Best School...??

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Ellie210

Shaker Heights and Mayfield Heights on the East Side.

Bay Village, Westlake, and Avon Lake on the West Side.

These are good schools mostly because they are in affluent suburbs and have the money to afford high quality teachers and have lots of extracurriculuar programs.

Cleveland magazine comes out with an issue every year rating the suburbs and education is factored into these rankings. I believe last year Mayfield Heights and Bay Village topped the charts.

Starlight 1

First of all, to Ramester: Shaker Heights has excellent public schools which are completely independent of the Cleveland school system, and are much better off financially than the public schools are. I should know- my sister and her husband LIVE in Shaker, and both my nephews attend one of the elementary schools there. Secondly, the people in Shaker are NOT all snobs- I don't know where that came from. I used to live in Shaker myself, and it's a lovely community with a lot of great people around- I made friends while I was there which will last a lifetime.

As far as other schools are concerned, the quality varies and depends on where you live. The suburbs which ring the city tend to have better schools than the inner city does- and the further east or west one goes, the more the quality improves. I know for a fact that Cleveland Heights has good schools, and so do Lakewood, Rocky RIver, Westlake, and Bay Village. Avon has a great school system as well. If you wanted private schools, I can give you even more information on them, but that's not the case.
Hope this helps.

Olmsted Falls - Best combination of education, sports, and a caring community.

hasselblad

Strongsville, Solon, Medina, or Avon Lake

â™¦â™¦pixiechixâ™¦â™¦

I see a lot of votes for Shaker schools. I would think twice about calling it anything near the best. It has been declining in the past ten years or so, and my family refused to send their kids there.

Can't say much for the eastside, but i highly recommend Avon Schools (better than Avon Lake), Bay Village, Westlake, Strongsville.

Best!

American Beauty

Shaker Heights high school is considered to be one of the best in Ohio. Nordonia runs a close second.

Vulpster03

I grew up in Avon Lake and went through the city schools k-8 (not too long ago actually). Being on the west side, I am most familiar with schools like Lakewood, Fairview Park, North Olmsted, Olmsted Falls, Westlake, Rocky River, Strongsville Bay Village, Avon and Avon lake. You'll find strong advocates of any of those school systems.

A lot of school systems in the area have different strengths in different areas like academic achievement, sports, music, fine arts, gifted programs, learning disabled programs, honors classes and AP course offerings. So, when picking a community based on the school system it would help to know exactly what kind of things you are looking for.

Bay Village, Rocky River and Olmsted Falls are usually high on rankings and comparisons charts in publications like the Plain Dealer and Cleveland Magazine. Things usually considered are test scores, graduation rates, percent attending college, national merrit scholars, etc. East Side schools like Chagrin Falls, Shaker Heights, Orange and Beachwood are usually ranked pretty high on those lists as well.

The Avon Lake schools were a little disappointing, which is why I left them to go to a private high school. Avon Lake has kind of a poor culture that didn't really push kids scholasticly and the school looks the other way at a lot of nonsense. It has too much emphasis on football, and not enough standards in the class room. A handful of kids end up going to good colleges, but it isn't at all the norm. The norm there is for kids to go to below average state colleges or even no college at all.

I think kids suffer if the school district and the high school are too large. This is the problem that I see in Avon Lake, Avon, Westlake, North Olmsted, Westlake, Strongsville, Solon and others.

Personally, when I am ready to start a family I plan on moving to Rocky River. The school system is just the right size of students, they have excellent facilities, good programs, good reputation, good families, and the kids end up at terrific colleges.

hellokitty

Bay Village, North Royalton, Strongsville, Independence, Brecksville & Garfield Heights

Ramester

Since I'm from that neck of the woods, I've always been partial to Cleveland Public Schools, and Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Schools. They are good because of the quality people in them. Shaker Heights? Nahh! Too many snobs, and too many issues.

seeking answers

If you want a public school that offers excellent facilities, a very diverse student body, strong athletic and extra-curricular programs AND superb academic opportunities, Shaker Heights is very tough to top.

It's current senior class includes SEVENTEEN national merit semi-finalists:

http://www.shaker.org/news/releases/2007-08/historicalchart.htm

Nationally, there are only 16,000 national merit semi-finalists from 21,000 participating high schools.

