It's part of it, yes. We have several options where we could move and have wonderful schools, though. We currently rent and when we buy a house, the school district and local school itself would be one deciding factor.

There's also areas we wouldn't move to partly because of the schools.

The community we are moving too is small I believe there aren't that many elementary schools. But if we come to find out that we don't like the school in her district we would send her to a private school.

yes, when we finally bit the bullet and moved south of our beloved SF (with it's awful public schools) we bought a house in a community with GREAT public schools. it also offers two great charters elementary schools which is rare...

We didn't have a child when we moved to the area, but we knew the schools were good, so it was definitely in the back of our mind. Now I'm glad we don't have to worry when it does come time for our son to attend school.

it was ONE of many deciding factors, but it was a very important one.

I have a few more years before schools are a big issue, but silly as it may be, I know that I want my daughter to attend the schools in the city my mom lives in (surprisingly not the same schools I went to). The schools there rank higher accademicly than the county I live in now, and all her friends will go to those schools. So we will probably move before she starts school to accommodate my pickiness. The house I currently live in is only about 1 mile outside the county lines -not too far of a move-!

*academically*

see why I want a good school for my daughter...lol

We don't have kids yet, but we will definitely move out of Baltimore City and into the burbs -- both Montgomery and Howard have excellent public schools.

My daughter goes to a magnet school and it encompasses two counties so we have a lot of options of places we could move to and she could still be able to attend the same school. But Im lucky that the part of Connecticut I live in doesn't really have any poor schools.

Absolutely chose house for the school. We used to live in a big new home in a moderate school district before kids. Let me tell you, if the school is terrible and there is no parent involvement, it doesn't matter what your big house looks like. Your real estate investment will suffer and you will be sorry. Before we had kids, we moved to a small old house in an amazing school district. My kids are thriving and are about two grade levels above kids in our old town. It is like night and day. Parents are heavily involved in the school and realize their investment in their real estate is directly tied to their investment in the school. I would highly recommend not to get starry eyed over a big new house in an unproven or moderate school district. You can update your house but you can't update your school. Investigate the school test scores first and use that as your map to guide you.

of course it did, i put my daughter in catholic school while we were looking for good floor plans and schools and finally for our house to be built, there was no way i would put her in any district public school other than one which they go to now

On Long Island in NY, there are DEFINITELY "good" areas with good schools and "bad" areas where the schools are not places any self respecting middle class individual would want to send their children to. We don't have kids yet, but we moved to one of the best schools districts on LI and if we move, we'd only move to one of the other school districts we know is good.

I don't have kids yet, but I knew if we moved before our kids were school aged it would help with re-sale.

We currently have no kids and are home shopping... schools are a consideration in our search.

We don't have kids yet but we're due to close on a house in a few weeks. We paid attention to the schools that certain houses were "assigned" to, but we didn't buy based on that, because:

a) we didn't know if we'd still be in the house when the not-yet-conceived children started school;

b) our district has magnet programs so if it came down to it, our kids could attend a different school; and

c) there's no good way to say this, but ... I didn't want to get into the value judgments that seem to come with good school/bad school in this area. This is not a very integrated town, and often when people say good/bad they mean more than just good/bad test scores. We didn't want to live in a lily-white neighborhood (though we are white), and I'm OK with my kids going to a school that might not be considered "top-notch" if it means they get a more diverse group of classmates.

Plus, if we had wanted to buy a home in a certain district, we probably wouldn't have been able to afford it. The two "name" high schools in town cover some pretty pricey homes.