proudaggie02 said:

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agdaddy04 said:

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Well don't let anyone tell you there aren't mosquitoes up here. Goodness they're terrible at dusk during the summer. Although I know some folks that live closer to Denver and say that they don't see them as much.

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Interesting. I don't recall ever seeing mosquitoes in Colorado.

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Huh? There's mosquitoes all over the front range along any river or wetland.

NColoradoAG said:

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proudaggie02 said:

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agdaddy04 said:

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Well don't let anyone tell you there aren't mosquitoes up here. Goodness they're terrible at dusk during the summer. Although I know some folks that live closer to Denver and say that they don't see them as much.

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Interesting. I don't recall ever seeing mosquitoes in Colorado.

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Huh? There's mosquitoes all over the front range along any river or wetland.

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Cool, fine with me as long as they continue to stay away from me. I've been here 12+ years in either DTC or Lone Tree, and I can't recall ever seeing a mosquito or getting bit by one. My wife said there were a few last year in Breckenridge over July 4th.

Maybe we should donate your body to science so we can all benefit from your mosquito repelling powers.

Thought about it some more, as I suffered a TBI in 2018 so my memory is not what it used to be. The only place in the Denver area I can remember seeing mosquitoes was at Meadow Hills Golf Course near Cherry Creek Reservoir maybe 2 times many years ago (I've probably played there 50 times). For 6 months out of the year (early August - mid November, early March - early June), I either coach or watch a daughter's soccer practice 5 evenings/week and watch games every Saturday and some Sundays. I've probably averaged 50 rounds of golf/year. I've never needed to use repellent.

I say this not to be argumentative, but just to share my observations. I'm overly analytical. I'll point out that Erie where agdaddy04 lives (I don't know where NoCo lives) are quite a ways from me.

Also, I don't do much water activity so I don't doubt NoCo saying they are more prevalent near water.

I'm in Greeley

You guys ever up for getting together? Maybe during football season? I know we're quite spread out but I'm willing to drive.

The more Aggies the better ! I'd be down.

Yep, that sounds good to me.

So regarding the whole DCSD disaster, if I want to consider the areas zoned to those schools, am I signing up for a complete mess? Would you avoid the area? We can't swing private school. We are definitely Christian conservatives, but also want to send our kids to a functioning SD. Still dealing with the caveats of 700-750k budget and want max 45 mins to downtown if getting there by 7am and leaving by 4pm.

Look at Littleton? There is Littleton ISD and Jeffco. My wife is a teacher in Jeffco and my daughter goes to elementary. I haven't noticed any BS things going on. 45 min to downtown might be possible too.

AggieLandman04 said:

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So regarding the whole DCSD disaster, if I want to consider the areas zoned to those schools, am I signing up for a complete mess? Would you avoid the area? We can't swing private school. We are definitely Christian conservatives, but also want to send our kids to a functioning SD. Still dealing with the caveats of 700-750k budget and want max 45 mins to downtown if getting there by 7am and leaving by 4pm.

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if you are pro charter school you'll probably be fine. That's what the board wants. 100% charter.

do you have an issue with charters? We had no idea what they were prior to coming to Colorado, but we have our daughter in one in St. Vrain School District. She really enjoys it and we have a good feeling about the teachers and principal.

agdaddy04 said:

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do you have an issue with charters? We had no idea what they were prior to coming to Colorado, but we have our daughter in one in St. Vrain School District. She really enjoys it and we have a good feeling about the teachers and principal.

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Honestly, I'm not sure what a charter is. Is enrollment dependent upon locale? It'll be tough choosing a school if this happens because there's a chance we would rent first before buying.

agdaddy04 said:

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do you have an issue with charters? We had no idea what they were prior to coming to Colorado, but we have our daughter in one in St. Vrain School District. She really enjoys it and we have a good feeling about the teachers and principal.

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two issues; the fact that they can choose to not admit your kid at any point in their progress, or a sibling for that matter. It's not a guaranteed education, and I have a problem calling that 'public education', because it's not really. It's 'free' private education, that ends up taking a lot of funding from actual public schools.

Also, they don't go through high school, so they get funneled back into 'real' public high school, where they have to deal with meeting all new friends, and have meetings with their counselors on trying to adapt, which is not really what my wife wants to do during her day. She spends a lot of time dealing with this, it's not 1 or 2 kids. She shouldn't have to, if everyone just went to their zoned schools, along with the nearby members of their community. Open enrollment is also part of this issue. I don't like it personally.

I'm sure it has its merits, but public education has existed successfully in many parts of the US for a long time and it seems like it's trying to be reinvented here for no real benefit.

AggieLandman04 said:

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agdaddy04 said:

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do you have an issue with charters? We had no idea what they were prior to coming to Colorado, but we have our daughter in one in St. Vrain School District. She really enjoys it and we have a good feeling about the teachers and principal.

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Honestly, I'm not sure what a charter is. Is enrollment dependent upon locale? It'll be tough choosing a school if this happens because there's a chance we would rent first before buying.

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no, it's 'open enrollment' here, in Douglas anyway.
You can move and be zoned to school a, but go talk to school b and say I want my kid here, and enroll them.
That then totally could alter the path of middle and high school your kid goes to. Also 3 years later, the sibling might not get in if it's full. Now your kids are going to 2 different schools.
You can also go to a charter school, which is k-8, then go to whatever high school you want.