Among private and parochial schools in greater Cleveland, St. Ignatius topped the list, also with 17 national merit semi-finalists. St. Ignatius obviously also offers superb athletic programs.

Solon, Hawken and University School also did especially well in the national merit semi-finalist competition.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2007/09/national_merit_scholarship_sem.html

LEO53

Tie between Maple Hts and Garfield Hts

Oscar

I am a former Shaker Heights resident and I would say it is a very good school, but it has been declining in recent years.

When you ask what the best school is, there are many definitions. If your looking for the one to get into the most selective college, then many factors come in to play. Being first in your class at Shaker will almost guarantee you Ivy League admission. That cant necessarily be said about districts with less funding or poorer academics on average.

Cleveland Heights used to be a good school but in the past 10 years it has shown an increase in violence and poor academics. Sure, a motivated and smart kid can get a great education and go to a great college, but they really might hate that highschool.

Cleveland Heights Stats:
Expenditure per Pupil: $7,518.44
Total City Population: 54,542

While Shaker has declined in strength over the years, some community school districts have gained popularity and notoriety. These would include Solon and Orange, alo Beachwood.

Shaker Heights Stats:
Expenditure per Pupil: $8,716.62
Total Population: 30,926

Solon:
Expenditure per Pupil: $9,909.00.
Total Population: 22,000

Orange:
Expenditure per Pupil: $9,063.18
Total Population: 6,309

Beachwood:
Expenditure per Pupil: $11,520.08
Total Population: 11,151

There is no right answer to this question.
However, you could ask which district has the highest expenditure per pupil. If that's the case, here are the top 6...

Brooklyn Heights Expenditure per pupil: $11,561
Beachwood Expenditure per Pupil: $11,520.08
Cuyahoga Heights Expenditure per Pupil: $10,823.56
Solon Expenditure per Pupil: $9,909.00.
Bay Village Expenditure per Pupil: $9,622.00
Orange (includes Hunting Valley and Pepper Pike) Expenditure per Pupil: $9,063.18

And bottom 6...
Granger Township Expenditure per pupil: $4,852
Garfield Heights Expenditure per Pupil: $5,108.75
Strongsville Expenditure per Pupil: $5,119.30
North Royalton Expenditure per Pupil: $5,168.40
Maple Heights Expenditure per Pupil: $5,187.75
Brunswick Expenditure per pupil: $5,216

*This is for all public school districts in Northeast Ohio. This does not include private schools or City of Cleveland neighborhoods (which we know is not even being considered). Cleveland Education Expenditure per Pupil: $5,347.17

**Berea school district did not provide data as did a small handful of districts not reported on Cleveland.com

*** University Heights Expenditure per Pupil: $13,222.09. This figure is not accurate for our purposes. This number is inflated and may have some connection with John Carroll University. Also, University Heights is much smaller than, but shares a school district with Cleveland Heights.

Dark Angel Raising

Olmsted falls. They are one of the top in the state.

Tweek

Olmstead Falls is supposed to be pretty good i know they pass every damn school levy
makes for great schools but high taxes.

n_icoles ?BMSD Stilettos?

aurora...the best.

Miss 6

I'm biased because I grew up in Cleve. Hts. so of course I am gonna say the Cleveland Heights University Heights school system. But what I hear is Mayfield is a really great school. Also the Cleveland School of the Arts(Eastern Campus) is good. I'd imagine that Shaker and Beachwood schools are good as well. I am not really familiar with the west side but my friend lives in Lakewood and she is happy with her kids education.

katertot6066

My folks went to Royalton...and loved it! That was along time ago tho. Now the city is so built up and the marching band has hundreds of students in it!

All of my cousins in the Cleveland area go to private schools.

http://www.greatschools.net/city/Cleveland/OH

Check out that site...it has parent reviews and ratings!

i c desi ppl!!!!

i went to james ford rhodes high school, on da westside...but dam da past 2 years all da cleveland schools done changed...now u gotta wear a uniform in all cleveland schools, n they been gettin down a lot in da schools. and they remodeling rhodes...i heard da cafeteria is way bigger n better now.