We are relocating to the columbia sc area in the summer. Can anyone give me info on the middle/high schools. We are going to see some homes that are in the irmo school district...dutch fork vs irmo? There are also homes in the richland 5 district which consists of summit/dent middle schools and ridgeview and spring valley high? Any insight would be great! We are taking a weekend trip the first weekend in feb and want to narrow down the home search. Relocating for husbands schooling at Providence hospital. I am an RN. Thanks...

Well first off the temps in February are going to be VERY different than moving there in the summer. It will be hot and very humid..in SC they don't say hot as hell - they say hot as Columbia. Look at www.findyourspot.com

We are moving from Raleigh, NC so we are used to hot and humid. Any info on the schools?

Dreher High School is supposed to be one of the best in the state.

I had a friend who taught there in the early 90s during the height of the street gang era.

Principle, teachers, and parents banded together for a zero tolerance fighting policy. If your child was caught fighting on school grounds, police were called, all children fighting arrested and expelled.

They literally had no drug problems or violence issues.

Have not heard of Dreher High School...we will be living in northeast columbia or Irmo area.

http://dreherhighschool.com/

Do you mean Forest Acres? Very very nice area. Dreher is in Shandon which is also a very nice part of town. I can't remember the public high school in Forest Acres.

Neither Forest Acres or Shandon are one of those horrible cookie cutter neighborhoods where all the houses are 3,000 hsf and 10 feet apart. Both neighborhoods are older, in town, and very beautiful with tree lined streets and sidewalks.

I don't think we are talking about the same place...we are relocating to Columbia, South Carolina..the schools I am only interested in information about Dutch Fork middle and high school as well as Irmo middle and high school and spring valley high. Thanks anyway for your info but it is not relavent to us.

I am a graduate of the University of South Carolina and lived in Columbia South Carolina for 5 years.

Shandon and Forest Acres are both very nice neighborhoods in Columbia South Carolina.

Irmo, Dutch Fork, and Spring Valley are not in Columbia South Carolina.

Depending upon time of day, all three are about 30 minutes from Columbia with Spring Valley being the furthest.

Irmo, South Carolina is a city. It isn't Columbia. It is close to Lake Murray and a lot of Irmo is what is wrong with urban sprawl.

If your husband is going to be working at Providence Hospital, which is downtown, why do you want to live outside Columbia? His commute will be easily 30-45 minutes from the areas you are asking about.

TravelRN - gotravel knows what she is talking about. I'm sure you have the equivalent of this in Raleigh - downtown older neighborhoods versus suburban development/sprawl. I lived in Forest Acres for 3 yrs and it is super convenient to downtown, beautiful homes, a small lake nearby, lots of trees....
It all depends what you are looking for.

Thanks for enlightening me! I will make a point to check out these areas. We chose Irmo and the northeast part of Columbia based on info we got from people at Providence. Good schools are very important to us..our son is 11. Based on the school reports I have seen the "city schools' are not very good at all. We were told that Irmo had "some of the best schools" I have contacted a real estate agent and asked her to send us homes in the areas you suggested. Thanks again for the info!

I agree alot with GoTravel's responses. I live in W. Columbia. My hometown and I'm 47 so I know the area pretty good. The reason GoTravel keeps talking about Dreher (high school), Shandon and older neighborhoods in Columbia is because they are near to Providence Hospital, which by the way my sister works at as a Xray tech. I graduated from Dreher HS and it is excellent but we are talking about an 11 yo sweet boy so we aren't looking at high schools. Irmo/Dutch Fork/Camden are all nice areas but traffic is horrendous. The neighborhoods run into each other and if your husband has to be at Providence anytime between 7 and 9am, he can plan on about an hour trip. The school districts out near Irmo are extremely nice though. I live in Lexington I school district - out by the airport and the schools here are some of the best in the state. This area would be about a 30 - 40 min. drive to Providence - if that helps when you look at a map. Shandon is the closest neighborhood to Providence and some of Richland 1 schools are nice but well, inconsistant so it definately would depend on which neighborhood you choose. Also, Shandon with it's tree lined streets and old homes is pricey. The Summit and Spring Valley areas - I just don't care for their schools. It's hard saying what I want to say and not stepping on someone's toes who may be fond of that area so if I get yelled at, so be it. I would stay away from Dent Middle and Spring Valley High (Summit). I don't know much about Ridgeview but what I hear it's alot like Spring Valley.

