How Important is School Quality?

We are looking at where to buy a house outside of Boston. The housing prices here are very expensive. We're currently looking at a house in a nice neighborhood, walkable, accessible to public transportation, but the local elementary school is only rated 5/10 on GreatSchools. Our kid is only 14 mo so we don't have any experience with elementary schools. He currently goes to a wonderful Montessori day care that he could continue at if we bought this house.The alternative would be to look in a neighboring school district where the schools are rated 7-10/10, but the houses are easily $200k more for the same house. The neighborhoods are more suburban which isn't as much to our liking (I enjoy being able to walk to the park, grocery store, etc.).Our kid is going to a good day care and eventually preschool before starting kindergarten, so I think he'll be starting school in good shape. My question is, how much do you value a "good" school district? 5/10 on GreatSchools means "average", and Massachusetts schools are already the best in the country, so maybe it's not a big deal? My hesitation is that this is supposed to be our "forever" house and I don't want to lock my son into an inferior school district if he would really flourish somewhere else. Anyone going to lower-rated schools and having a good experience? via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2CmAfW7