Tell me about the Greenville/Spartanburg SC area!

[Aunty Social]

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[Catwoman]

Shawna, I know nothing about the area, but I was just thinking that if you mention what type of area you live in now (rural, suburban, urban,) as well as your general geographic area you're from (northeast, southwest, etc.,) the type of home you'll be looking for, and your general budget, you would probably get a lot more useful information.

 

One person's ideal environment can be completely different from the next person's, because if I like the city and you like the country, and I like the cold and you like hot and humid, my advice won't mean much to you! :001_smile:

 

Cat

[Slartibartfast]

We are moving there too. :) My husband has been transferred there.

[Aunty Social]

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[Aunty Social]

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[Dana]

I'm not in that area, but some of this may be useful and give you links to explore more areas...

 

Carolina Homeschooler has some info about state laws regarding homeschooling and links to other resources. They also do trips.

 

In SC you have 3 options to use when homeschooling:

(1) through the state & district (don't)

(2) through SCAIHS (more support but more requirements and testing). They have an office & small bookstore in Columbia

(3) through 3rd option groups. Each group will have different requirements for reporting.

 

You are mandated to use the state grading scale (really really stinks IMO) and weighting (look for uniform grading scale - dumbest thing ever).

 

SC homeschoolers do get free access to Discovery Streaming through ETV.

 

There is a community college in the area, Greenville Tech - but in SC they're all technical colleges.

[MindyD]

I'm from there! I LOVE Greenville! Spartanburg, not so much. Greenville is very homeschool friendly and there are a lot of groups to join. It's fairly common so you won't get strange looks if you're out and about during the day. The cost of living is low, especially if you're moving from NJ. You should be able to get a lot of house for your money. You have many neighborhoods and suburbs to choose from. Sugar Creek is a popular one subdivision, and it has a great swim team if you're interested in that for your kids. Simpsonville, Mauldin, Taylors, and Greer are all very close to Greenville and good areas to look into. The downtown is beautiful and very family friendly in my opinion.

Every homeschooler I know uses SC's 3rd legal option when dealing with the state. It's very simple. You just join an umbrella association and agree to meet all the requirements (very very minimal). Depending on what association you choose you join, you can have no real oversight if that's what you're looking for (nobody is going to check over your shoulder or go through your portfolio).

As for weather, you definitely have seasons but not a lot of snow. Every 5 years or so we'll get a good ice storm that shuts everything down for a few days, but that's about it. You'll be an hour from the mountains and 3 hours from the beach.

Just a warning, moving to the South from NJ can be a little bit of a culture shock for some (or so I've been told), but it's a wonderful area. I think you'll be very happy there. If you have more questions, let me know! Unfortunately, we had to leave the area for Charleston last year for dh's job, but we still visit friends and family frequently in Greenville. Hope this helps!

[Oak Knoll Mom]

Greenville is a wonderful city with a vibrant downtown and arts scene. The homeschool community is large, but skewed towards the more conservative. It is politically conservative.

 

If I were you, I'd look for housing on the north side of town/county, that way you are close to Asheville and the NC mountains. All the newer developments, though, seem to be in the south.

 

Atlanta and Charlotte are both around 2-2 1/2 hours away (in opposite directions).

 

There are four distinct seasons with the summers not too hot and the winters not too cold.

 

It's the home of Bob Jones University, but if that school is not your cuppa, then it's very easy to avoid it and those associated with it.

 

I love Greenville and would move back in a heartbeat.

[ravinlunachick]

There's a really cool homeschooling chick who lives there and posts on the WTM forums. :D

 

Seriously, we love it here. It's a wonderful area, geographically, since both the mountains and the beach are within easy drives. It's hot and humid in the summer, but generally speaking we are spared much severe weather. It is a really diverse area, even though it's easy to believe it's nothing but extreme conservatives a la BJU. It seems like every third person is a recent immigrant from NJ or MI, lol.

 

The forums over at city-data.com are a gold mine of information. :)

[jennynd]

I don't live there but travel there for business few time.

I do like the area, A lot sun shines. people are nice and warm. A lot shopping place and restrauants. I heard school system is horrible but you homeschool so I supposed u don't care. Cost of living is low. low property tax.

[ravinlunachick]

One important distinction between Greenville and Spartanburg that may or may not matter to you: Greenville is one unified school district--the largest in the state, as a matter of fact. Spartanburg is a smaller city but has 7 school districts which vary TREMENDOUSLY in their demographics and quality. This sometimes has a really profound effect on home values. I live in Greenville's school district but taught in Spartanburg for many years.

