Since my oldest started kindy last aug, I drop him off and leave, so I'm not on the road until almost 9. I pretty much drive posted speed limit every morning all the way on i25 from ridgegate to i70. It's 22 miles, 20 minutes.

Aggie_Boomin 21 said:

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Yeah I'll be working out of Lone Tree and she's an RN so a more central location will most likely have the most job prospects for her, that's the reason for the those two being singled out.

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Arvada near Olde Town. 12min from everything, easy access to the mountains. I got to Vail in 1hr 20min last weekend Fri morning.

Other option is Highlands near Tennyson. Great food and shops and nice neighborhood.

I like Olde Town area a lot. Kind of wish we would've looked more over that direction... but we do love it up here.

NASAg03 said:

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Aggie_Boomin 21 said:

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Yeah I'll be working out of Lone Tree and she's an RN so a more central location will most likely have the most job prospects for her, that's the reason for the those two being singled out.

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Arvada near Olde Town. 12min from everything, easy access to the mountains. I got to Vail in 1hr 20min last weekend Fri morning.

Other option is Highlands near Tennyson. Great food and shops and nice neighborhood.

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Arvada to Lone Tree commute would suck.

proudaggie02 said:

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Aggie_Boomin 21 said:

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Yeah I'll be working out of Lone Tree and she's an RN so a more central location will most likely have the most job prospects for her, that's the reason for the those two being singled out.

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I'd also look at Denver Tech Center, as it's in between Lone Tree and downtown. It depends on what you're lookingfor: near the action and want to go out/party all the time vs. live further out and prefer a more laid back atmosphere. Downtown Denver was amazing when I moved here in 2009. It's gone downhill a decent amount, but it's still nicer than any large city downtown in Texas.

Glendale is close to Cherry Creek, which is a great area. I've lived in Lone Tree for almost 10 years, and I love it. I lived in DTC for the first 2 years I lived in Colorado, and I liked it also. There are many great places to live around Denver, but I don't plan to leave Lone Tree.

I'd definitely do lunch or early dinner at Sierra in Lone Tree; the view is amazing and food is good. Snooze is great for breakfast.

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This is quality intel. Thanks for posting this and everyone else too!
I just made it past the first round of interview for a company near the tech center. Just wondering what you guys that an appropriate cost of living adjustment would be from Houston to Denver. Let's say I make 100k in Houston what's a rough equivalent in Denver?

Unfortunately a lot of lateral jobs pay less in Denver than they do in Houston. We're making it work on essentially 10% more in salary than what I had in Texas.

125k comes to mind but that might be high.

That's probably a good figure if lifestyle isn't adjusted. Not just because of Covid, but we're going out to eat a lot less than we did in Houston. That's helping a great deal with finances.

agdaddy04 said:

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Unfortunately a lot of lateral jobs pay less in Denver than they do in Houston. We're making it work on essentially 10% more in salary than what I had in Texas.

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Thanks for the info. Potentially leaving upstream engineering for a data scientist role so not necessarily lateral move but compensation difference is about 5-10% based on my research.

As I was reading a couple pages ago I read something on property taxes. Can't imagine them being higher than Houston....for reference I live inside the loop in the heights. It's a popular place in Houston

Property taxes are definitely a lot less here, but you do have state income tax. Home price here was also double and the housing market right now is absolutely nuts. We bought in 2019 and the "value" has already gone up $120k. We don't have quite as low property taxes as we should because we bought a newer build that's in a "metro" area that is taxed similarly to MUD's in Houston to pay for the utility infrastructure.

We lived inside 635 in Dallas, and our property taxes here are WAY less.

In terms of income comparison, I would focus on housing.

If you can figure that out you'll be fine no matter the income change.

Housing prices since we moved here from DFW in 2015 have shot up.

ec2004 said:

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In terms of income comparison, I would focus on housing.

If you can figure that out you'll be fine no matter the income change.

Housing prices since we moved here from DFW in 2015 have shot up.

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Thanks for the advice, I've started to look at housing and there's definitely a price difference for a 2000 sqft relative to houston costs lol....this should be fun

In yalls opinions are publics of good standard? My wife and I had always thought about private school in houston at least middle through high school.

