No community feature is more important than its schools. To families with children in school, it's critically imperative, and all of us want the best possible schools for our own children. To good citizens everywhere, schools represent the topmost public concern, as those citizens recognize the criticality of good general public education. They are a point of pride for every citizen, old and young. To those preferring private education, public schools still represent such a desirable public amenity so as to ultimately influence the resale of their properties anyway. Fortunately, in the rather large area that we serve ... the band of communities strung along the crest of the bluffs (see "Geography" in our web site), there are probably no "bad" schools, and great educations are delivered by all of them, along with essential contribution from supporting families. That means, in our minds, your families would be generally well served by schools in any of these communities. But there are differences, and you'll want to study them. Our role is to provide direct access to objective information and let you make your own evaluations. Here's how we would suggest you study schools: You might use the "illinois Overview"first, if you're moving into Illinois. Use the directories to public, private and higher education provided. Use the "School Reporting Services" to augment that information. Especially, look for Illinois School Report Cards and other private reporting sources shown. Request access to our "Homework" program, where we summarize some of the information in school report cards, and compare some of the more popular school systems. Go to www.ofallonhomes.com and www.edwardsvillehomes.com for in-depth information on those two popular systems, and a collection of clippings about those schools. Actually visit schools when possible ... of course we'll help.

The Two Nearest County Offices of Regional Education http://www.stclair.k12.il.us/ (St. Clair County ... O'Fallon and nearby communities) http://www.madison.k12.il.us (Madison County ... to the north, Troy and Edwardsville) Each has an immense amount of educational information about the public and private schools in the counties they serve. (O'Fallon is on the top tier of townships in St. Clair County, and O'Fallon Township borders Madison County on the North. Several Madison County school districts are nearby; Collinsville, Triad or Troy, and Highland.) Additionally, the Illinois High School Association has a very detailed Web site with lots of information on all of the high schools (most in Illinois, public and private) that belong: http://www.ihsa.org/school/schools/trenton.htm Illinois High School Association   Private Schools Regional (County) Offices of Regional Education have complete lists of private schools, both primary and secondary, in SW Illinois: http://www.madison.k12.il.us http://www.stclair.k12.il.us http://www.monroe.k12.il.us http://www.clinton.k12.il.us       Home School Home school is big in SW Illinois, especially in the military community. http://www.illinoishomeschool.com/ihs The two Catholic Dioceses that relate to SW Illinois also have complete information on all of the Catholic Schools in the area: http://www.dio.org/ Springfield Diocese, Catholic Church Belleville Diocese Catholic Church The two private schools in O'Fallon/Shiloh: St. Clare Catholic Gov. French Academy The private schools in Edwardsville/Glen Carbon: Trinity Lutheran Church Metro East Lutheran High School St. Mary's Church St. Boniface The private high schools in SW Illinois: http://www.alton-marquette.com Marquette Catholic High School, Alton Althoff High School, Belleville http://www.lcls.lib.il.us/mdhs Mater Dei Catholic High School, Breese http://www.melh.org Metro East Lutheran High School Other Nearby Communities Schools in other nearby communities Higher Education Higher Education Within the Area Independent School Reporting Services A variety of school research tools are offered here, some public and some we subscribe to for your benefit. We would appreciate reporting your experiences, good and bad, and especially if you identify a problem of confidence in data or in the "friendliness" of the format. Obviously, these same tools can be used to study other area schools, or make comparisons with the community you're now living in, (except the Illinois "tools" won't be applicable if you're out of state, obviously.) Our main web site contains a large educational section, although this section on "School Reporting Services" is the same. Also ask for our "Homework" series which contains additional educational information, comparisons of more popular schools and the like. Although there are many such school reporting services nowadays, these we consider best: 1. The Illinois School Report Cards: One of the most important links is to Illinois School Report Cards. You can get downloadable copies of latest reports directly from the Illinois Board of Higher education, at www.isbe.state.il.us   2. Chicago Sun Times School Reporting Section The Chicago Sun Times site offers school report cards and much more general information and is probably easier to use than any of these shown. To look at data from other schools, return to the site's home page and follow directions. There's a great section on community information in general.   3. Eschool Profile Reports This is a service we subscribe to and its main benefit is that it permits the side by side comparison of more than one school.   4. Regional Offices of Education The St. Clair County Regional Office of Education has a great deal of information about St. Clair County Schools in general, and even a section listing jobs in education in the county. It also includes an up to date directory of all public schools in the county. http://www.stclair.k12.il.us (St. Clair County ... O'Fallon and nearby communities) http://www.madison.k12.il.us (Madison County ... to the north, Troy and Edwardsville) 5. The Illinois School Improvement Web site (http://ilsi.isbe.net/) Relocation homebuyers have access to a multitude of individual school statistics to assist them with their neighborhood/district selection process. The site includes data from every school in Illinois and allows for comparisons between schools of similar demographics. An Illinois School Report Card provides data regarding enrollment, attendance and truancy records, average class size, graduation rate, American College Testing Program scores and Illinois Standards Achievement Test scores. Besides data analyses, the site describes the Illinois Learning Standards. The site was created by the Illinois State Board of Education, the Illinois Business Roundtable and the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.   6. (www.eneighborhoods.com ... ID is MOttwei and password: C630018) Eneighborhoods is a service to which we subscribe, and is listed on our main site under "Relocation Tools". It can provide a great deal of information on the larger communities in metro east, including schools. Other factors are demographics, income, housing profiles and values, and quite a lot of specific sales comparables. (It is a bit behind in time as you might expect.) You'll see an overview on all of these factors, including schools. The site allows you to compare two communities, side by side. That includes valuation studies even in your present neighborhood, which might be of help if you're selling a home in your present town.     7. "Homefair" is another community reporting service that is a service to us by virtue of our membership in NAEBA…the National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents. (Merrill was president of this national organization in 1998 and is still on the Board of Directors.) It's a bit awkward to get to, (although we expect that to be remedied soon). This site also is listed on our main site under "Relocation Tools". In addition to school information, it has salary calculators, crime statistics, in-depth community information and demographics, a relocation schedule-maker and more. It's a dandy site, free except for the potential of having other realtors call, (see below.) Here's how you reach it: Go to www.NAEBA.org ------click on "your home loan"------then click on "calculators". A menu of all of the data provided by Homefair pops up, schools among them. It confines each search to a county. (Edwardsville is in Madison County and O'fallon is in St. Clair County.) There's a chart posted on the site showing all school districts compared with general data, (in a county.) And this site allows the comparison of schools in three communities, side by side, provided they are in the same county. The latter, and detailed reports are only delivered by email. It's free on this site, but you'll need to register and so your names may go to other realtors who may call. (Obviously, if you do use this service, and other realtors do call, we would like you to suggest that you state you're working with us, or don't respond.)     Team Creations Inc.® All Rights Reserved 2001 - 2002