[Oak Knoll Mom]

I heard school system is horrible but you homeschool so I supposed u don't care.

 

The school system is excellent. Of course, like every school system, there are some not so great ones, but over-all they are above average.

[Aunty Social]

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[Aunty Social]

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[JenC3]

I agree witn everyone who chimed in I love it here! We should have a WTM meet-up!

 

Hey Mindy! It's Jen from Holy Trinity:)

 

I've been here for going on 12 years and except the heat in the summer, i love it! I also vote for a northside move, that's where we live and it's great.

[Mama Geek]

Let's talk about the real college that is in the area, my alma mater, Clemson, and no it isn't a technical college. It is less than an hour from Greenville. Go Tigers!

[Samiam]

I live in Greenville too!

 

But I would clarify a statement that the schools are excellent in Greenville, and ask what "excellent" is in comparision too. Perhaps they ARE excellent for the state of SC....which is traditionally in bottom 5 out of the 50 states....I think our normal ranking is about 48th. Sooooo, I would take "excellent" with a grain of salt.

 

Just something to think about.

[Catwoman]

Greenville sounded so nice that I decided to check out the real estate on Realtor.com and there are some gorgeous homes to choose from, so I went to BestPlaces.net to do a bit more research, and they listed the crime rate as being 9/10 for violent crime and 8/10 for property crime. :eek::eek::eek: Those numbers are SCARY!

 

So now I'm confused. It sounded like a great, family-friendly place, but then I saw those crime statistics and am trying to figure out if there's a really, really bad part of town or something?:confused:

 

I know I didn't start this thread, but I've gotten quite caught up in it, because we're always looking for a new place to live and Greenville was starting to sound pretty good...

 

Cat

[Oak Knoll Mom]

I live in Greenville too!

 

But I would clarify a statement that the schools are excellent in Greenville, and ask what "excellent" is in comparision too. Perhaps they ARE excellent for the state of SC....which is traditionally in bottom 5 out of the 50 states....I think our normal ranking is about 48th. Sooooo, I would take "excellent" with a grain of salt.

 

Just something to think about.

 

SAT scores for Greenville County Schools are right around/a little below the national average and ACT scores are right around/a little above the national average. Both scores are consistently higher than the state average. (http://ed.sc.gov/topics/researchandstats/schoolreportcard/2010/district/Comprehensive/D2301999.pdf) Greenville has three of the top 10 high schools in the state. (http://www.schooldigger.com/go/SC/schoolrank.aspx?pagetype=top10)

 

Just because a school district is in a failing state doesn't mean that the district is also failing.

 

BTW, I don't appreciate you telling others to take my opinion with a "grain of salt." Disagree if you want to, but don't do it like that.

[Stayseeliz]

We live in Spartanburg and I actually run a homeschool group here. Love it. Spartanburg is going to be MUCH cheaper to live in than Greenville. Much less traffic too. The schools in general are not as good as Greenville with the exception of maybe District 2. We do love it here! Lots to do, vibrant homeschool community, etc!

[Slartibartfast]

I am glad to see so many wtm members are in the area, I only know one person here IRL. :)

[serabi]

Does anyone have any input on Anderson, SC? We are moving there in about 2 months. (not to hijack or anything!)

[ravinlunachick]

I suppose it matters more what you are looking for in a high school. Have a son who wants to play on a nationally ranked football team? Byrnes High in Sptbg District 5 is your place. Want a school with a reputation for strong academics? Head to Dorman in Sptbg District 6.

 

The School District of Greenville County is a more complex place. They have a magnet school system, where you can apply to attend out of your zone. Definitely check out their website.

 

So very much wrt crime will depend on where you live. Unfortunately, most of the city of Spartanburg has been turned into inner-city ghetto. That's where I used to teach. There are a few pockets of nice neighborhoods and schools, but I surely wouldn't want to raise my children there. The surrounding suburbs are more of a hodgepodge. Greenville has been gentrifying for some time now, and pretty much only the wealthy and the poor live downtown. Once again, the suburbs are a different story. Depending on where you are from, you may be shocked at how much can change simply by crossing a street or turning a few corners.

 

As far as racism in the general population, I don't think it is any different than anywhere else, really. You may see more Confederate Battle Flags than you are comfortable with, but that does not always equal racism here, and is probably a topic for another thread.

[ravinlunachick]

Does anyone have any input on Anderson, SC? We are moving there in about 2 months. (not to hijack or anything!)

