I'm moving to the Atlanta area in June. Where is a good place to live that fits the following criteria:

1. Great school that helps w/kid with ADD (specifically)

2. Affordable neighborhood with easy commute to Downtown or Alpharetta (most jobs in these 2).

Live in Alpharetta and work in Alpharetta.

OWJ could give you the name of the specific school(s).

Thanks for responding. What is OWJ? I'm seriously considering Alpharetta, but hear the commute to Downtown Atl is terrible.

Starrsville's right. In Atlanta, live where you work, or the person commuting will see little of his or her child.

Starrs is right... live and work in Alpharetta, or work in downtown and live in Decatur or Stone Mountain.

Living in Alpharetta and working downtown will make you sorry you moved to Atlanta.

OWJ = OneWanderingJew, a special ed teacher who lives and teaches in the area.

DO NOT do the commute from Alpharetta to downtown. I promise, you do NOT want to do that. (I moved from a bit north of Alpharetta a few years ago).

If you work in downtown, live near a MARTA station and take the train in if you can OR live near downtown.

The best fit is to work in Alpharetta and work in Alpharetta (for both schools and commute).

I am adding my "live where you work" to the list. We tried it the other way, and ultimately moved out of the Atlanta metro area.

If you are working downtown, consider a private school that can address your needs. Otherwise consider an hour commute to be the norm.

Thanks, guys. I'm going to take your advice and wait until I get a job to decide where to live--with a preferernce toward Alpharetta. Can you let me know how to reach OWJ?

She has twin babies and teaches too. I'll give her a shout and ask her to check this thread. If you want to email me at starrsvillega at yahoo, I'll forward the email to her.

Otherwise, she'll post here sometime.

Thanks, I'll email you now. Appreciate all the help.

Interesting reading this. We lived in Atlanta almost 20 years ago and I had to commute from Cobb Co to downtown. We couldn't afford to buy a house within the perimeter between our work. I couldn't stand the commute and eventually took a paycut to work closer to home.

Seattle is bad, too. Our main criteria in finding housing when we moved here was proximity to my husband's work.

Hi!
As Starrs told you, I'm a sp ed teacher living and working in Alpharetta. I absolutely agree with the others: 'live near your job' is key. Is your job going to be in Alpharetta? Where specifically?

If your job is in town, there are some public *elem.* schools that I hear are quite good but you must be VERY careful to choose housing in those attendance zones.

Regarding the schools--the schools in northern end of Fulton County are by and large excellent, though there are some exceptions. What is the age of your child? EVERY public school has special ed programs so no worries there. I'm assuming your child is classified as having a learning disability, right?

Tell me more and I can be more specific. If you'd prefer not to share on a public forum (and I don't blame you!), email me using my screen name at hotmail dot com.

OWJ

PS If you want to look up info on Metro ATlanta schools http://schools.ajchomefinder.com/

wild shot - woodewoo, you're not in the IT/ training industry are you? I just received several emails regarding jobs in your hometown.