Anyone in Broomfield or Louisville Colorado

[tammyw]

My husband has an interview in that area this week (his company had a massive layoff 3.5 weeks ago) and we are wondering about where are the best places to live that have the best schools. The job is in Broomfield but a good friend lives in Louisville and loves it.

 

Would love advice and insight. Our daughter will be starting high school (she goes to a charter here in California and will still want to go to school even though she absolutely doesn't want to move period). Our son will continue homeschooling this year regardless (grade 6) but at some point I would love to find a good charter for him.

 

This was not planned and is very last minute, so we are quite freaking out right now.

 

Would love any advice.

[MysteryJen]

Will pm you later

[Guest]

You won't screw it up either way.  Both are wonderful.  It just depends on what you want.

 

I am biased.  My dh calls me The Belle of Broomfield.  It's my hometown, and my mom wrote a history of it about 45 years ago.  I graduated from the high school 42 years ago and taught there 33 years ago.  Most of the schools in Broomfield and all in Louisville are in the Boulder Valley Public Schools; most of the rest in Broomfield are in Jefferson County Schools; both are generally well regarded.  One of my graduation classmates is the mayor.  He instituted zero-based budgeting and the town has very strong financials.  

 

There are a lot of different areas in each city.  Broomfield has been ranked as one of the best places to live for steady employment.

 

Re; my moving thread somewhere on the current board, this is one of the places we would look at living.  When we were married, we lived in Boulder but the price are as high as ever...just beyond our reach, where they have always been.  Broomfield and Louisville are much more manageable, re: real estate.  You can see the Rockies and be IN them in half an hour.  DIA is 30-40 minutes away via toll road, much further if not tolled.  Denver and all a city has to offer is about half an hour the other direction.  Traffic there is awful.  Where is it not?  

 

 

 

 

[Ailaena]

Don't rule out Superior, Lafayette, or Westminster as they are all close. Erie is also not that far. My opinion is to look for a school other than Standiy Lake :/ Most of the other schools are pretty good. But the area is really, really going to depend on your home budget and what you are looking for in a house. Louisville has a super-cute downtown area where the homes are, idk, eclectic? And then regular, "traditional" middle-class houses that blend into superior and Lafayette. And Lafayette also has a cute, larger downtown area that is surrounded by older homes.

 

Wow, I could probably go on and on, so I won't. BUT, residents of Westminster get into water world for $19, so that's a good selling point :D

 

 

ETA: Longmont is 30 minutes north, so not totally off the radar. Also, some areas of Westminster are better than others, but that will be obvious when you look at houses. Nothing is like, dangerous, or anything.

 

ETA2 opinions: Jefferson Academy is a good charter, Academy of charter schools is not great, and people love Peak to Peak, but I don't like their lower school.

Edited July 18, 2017 by Ailaena

[Guest]

I would echo aileana's post above. Other places work too. Live close to where you have to drive a lot. Traffic is bad at rush hours and there are lots of tolls on highways.

[LarlaB]

I will PM you 😜

[tammyw]

Definitely want the commute to be easy for my husband to go to the company, especially with winter weather.

[tammyw]

Things are progressing. They are flying him out so we are all going with him beforehand to check out the area, look at housing, etc. It's both scary and exciting. I know my daughter will adapt no matter what, it will just be challenging for a while. And the rest of us are pretty easy going. He also has some possibilities here, so it will probably come down to him making a choice, which is a lot better than being forced into one thing because it's the only option. Fingers crossed that everything works out seamlessly whichever way it goes.

 

Thanks for the advice so far!

[Katy]

We don't live there anymore, but I would also echo Aliaena above. 

 

The winters are much less worse than you think.  You only need a fleece unless you go up in the mountains.  Much warmer than, say, Buffalo.  If you smell cow manure, a snow storm is on the way. Get home unless you have 4 wheel drive.  Even if you get stuck in snow it won't matter, it will melt by the next day.

[Word Nerd]

Traffic there is awful.  Where is it not?  

 

Before I even opened the thread, I thought, Ugh, so much traffic!

[tammyw]

Before I even opened the thread, I thought, Ugh, so much traffic!

 

California traffic is no joke either. I tend to stay mostly within a 10 mile radius of home, so definitely important to have a place we love with all the good stuff close by :)

[tammyw]

I forgot the most important question! What are the regulations for homeschoolers? It's super easy here in California that you pretty much have to do nothing (although right now we are connected to a charter while still doing everything at home, but even that is SUPER easy). I didn't even think to ask about that for Colorado!

[Word Nerd]

I forgot the most important question! What are the regulations for homeschoolers? It's super easy here in California that you pretty much have to do nothing (although right now we are connected to a charter while still doing everything at home, but even that is SUPER easy). I didn't even think to ask about that for Colorado!

 

It's pretty simple, though not as easy as in some states. You can see a summary here.

[tammyw]

Well, we are home!

 

I did get some really awful nosebleeds, but I think the saline gel did help some.

 

We loved the town of Louisville. The inventory is pretty slim right now and we didn't find a house we loved, but did get a feel for the town and thought it was really cute and quaint. Definitely expensive for what you get in comparison to other places.

 

We looked at a bunch of places in Broomfield and Westminster and though I said I did not want a tract home, they really have some nice ones there, and I might have to compromise on that! Some of them are gigantic though! Wow.

 

The biggest problem is that if he got an offer in a week's time, school will start within two weeks of that. And since we didn't find "the" house, and could easily find something in any of the above areas, deciding which school to register in is a problem. I don't even know how that would work. What if I registered her in the Broomfield school district (while living in temporary housing) but then found the perfect house in Louisville. The LAST thing I would want to do is uproot her again). That part is really scary to me.

 

Speaking of my daughter, she didn't go with us, and still can't talk about the possibility of us moving. My husband just got out of the military 3.5 years ago so she is no stranger to uprooting, but she is currently so settled, has a great group of friends, is in a fantastic small-ish charter school (very hard to get into) and will be going there with all her friends. She was also only one of three freshmen girls to make it into the Varsity dance team (and all schools have their auditions in the spring, so that really would be hard to leave behind).

 

My son is fine with whatever we do and would still continue to homeschool so that's easier.

 

The interview went well and it's down to him and one other candidate (interview within the week). But he also has two possibilities here, so hoping he has some choices to make.

 

Thank you all for the great advice. It really helped us narrow down the areas to look at, and that was so helpful!