 

If you have lived in metro Atlanta for long, you are in for some serious culture shock. Anderson is like the red headed stepchild of the Upstate. Way less developed than the GSP area. But it is close to Clemson, if tractors are your cup of tea. :lol: (spoken as a USC graduate)

 

ETA just in case that seems overly snarky--I am just joking about Clemson. It is a highly respected University.

[MindyD]

Hey Jen!

 

As for crime, I'm really surprised to hear that. If you're on the west side, there's going to be more crime, but overall it seems like a very safe place. Most of the crime on the news was in Spartanburg. For highschools, Riverside High School is supposed to be one of the best in the area. Traverlers Rest High School (north side of Greenville county) and JL Mann High School (more towards the southern I suppose) have IB schools (International Baccalaureate) so those are worth looking into. The Magnet schools are what a lot of homeschooling families move to in high school if they choose to go the school route. At least that's been my experience.

As for the overall school systems, you can only go by the statistics so much. For instance, SC counts homeschool students as drop-outs for statistical purposes only. That's what I've been told by my teacher friends anyway. So that skews our drop out rate. Overall, Greenville, Anderson, and some of Spartanburg have good schools. As you get into the more rural areas, the schools can begin to suffer.

[Slartibartfast]

My husband is in Greenville atm and he sent me a picture of a Black widow.

 

Oh my heck!!!

 

Is Greenville full of Black Widows???

 

:willy_nilly:

Edited September 23, 2011 by Sis

[mommaduck]

My husband is in Greenville atm and he sent me a picture of a Black widow.

 

Oh my heck!!!

 

Is Greenville full of Black Widows???

Uhm, SC has one of the highest statistics for poisonous snakes, I believe (perhaps spiders also). SC may be home, but I'm kinda liking the wildlife up here compared to the wildlife down there. A bear I could deal with. A snake or spider, no thank you. I guess we're both good as long as we don't have any of those monster crickets ;)

[Boxing Hare]

We just put our house on the market and are hoping to move to Greenville. We were there for about 4 months a couple of years ago and loved it. The town was small enough that everything was close, but large enough that it got shows/circus/etc. The weather is fantastic (we are in TX now) and you could drive to the beach and mountains.

 

The hs laws were more restrictive than here, but they seemed reasonable. The museum and libraries had hs classes monthly and there was a hs swim team that my kids enjoyed.

 

It's a big decision - good luck!

[ravinlunachick]

My husband is in Greenville atm and he sent me a picture of a Black widow.

 

Oh my heck!!!

 

Is Greenville full of Black Widows???

 

:willy_nilly:

 

Hahahaha! I had students who had never seen a squirrel! They sure as heck knew what a cockroach was, though. We have woods right beside our house, so we have frogs, toads, salamanders, cicadas, grasshoppers, and yes, a few spiders. We have a huge writing spider that lives on our front porch and makes the most astonishing webs for the unsuspecting to wander into every night. I just think of it as free Halloween decoration. ;)

 

PS. We do have a lot of wildlife up here, because we are not all sand and desolation like the lower half of the state. There is a surprising amount of wildnerness for such a developed area. Look at the state parks up here...Table Rock, Ceasar's Head, Paris Mountain, Jones Gap....all within a half hour or less of downtown Greenville.

[Slartibartfast]

Uhm, SC has one of the highest statistics for poisonous snakes, I believe (perhaps spiders also). SC may be home, but I'm kinda liking the wildlife up here compared to the wildlife down there. A bear I could deal with. A snake or spider, no thank you. I guess we're both good as long as we don't have any of those monster crickets ;)

 

I am from Oklahoma, we used to see cottonmouths all the time at the lake and there were copperheads at our camp.

 

I've never seen the coral snake in the wild but I know the rhyme. :lol:

 

We had fiddlebacks and supposedly black widows but I have never seen a black widow before

[Slartibartfast]

Hahahaha! I had students who had never seen a squirrel! They sure as heck knew what a cockroach was, though. We have woods right beside our house, so we have frogs, toads, salamanders, cicadas, grasshoppers, and yes, a few spiders. We have a huge writing spider that lives on our front porch and makes the most astonishing webs for the unsuspecting to wander into every night. I just think of it as free Halloween decoration. ;)

 

PS. We do have a lot of wildlife up here, because we are not all sand and desolation like the lower half of the state. There is a surprising amount of wildnerness for such a developed area. Look at the state parks up here...Table Rock, Ceasar's Head, Paris Mountain, Jones Gap....all within a half hour or less of downtown Greenville.

 

I am not a city girl :) We did look at Paris mountain when we visited together.

