More helpful links with information on schools, demographics, crime, environmental concerns & more!

Below are links you may want to add to your favorites for future reference. These are all fabulous sites that will answer most of your questions around the country concerning important issues on schools, crime, environmental, census facts and more.

I am more than glad to add to this list, so any suggestions on what you'd like to see would be welcome.

SCHOOLS:

The US Department of Education has a very useful national database of school demographic information, called the National Center for Education Statistics: http://nces.ed.gov/index.asp.
Click on the "School, College and Library Search" tab for a school’s student/teacher ratio and more.

Two more sites that let you compare schools for academic performance are "Great Schools" http://www.greatschools.net/, and "Standard & Poor's School Matters" http://www.schoolmatters.com/. Many school districts and state education departments also post useful online information.

CRIME:

The Virginia State Police Sex Offender Registry Search:
http://sex-offender.vsp.state.va.us/Static/Search.htm. Also of interest to families is the National Sex Offenders Registry, found at http://www.familywatchdog.us/ You can enter a street address and generate a map that plots where sex offenders live. Information often includes a photo. The maps give buyers a comparison of the density of sex offenders in the neighborhood.

Family Watchdog is also developing another tool to track other crimes. Some towns already have such sites, such as http://www.chicagocrime.org/ for the city of Chicago. If clients are concerned about crime in a particular area, I encourage them to talk to the police department and/or department of public safety. Many cities and towns also offer this info on the web.

ENVIRONMENT:

Questions on environment? Visit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s website:
http://www.epa.gov/epahome/commsearch.htm. If you'd like to read a pollution report card by county, including air and water quality, go to http://www.scorecard.org/. This web site has a tool for accessing an area by zip code for environmental facts such as pollution statistics, proximity to hazardous waste sites, and information about the local watershed.

DEMOGRAPHICS:

Demographics: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html lets you find statistics about an area’s demographics, broken down by city and country, as well as general socioeconomic data. You will need to provide phone # or address.

MORE:

Need to look up someone's phone number? Or you have a phone number, but don't know who it belongs to? The site http://www.whitepages.com/ can do both for you. Try a "Reverse Search" to look up the owner of a phone number.

My website at http://www.move2va.com/ also has lots of references and lists.