Sorry. Forgot to mention that you may know hot in North Carolina but you ain't seen nothing until you hit Columbia on a hot summer afternoon. One time my boys and I tried an experiment....we fried an egg on the sidewalk! My husband is from Winston-Salem and the Army moved us all over the world before he retired and he says Columbia is the hottest place he's ever been. And it gives HUMID a new definition. Still, it's home and I love it. I hope you enjoy living here but didn't want you to think you've even come close to what Columbia is going to teach you come mid-August.

Hi there. I am from Columbia and would like to answer your questions. I am from the Northeast side of Columbia and graduated for Spring Valley HS. It's a great school and the area that you are researching is a good area. (Summit) There are numerous subdivisions on Clemson road which is where the summit is located. Don't limit yourself to the
Summit though. The Northeast side of town is very close to I-20 which will take you down to Providence Hospital. The traffic on I-20 to downtown is minimal especially if you are from a larger town. I live in Denver now and consider the traffic in Columbia to be ....trafficless! You don't want to live in the downtown area or really Shandon due to the schools. Most people that live those areas send their kids to private schools. (Heathwood Hall, Cardinal Newman,etc) The public schools in the Shandon area are referred to a Richland Dist. 1 and are not so good. Summit Middle School is located in the Summit Subdivison and will be a great school. I would not send my kids to Dent. I believe Summit Middle feeds their kids to Spring Valley or Ridgeview. Ridgeview is much newer than SV and has the magnet program. There is a new outdoor shopping are being built off of Clemson road very close to the Summit. Many high end stores. The Lexington/Irmo area is also great. I don't know as much about it but it's proximity to Downtown Cola is 20-30 minutes. Good Luck

Just responding..34 years ago I was a VISTA volunteer in Columbia. It's interesting to hear about it from this perspective.My how things change..but then again..think about Strom Thurmond!
When I lived in Columbia..three blocks from the governor's mansion there were homes with no indoor plumbing, floors of dirt and such poverty as would astound! Piggly Wiggly was my entertainment

I was born in Columbia, went to school in Columbia, all three of my siblings graduated high school in Columbia. I moved upstate with my father and did not graduate from Columbia area schools. I'm 50 and both of my parents graduated from Dreher High School as did my two brothers.

My nephew, sister's son, attempted to go to Dreher but his father pulled him out and put him in private school. They live in Shandon to this day. My nephew graduated from high school three years ago.

I have relatives in Irmo and I've heard nice things about the schools there. My other newphew, my deceased brother's son, graduated from SVH (Spring Valley High) and won a full academic sholarship to Clemson University.

Read into all of that what you will, but if I had to live in Columbia and I had school age children, I would put my children in the schools in the Spring Valley area.

DD

huladebbie, how long has it been since you've lived in Columbia?

The reason I ask is anytime we have to drive through Columbia we avoid I-20 and I-26 between 7-9AM and 3-7PM because of traffic gridlock.

To say that traffic on I-20 is minimal simply isn't true.

Having driven through Columbia many times in the summer on our way to HHI, it sure is HOT. Good restaurant recommendation is California Dreaming.

A suggestion to you: 1) call the Education Editor of the Columbua newspaper and 2) check if South Carolina publishes any information on their school. When we moved to Ohio, I called up the Education Editor for the newspaper in our city. We had a long conversation not just about where the school sitution stood at the present, but where the trend was going and she was very up to date (obviously) on issues facing the different school districts. This was one of the best time investments ever. She alerted us to some issues regarding an area we considered that we never would have known (no good before and after school programs) and trends in our area. Also, when we lived in Illinois, that state published annual information on every school in the state as to test scores, profiles, etc.

Lots of info to digest! Thanks to everyone! SherrieA,if you don't mind sending me an email regarding your thoughts on spring [email protected] will be checking out all of the areas you suggested the first weekend of Feb...sounds like we may want a house with a pool! Thanks again to all of you, it has been a great help..I will keep checking back....

One other question...my son is very involved in competative baseball..any info on AAU teams in the area? or how the youth baseball programs are?

My nephew who graduated from Spring Valley High was deeply involved in baseball from T-Ball up. So, there must be an organized youth league in the area. He had a chance for an atheletic scholarship in baseball also, but chose the academic scholarship to attend Clemson.

I'm sure there's plenty of area youth leagues. My son played here in GA, so they abound.

Good luck!

DD