 

 

I was just imagining black widows replacing my garden spiders and then hyperventilating. :lol:

Edited September 23, 2011 by Sis

[mommaduck]

Oklahoma? Eh, you'll be just fine in SC.

[ravinlunachick]

We were married at Paris Mountain. I'm quite partial to it. :) You might miss the constant wind, though. My sisters live in OK, and I visited once. If I never return, that will be perfectly fine by me. I am not cut out to live in OK. Nuh-uh, no way.

[Slartibartfast]

We were married at Paris Mountain. I'm quite partial to it. :) You might miss the constant wind, though. My sisters live in OK, and I visited once. If I never return, that will be perfectly fine by me. I am not cut out to live in OK. Nuh-uh, no way.

 

But it makes the waving wheat sure smell sweet

[ravinlunachick]

There was no wheat where I visited. Only cows. Lots and lots of cows.

 

That does sound nice, though.

[Slartibartfast]

There was no wheat where I visited. Only cows. Lots and lots of cows.

 

That does sound nice, though.

 

I was making a joke from the musical :blushing:

[ravinlunachick]

I was making a joke from the musical :blushing:

 

D'oh! I should be the one blushing, not you! Gah.

 

I'll just take this opportunity to go to bed now.

 

:slinks out of thread:

[SBP]

My husband is in Greenville atm and he sent me a picture of a Black widow.

 

Oh my heck!!!

 

Is Greenville full of Black Widows???

 

:willy_nilly:

 

LOL! Talk about things I never would have thought to mention about the Upstate...

 

Yes, we do have black widows. I've seen a couple over the years when cleaning my garage, and one near the front porch one time. We try not to leave shoes out in the garage, but otherwise, it's not much of an issue, really. They're very keep-to-themselves spiders and easy to kill if you do happen to see one. Frankly, the eleventy million palmetto bugs around here bother me way, way worse Seriously, at night, my back deck is like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie...

 

But I don't want to scare you away!

 

We moved to the Greenville area 12.5 years ago and have absolutely LOVED it here. I agree with all the good things that have been said - weather, proximity to beach and mountains, cost of living, lovely downtown, homeschool-friendly, parks, museums, a nice little zoo, etc. It's truly been a fabulous place to raise our family. I don't have any first-hand information about the regular public school system, but my children have just started at one of the charter schools in Greenville, and so far we are very pleased. We hope that they will get into one of the charter high schools as well. So that's an option you might consider, too.

 

Good luck to those who are considering moves :)

 

SBP

[Mama Geek]

Does anyone have any input on Anderson, SC? We are moving there in about 2 months. (not to hijack or anything!)

 

There are nice places in Anderson, but it is not the big city of Greenville. One really great thing about Anderson is the weekend flea market called the Jockey Lot. You can get great fruit and veggies fresh picked and it was cheaper than the grocery stores by far when we were in college at Clemson more than 10 years ago.

 

If you have lived in metro Atlanta for long, you are in for some serious culture shock. Anderson is like the red headed stepchild of the Upstate. Way less developed than the GSP area. But it is close to Clemson, if tractors are your cup of tea. :lol: (spoken as a USC graduate)

 

ETA just in case that seems overly snarky--I am just joking about Clemson. It is a highly respected University.

 

We are all one big happy family is SC with lots of jokes, but just know we will be sitting around eating chicken come game day.:auto:

[Aunty Social]

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[Mama Geek]

Wow. Does anyone know any more about this? Is it really true? That could be a deal breaker.

 

I haven't been to Greenville in years, but I have lived in cities that were high crime. There are areas that are nice and safe to live in. If it were me I would go with the advice of the people who are currently living there and say they are happy with the area. If you find that you can't afford to live in a safe area that would be a different story.

[Aunty Social]

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[melissad2]

Does anyone have any input on Anderson, SC? We are moving there in about 2 months. (not to hijack or anything!)

 

We live on the outskirts of Anderson and it is a nice area. We are about 40 minutes from Greenville and roughly 2hrs from Atlanta. Also about 40 minutes south is Commerce GA with some great outlet shopping :D. There is not a lot around for kids to do IMHO but we don't live that far from Greenville to go to the zoo, children's museum, monkey joe's, and chuck e cheese's. We have a Target, Wal-mart, Bi-Lo, Publix, Kohl's, Hobby Lobby, and many other chair stores. There is no Whole Foods or Trader Joes....you have to drive to Greenville for that :glare:. The library is decent and they have an online site where you can reserve things and they will e-mail you when they are ready to pick up.