IMHO, generally speaking, the public schools here are better than their Texas equivalents. And there is more flexibility: you don't have to attend the public school you're zoned to because you can apply elsewhere to be admitted.

Schall 02 said:

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And there is more flexibility: you don't have to attend the public school you're zoned to because you can apply elsewhere to be admitted.

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This is a huge fail IMO.

My wife works for DougCo Schools, it is completely broken, (and broke, yet one of the highest incomes in the USA)

At least through high school. My perception is that public universities in Colorado lack the resources to compete with the heavyweight state schools in large states (Texas, California, etc).

I can only say that our kids attend a charter school in Douglas County and it is amazing. I would pay private school tuition dollars for the education they are getting.

They were in our neighborhood elementary school until last year which was also good. Better than our neighborhood school in DFW.

I actually have this same impression, although our kids are not close to college so I may not be very educated on college options in state.

But for the time being I'm being aggressive on college savings with the thought of out of state college being a real possibility.

ec2004 said:

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I can only say that our kids attend a charter school in Douglas County and it is amazing. I would pay private school tuition dollars for the education they are getting.

They were in our neighborhood elementary school until last year which was also good. Better than our neighborhood school in DFW.

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There's some good schools, but as a whole if you look at grading system of schools (this may be a flawed way to look at it) - Texas is much better. However, we open enrolled at a charter school and absolutely love it.

My street has ~20 homes, and there are 7 six year olds all in kindergarten, yet none of them go to the same school. My kid is the only one going to the school we're zoned too. The open enrollment is ridiculous. I don't understand the benefit. For decades, people have moved to where they want their kids to go to school. But now, with charter schools being built every year (they have a different capital budget then public schools, even though they are public), and then open enrollment, it's just a cluster.

Maybe I'm old school mentality, but I chose to not get caught up in the rate race of charter and open enrollment. One of my neighbor moms (and she's 7 years older then me) said they didn't go to the one they were zoned to because she called that school and the other nearby to set up a tour, and the one they are zoned to didn't call back.

A f-in tour! For a public elementary school. ughh..

I'm biased because my kids attend (and I teach in) private schools, but that was true before we moved from Texas as well.

I'm not a huge fan of some of the required curriculum from a political/social perspective because it doesn't match our values. I think those trends are here to stay so our kids will continue in private school. We have a 1st grader, a middle-schooler, and a sophomore and senior in high school. We'd be comfortable sending them to the public schools we are zoned to herein Douglas County if not for the piece I mentioned above.

The charter schools aren't completely immune from those same concerns, but there are some phenomenal charter schools in this area.

We went the charter school route because when we were moving here it was a whirl-wind of house hunting in the summer of 2019 right before my daughter was to start kindergarten. We knew general area of where we wanted to live but were picking between 4 neighborhoods that were all zoned to different schools. We picked the charter based on the size of it and curriculum and because it was centrally located. We felt overwhelmed by the open-enrollment nature of everything.

The neighborhood we ended up buying into does have a school right down the street that's a new K-8, but they are what's called "project based learning" and so we've opted not to change to that philosophy just yet. Seems odd to me to not have classrooms and they also group multiple grades together at one time.

Oh and thank goodness we did choose charter school route because the "regular" public schools were shut down for covid for most of the fall but our daughters school has been in-person the entire year.

agdaddy04 said:

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Oh and thank goodness we did choose charter school route because the "regular" public schools were shut down for covid for most of the fall but our daughters school has been in-person the entire year.

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That's what weird, and frustrating about these charter schools. They are public (free to attend) schools, but don't have the same rules or capital budgetsa of the actual public schools, as you experienced with yours.

My town is in dire need of new schools due to growth and repair of existing. We haven't built a public school in the 7 years I've been here, and Parker has grown roughly 20% in size in that time. Overwhelmingly new families since it's all new build.
Literally, my elementary school had a virtual meeting a few weeks ago about considering taking 6th grade out and moving it to middle school, yet the middle school they'd move it to is at capacity and can't take the kids. That is the kind of problem we're dealing with.

But of course a new charter school opens up every year. I don't know who funds them or how they get operating funding, but it's not douglas county, so it's just weird (state funded though). Every parent wants to send their kids to the nice new shiny school, and the existing ones are neglected with no money to upgrade or build new because of overcapacity.

