MOVING TO FLORDIA HELP

My family and I are looking to move to the tampa area. I am concerned about the school districts. Could anyone give me advice on good places to live and for children to go to school. We are looking for as far south as bradengton up to tampa . Thank you also I am a respiratory therapist so if anyone has info on good hospitals would be great

I dont know much about that area but try the States website has tons of info. There is a section on schools broken down by counties. www.myflorida.com Hope this helps : ) Margo Marie

I just moved 2 months ago to Florida from Alabama. I have a 10 and 12 yr. old. I wish I could give you good news about the school situation here. I was very troubled by how they assign schools in Florida it is very different than Alabama. You will most likely be in Hillsbourough County. I am in St. Pete - Pinellas County. In both of these places you will have to go to a student and family services center and they assign you a school out of your zone. The zones are determined where you live. You will have multiple schools in your zone for Elementary, Middle and High. The school assignments are based on seat availability for each individual school. At home you go the school you are zoned for where you live. Not that way here.......I lucked up and got a good middle school for my son but got a crappy elementary school for my daughter. This school is "C" school under advisement from the state because they have not made AYP 4 years in a row. I am NOT happy about this. They will only put you on a waiting list for a school of your choice. You can't ask for a school it will not work. They may give you a choice of a couple to pick from. My sister-in-law who lived in Tampa forever and just moved to St. Pete told me that Tampa just went to this "choice" plan like St. Pete did. Please feel free to email me at [email protected] for more information. I found the link for Hillsbourough school system http://www.sdhc.k12.fl.us/

Gainesville, FL has the best schools in FL -- two of their highschools were ranked on the Newsweek top 25. We also have good FCAT scores. Gainesville is in Alachua county. TJ

I am around Bradenton and we found a great school for the kids. Mine are 9 and 10 years old. In Manattee County, you go to the school that is in your district according to where you live, but you can apply for school choice to another school in the district. Lots of A graded schools. We also have magnet schools, and some of which are really good. Sarasota (Sarasota County) is a great city with great schools and they are one of the top hospitals in the country for there Radiology Dept. I was just there and was very impressed. All new state of the art equipment and all staff seemed top notch. Might want to google Sarasota Memorial Hospital. Let me know if you need more info. My family and I just moved in November to Longboat Key from Pennsylvania and we just love it! We love the island lifestyle!! Dana P

welcome to florida.... im in south florida near ft. lauderdale so i cant really give you much info on the schools up there... but welcome

Hiya Well I'm not sure where you are moving from but if you're not familiar with Florida schools. We have what's called FCAT (it's the evil... but I digress). One of the many features of the FCAT is that it grades the school based on the scores of their students. These grades are avaliable at: http://www.fldoe.org. Tampa Bay has a lot of hospitals. You can find medical classifieds for the tampa area at: http://tampa.craigslist.org/hea/ http://www.mortonplant.com/body.cfm?id=434 http://www.stanthonys.com/body.cfm?id=14&oTopID=14 http://www.edwhitehospital.com/

Hi, I live in the Carrollwood area north of Tampa and my little girl just started Kindergarten. I don't know about Pinellas county, but we were assigned a school right down the street from us. We don't have to go to an out of district school. We can choose another school if we want, but it is not required. My daughters school is excellent and we have no complaints so far. I am not thrilled about the FCAT thing, but what can you do. Good luck to you! Heather B Tampa