blessed3x Posted December 7, 2009 Share Posted December 7, 2009 Hello all- We are currently in Virginia, but my husband is from Plum which is on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. I am hoping for some help from fellow home schoolers. My in-laws are not doing well health wise and they are wanting to move back to Pittsburgh to be closer to their family. (they moved south years ago to get out of the cold) We are considering moving up there to help and be closer to my husbands family. My DH has been putting job applications out in Pittsburgh. I have a sister in law in North Huntington and a brother in law in Bethel Park. They each love where they live, but neither have children. If my DH were to get a job there, where is a good family oriented, safe place to live? I am overwhelmed! Are the home school laws all the same? Coming from VA I have heard the PA laws are much stricter. I am interested in having a good size yard, family friendly, safe and hopefully a close knit of home school support. :grouphug: Any ideas? All are welcome and appreciated. Thanks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blessed3x Posted December 8, 2009 Author Share Posted December 8, 2009 Bump! :) Pittsburgh area - please give me some feedback.... thanks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plimsoll Posted December 8, 2009 Share Posted December 8, 2009 There are many family-friendly neighborhoods in and around Pittsburgh. If you want a good-sized yard, you need to look in the suburbs. Pittsburgh consists of the City of Pittsburgh and numerous townships pretty close by (15-40 minutes, depending on traffic). When people say they live in Pittsburgh, they include in it all these little townships surrounding the city. The suburbs north of the city are called the North Hills and the suburbs south of the city are called the South Hills; each of these areas themselves contains numerous small townships. I would recommend looking for a place near your relatives. A good realtor should be able to help you with information about the different neighborhoods, school districts, etc. I realize you will be homeschooling, but an area with a good school district will have more families and more kid-oriented activities available. Bethel Park is in the South Hills. I'm not sure where North Huntington is. I do not find the PA homeschool laws to be difficult or strict. We're in our third year of homeschooling and no problems so far. This is my favorite site for info relating to the PA homeshooling laws: http://home.comcast.net/~askpauline/index.html The zoo (Pitsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium) and the museums (Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Science Center) all offer excellent programs for homeschoolers. If you buy an anuual membership to the museums, you get free admission to all four Carnegie musuems and a discount on their homeschool programs, gift shops, etc. At these programs you will find homeschoolers and their parents from all over Pittsburgh, so these might be good places to meet other homeschoolers as well. The Carnegie Library is awesome. It has about 15 or so local branches and is very well organized. Using their website, you can order almost anything from any branch, and they will deliver it to your local branch for you to pick up, for free. I have found around 95% of the books and videos I need for homeschooling at the library. Here are some other home-school/educational resources we have used around Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University - offers C-MITES workshops - http://www.cmu.edu/cmites/ CMU also is one of the sites for the iDTech summer computer camps (http://www.internaldrive.com/) Pittsburgh Chess Club (www.youthchess.net) offers kids chess classes and tournaments Pittsburgh Center for the Arts - offers various classes and weeklong summer camps - http://www.pittsburgharts.org/index.php Carnegie Museums - offer many classes and summer camps - http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/ Pittsburgh Children's Museum - good museum for kids, has hands-on classes http://www.pittsburghkids.org/ Carnegie Library - offers many programs for kids, including an annual chess tournament: http://www.clpgh.org/ Steel City Martial Arts - karate dojo in the South Hills - really good kids' classes - http://www.steelcitymartialarts.com/ Hope this is helpful.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newbie Posted December 8, 2009 Share Posted December 8, 2009 I dont live there, but have all my relatives in Pitt. My fav. South Hills area is Mt. Lebanon. When we were looking to buy thats where I was looking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blessed3x Posted December 9, 2009 Author Share Posted December 9, 2009 Thank you for all of the information. My brother in law is in Alleganey county. I was looking at Cranberry, which is directly north of there. Any ideas on that area? Thanks again!:001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blessed3x Posted January 3, 2010 Author Share Posted January 3, 2010 A sincere thank you for all of the ideas. Unfortunately, we are no longer looking to move there. We were just told my FIL has only a few months to live so they are no longer moving. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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