Wow, lots of advice, thanks. Let me clear up a few things first though:
My property borders a school-middle school-rural-Trump country. Thing is the school is on a 40 acre chunk-of which almost all of it is baseball fields. Basically my house borders a field. As far as guns and stuff I load and unload in garage specifically and don't advertise etc. Funny I've been there 15 years and never really thought about it until recently.
This is more what it'd be like. It's at the far back corner of the school property where they do sports practice. Even that was a couple hundred meters in and away from the road. The school itself lies on another, busier street and is about 500m away, give or take, from the house. So it sounds like I'd be in the exact position as the guy above.
I'd NEVER consider one next to or across from a school, I get that, wouldn't even be asking. This one is more of a gray area I feel.
Ignore all the issues related to your shooting hobby, just for the moment. Go check out the traffic around a school at arrival or dismissal. Since no one rides the bus anymore, you've got a bazillion cars zipping around every morning and afternoon - most of which are giant mommy-mobiles being driven by distracted parents. I see it every day around my kids' school, and there is no way in hell I'd want to live amongst that sort of chaos.
I actually looked at this house around 2.30=3.30 so I got to see it all. There actually wasn't much traffic really, if anymore than usual (there's no access to the school at that end and it's fenced off). A few kids were walking home, kids don't walk these days so there wasn't many and the few there were were buried in their phones. Anyway, they all looked like good kids from what I saw. It wasn't loud, there wasn't a bunch of kids this far back from the school.
Apparently the area is more pro-firearm than you'd think, or at least that's all I've run into so far. It's a smaller town off the beaten path, not in a big city. A big town is closer to the truth I guess. Both realtors I spoke with are into firearms and a guy I spoke with at the VFW who is well connected said as much about the town. This kids think of it as "backwards" which may work in my favor.
I just don't have a lot of options and may have to choose this one anyway. Been looking for months and it's not like I"m pulling up anything better. It seems all of you that do or have lived near the back of a school don't have issues, those that live in front, different story. I lived across from one when I was younger, and my grandmother never had problems there for 50 years. But she didn't have an arsenal in 2019 either.
So far EVERY house has SOME issue, most are either falling off a cliff or need massive overhaul work on the exterior, some are outright dumps, all for the same price, so finding one with a school cadi corner that's in A1 shape almost feels like a godsend at this moment. But trust me, I'd RATHER have something off the beaten path that fits my criteria.