I won't let my kids wander off the path in (not that I would in general too far) but there's drug paraphernalia, used condoms, cig butts etc in several areas.

[brittone2]

We looked at a house that backed up to school property. The football field/lights would have been visible from the backyard. For me it was a deal killer as I know my DS1 in particular would not sleep if there was a marching band/noise, etc. I can see how it would work well for some people but I was concerned about traffic (buses would have been driving by) and noise.

[PunkyBoo]

Our old house was a block and a half from the front of a large HS. That is one of the main reasons we moved away! There was lots of traffic in the morning and most of the time we couldn't even get off our street because nobody would let us through into the traffic. Lots of kids parked on our street before they institiuted the 2 hour parking limit on our street. We would have kids smoking (cigarettes AND pot (!!!) right in front of our house. The kids would leave school anywhere from 11am on (strange schedules I guess) and they would be outside, car radios blaring, yelling to eachother, etc. The nights of open house and parents night, or school plays, football games, etc. were awful - cars parked blocking our driveway, trash in the street and on our lawn, etc. Our next door neighbor's kids went to the HS, so they would ditch school with their friends and go home (both parents worked) and have parties - noisy parties, cigarette and pot smoke billowing into my windows, fights breaking out, etc. I had to call the cops on them numerous times. Busses would be parked and/or idling a half a block from our house. Ugh. I HATED living there. Being home most of the day with kids made it worse - I felt like I couldn't even go for walks around the neightborhood with my LO's because there were always creepy kids around giving me weird looks, usually because they were up to no good, and it was always SO noisy at naptimes.