[Aunty Social]

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[Aunty Social]

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[Aunty Social]

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[Oak Knoll Mom]

One more question - someone mentioned the library. I'm very spoiled with my library here - we can go online, search the catalog, and reserve items. The library emails us when the books come in, a couple days before they are due, and the librarians are (overall) very friendly and helpful. It's also quite large.

 

Please tell me the library system down there is awesome!

 

My sister-in-law is a librarian by trade, but is currently staying home with her kids. The only thing she complains about is the lack of digital borrowing. (She used to work at the library in Columbia which was the ALA Library of the Year when she worked there, so she has the best of the best to compare it to.)

[SBP]

So, have I got this right?

 

The north side of Greenville is probably the place we want to look. The schools in that area are decent, with options as to magnet, charter, or regular ps. Homeschooling is pretty easy - go with option three and find an umbrella. There are also a lot of great options for outside classes. There are distinct bands of wealth and poverty within the city, but the suburbs are pretty vanilla.

 

Am a little embarrassed that after 12 years here, I had to look at a map to figure out what side of Greenville I lived on... :o

 

We were encouraged to look east/southeast when we moved here. We settled in Simpsonville, which is on the south side and has grown tremendously just in the time we've been here. I think you said you wanted acreage, and it's certainly available in the Simpsonville area, but it would be more like farmland, whereas on the north side of Greenville, you could get something with mountain views. Some of your decision might revolve around where your DH will be working, of course, and how long he wants his commute to be.

 

Greenville is very family friendly, with nice parks, farmers markets (did I just kill a kitten? farmers...farmer's?), and other things that come through. There are areas you want to avoid, due to crime (anyone know where those areas are?), but overall the city and surrounding area are safe. There may be a few Confederate Flags flying, but racism is not any more blatant than in the northeast.

 

Cost of living - especially as compares to NJ, is relatively low.

 

I'm a little baffled about the crime thing. I'm sure we have some, but I've never gotten the impression it was worse than anywhere else, and it seems a whole lot less than where we came from. Granted, I live in the suburbs, but one of the things we love about Greenville is that we can take the family downtown at night and walk around and feel totally safe. The city has really gone all out to make the downtown area, at least, very family friendly.

 

One question - it sounds like the surrounding suburbs are very distinct from one another. Is this true? Can you tell me a little about why/what makes them so distinct?

 

That's a hard question, and one I've never really thought about. When we moved here, we were advised by several people to look in Simpsonville, Mauldin, Greer, and the Pelham Road area of Greenville. It is certainly possible that the advice would be different now than it was then, but I think we could have been happy in any of those areas. There are many nice neighborhoods in each and good proximity to "stuff" - shopping, doctors, churches, libraries, etc. I'm certain there are other nice areas, too, that I'm not mentioning just because I haven't had occasion to get very familiar with them. If we moved now, however, we would probably stay in the "Golden Strip" area (Simpsonville/Mauldin/Fountain Inn) just because we're pretty plugged in here.

 

With regard to the library system, I think it compares very favorably to most. A few years back, they did limit the number of books you can reserve (10 now I think?) which was traumatic when I was trying to coordinate grammar-stage books with WTM history studies. They also cut the amount of time you could keep books out, which has cost me a zillion dollars in library fines. I think the problem in both cases is me, though, not being organized enough, rather than a problem with the library!

 

Hope this helps :)

 

SBP

Edited September 23, 2011 by SBP

[Jan in SC]

I would imagine that the crime statistics are incorrect. There are some seedy parts of Greenville, but the entire city has changed, for the better. The downtown area is amazing. It has shops, and an outdoor river area with a suspension bridge that is awesome. There is a great ballpark and lots of restaurants, all within walking distance of downtown.

 

The Peace center has everything from local youth productions, to national touring productions. Roper Mountain science center, owned by the school district, has homeschool programs and is open to the public every second Saturday of the month. There is a small zoo, but I don't know much about it.

 

My friends that live near Greenville, actually live in Greer, in the Sugar Creek neighborhood that someone mentioned. I would look at that part of the city.

 

Columbia is an hour and a half away. It has the State Museum, (free for homeschooler) a nationally ranked and amazing zoo, and a children's museum.

 

Three hours away is Charleston. Obviously it is full of history!

 

I'm not a fan of Anderson. I would believe the crime rates about it. It is much smaller than Greenville.

 

Spartanburg has nice areas. The east side is very country club with old money. It has a great neighborhood, Converse Heights. The downtown area is small, but has potential.

[Aunty Social]

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