The area around Haisley Elementary is a close-knit neighborhood of ranches and 1 1/2-story Cape Cods where parents push tots in strollers to nearby Wellington Park and seniors chat with neighbors on front lawns. Haisley draws from 2 separate areas: the compact neighborhood around the school and the newer subdivisions between Liberty and I-94 in Scio Township. Students in the older neighborhood can choose Forsythe or Slauson middle school; elsewhere, all attend Forsythe. Not far from the school, Miller Nature Area is a hidden pocket of woods. During the summer months, neighbors gather to stay cool at Veterans Memorial Park Pool on Jackson near Maple. At the park, the evenings come alive with the crack of bats and the sound of wild cheering as ball teams compete. In the winter, children slide down the steep hills behind the indoor skating rink. Outside the beltway in Scio Township, kids are bused in from the new developments along Jackson. Big-box stores, light industry, and restaurants pack the corridor, providing a commercial node for the condos and subdivisions, in line with the township’s plan to concentrate development there and try to preserve rural character elsewhere. The Polo Fields, off Zeeb north of Liberty, is a classic late-20th-century subdivision, with massive homes clustering around a golf course and country club. Beyond, Scio’s dirt roads are dotted with individual country houses, large and small. Apartments on Zeeb include the Cambridge Club, with 108 1- and 2-bedroom units, and the 106-unit Scio Village, which has its own nature preserve; the 144-unit Lakestone is hidden away off Parkland behind the Jackson business strip. Haisley also serves the cohousing complexes south of Jackson, and part of the huge Scio Farms manufactured housing community.