We just don't like the whole reapplication every year for students at charter schools. We know someone who has two kids, they got on that charter school list when they were 2 years old or whathave you.. then kids are in 2nd and 4th grade or whatever, and one kid doesn't get accepted (grades, behavior.. what ever the reason). So now they have 1 child at one school and another somewhere else. I don't want to have a chance at putting myself in that situation.

And they are all k-8 anyway, so your kid ends up in zoned (or the one of your choice) high school, having to make all new friends.

I get the desire on the parent side.. I'm more angry at the district for how it's run. Honestly the district should just shut down it's school branch and let charter schools take over. They pretty much already are as it is. It's like we have two public services competing with each other.

Very weird. I'm up in Erie so we straddle St Vrain and Boulder Valley school districts. They've both been building a lot of new public schools.

Regarding reapplication to the charter school, we don't have to do that. Once you're in, you're in - so maybe that's school to school decision? We're at Aspen Ridge Prep School.

Thriller said:

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I'm biased because my kids attend (and I teach in) private schools, but that was true before we moved from Texas as well.

I'm not a huge fan of some of the required curriculum from a political/social perspective because it doesn't match our values. I think those trends are here to stay so our kids will continue in private school. We have a 1st grader, a middle-schooler, and a sophomore and senior in high school. We'd be comfortable sending them to the public schools we are zoned to herein Douglas County if not for the piece I mentioned above.

The charter schools aren't completely immune from those same concerns, but there are some phenomenal charter schools in this area.

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Thank you for sharing your thoughts, the political/social aspects are part of the reason we are heavily considering private school. Are there any Jesuit private schools in denver?

There ls a Jesuit HS on the SE side of town. My boys attend a Lasallian Catholic HS on the SW side. We are right in the middle of the two.

There are also 2 archdiocesan high schools. One is on the east side in Aurora. The other is on the north side in Broomfield.

I teach at a Catholic K-8 on the border of Highlands Ranch and Centennial.

agdaddy04 said:

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Very weird. I'm up in Erie so we straddle St Vrain and Boulder Valley school districts. They've both been building a lot of new public schools.

Regarding reapplication to the charter school, we don't have to do that. Once you're in, you're in - so maybe that's school to school decision? We're at Aspen Ridge Prep School.

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this was american academy. They are all run independently, so yeh different rules.

62strat said:

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agdaddy04 said:

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Oh and thank goodness we did choose charter school route because the "regular" public schools were shut down for covid for most of the fall but our daughters school has been in-person the entire year.

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But of course a new charter school opens up every year. I don't know who funds them or how they get operating funding, but it's not douglas county, so it's just weird (state funded though). Every parent wants to send their kids to the nice new shiny school, and the existing ones are neglected with no money to upgrade or build new because of overcapacity.

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Charter Schools receive the same per pupil funding as any other school in their district (or the "sponsor district" its sometimes called). There are also many different grants for charter school startup and capital construction. Charters will also fundraise and solicit donations for gaps in capital funding. At least this is how it went when I worked in public school finance 10 years ago.

Some good info here about them I found after I posted. Many thing I didn't know, like teachers at charters don't have to have a teaching license.

https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdechart/faq

Many charter schools do abide by the state requirements for certification, but you are correct they have more flexibility in this.

Some charters say if you have a degree in engineering and are a good teacher, we won't get caught up that you don't have the state teaching certification process completed.

If that is a big deal to those parents they should send their kids to the neighborhood schools who follow guidelines from the state.


Edit to add: when we researched charter schools, 3 of 4 required certifications.

To add on to this, many charters require an alternate certification process to be completed within a year or two to get new teachers certified with a license.

Was just talking about the game tonight with my wife. Would've definitely preferred it stay in Boulder, but I think we'll be down for going as well.

I'm very happy with the elementary school my kids attend (4th and 2nd grade).

I'd try to get 10-20% CoL bump, but I'd expect/be happy with 0-10%. The "sunshine tax" is real, and the increase in quality of life is amazing. It took my parents a couple years to realize I wasn't joking when I said it would take $1 million annual comp (5-6x comp at that time) for me to move back to Texas... and that I'd move back to Colorado after 1-2 years.