But I will say, I'm totally open for discussion if anyone knows some real benefits of charter, because I honestly don't know all the ins and outs of them, and only get the viewpoint of my wife's experience with them, which is clearly a bit one sided since it effects her negatively.
I only ever hear neighbors and friends say how they love the teachers.. but that doesn't really tell me anything; I love my kids teachers too, in a regular school.

The entire state is open enrollment. Heck I could put them in Grand Junctiom if we wanted to. The whole thing is very odd. Our neighborhood school is trying out project based learning and lots of people don't like it so we tried the charter school route. We know not all charters are created equal though.

You're guaranteed enrollment in your neighborhood school but many people choose to do open enrollment. You fill out a choice or three schools. Once you're in, you're in.

The charter schools sound a lot like magnet schools in Houston. Possibly a better education but no certainty as to sibling admission, which creates a lot of uncertainty I'd like to avoid. Is the entire debate about masks and CRT? Is that why the board is pushing charters?

There's no certainty about siblings but the one we go to gives preference to it and we're not aware of any that didn't get in. Smaller class sizes too.

So even though our charter is in SVSD, they can make independent decisions which is nice. For example, The school district decided that a typical snow day would be virtual learning. Well that's just not practical and they're already given 8 days a year to cancel. So our charter school will do actual snow days if necessary. They also didn't do mandatory masks when the rest of the district did.

agdaddy04 said:

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So even though our charter is in SVSD, they can make independent decisions which is nice. For example, The school district decided that a typical snow day would be virtual learning. Well that's just not practical and they're already given 8 days a year to cancel. So our charter school will do actual snow days if necessary. They also didn't do mandatory masks when the rest of the district did.

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they are all like that, and see, to me, that describes a private school. Not a part of the school district. Because they can also kick your kid out for hardly any reason at all. Or kick the sibling out. I've known families that this happened to.

Yet it's free, and uses public school funding.

It's just, strange to me. What are they trying to be? Public or private? If private, then charge tuition like all the others. If public, then follow the rules/guidelines/decisions of public and the BOD.

AggieLandman04 said:

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The charter schools sound a lot like magnet schools in Houston. Possibly a better education but no certainty as to sibling admission, which creates a lot of uncertainty I'd like to avoid. Is the entire debate about masks and CRT? Is that why the board is pushing charters?

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oh DCSD has magnet schools too! I have no idea the difference lol.

AggieLandman04 said:

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The charter schools sound a lot like magnet schools in Houston. Possibly a better education but no certainty as to sibling admission, which creates a lot of uncertainty I'd like to avoid. Is the entire debate about masks and CRT? Is that why the board is pushing charters?

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douglas county already left the tri county health, so we had our own mask policy anyway. Our mask mandate went away long before adams and Arapaho counties, in businesses and schools. They haven't been required this school year.

I've never heard of anyone getting kicked out.

https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdechart Is a good explanation.

Not everything is paid for. We do have fees that have to be paid yearly. We also need to do fundraising for things not paid for by the state. It actually helps the district by reducing overcrowding. Look we were initially worried about schools and what to do. Turns out it's been good for our daughter. She'll go to Erie HS after 8th and most of her friends will too.

Building a regular school helps with overcrowding just the same though. That's another issue of mine in DCSD. How wealthy the county is, but we got no money for schools. For new ones or to fix up and repair existing.
My wife's school had some water damage, they pulled out carpet and just left that **** for a year lol.

But there's a shiny new charter school down the road!

Sorry, hope I don't sound like I'm dogging on you, i believe parents should decide what's best for their kids and their situation and it's none of my business.
My neighbors who moved in 3 years ago, instantly our new best friends. 3 boys similar age to ours, we talk to them almost daily.
One of their twin 7 year olds is highly special needs since birth. Wheel chair, non verbal, etc.
They open enrolled in another elementary school because they have the SPED adaptive program there, and not at our neighborhood school. Obviously the siblings open enrolled as well, so our kid doesn't go to school with his best friend neighbor. So of course in their situation it totally makes sense, and without open enrollment they wouldn't have bought this house, opting for something zoned to the other school, and we would have never met them.

I get it and don't think there's a one size fits all. If our neighborhood school wasn't doing some experiment then we'd have probably sent her there.

I believe construction is funded differently for public vs charter. Charter has to follow certain rules and only gets their money from the marijuana excise tax.

This is probably enough on schools though…

agdaddy04 said:

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I get it and don't think there's a one size fits all. If our neighborhood school wasn't doing some experiment then we'd have probably sent her there.

I believe construction is funded differently for public vs charter. Charter has to follow certain rules and only gets their money from the marijuana excise tax.

This is probably enough on schools though…

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see I remember voting for marijuana in 2012, a big part of my choice being that taxes went to help fund schools. Little did I know, not the neighborhood schools apparently!
Does none of it really go to the regular public schools?

At that time I didn't have kids so I was way removed from all the ins and outs of school in Colorado. And my wife didn't get license transferred in time to continue counseling so she worked for sports authority corporate for a few years before returning.

Yeh let's talk about warmer weather. Two more days of this bs!

AggieLandman04 said:

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So regarding the whole DCSD disaster, if I want to consider the areas zoned to those schools, am I signing up for a complete mess? Would you avoid the area?

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No, not at all. I love this area, and I've been really happy with the elementary school my daughters attend. There might be a little risk going forward, but I'm really not worried at all. I'm a recovering landman, and I'd be happy to talk.

proudaggie02 said:

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AggieLandman04 said:

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So regarding the whole DCSD disaster, if I want to consider the areas zoned to those schools, am I signing up for a complete mess? Would you avoid the area?

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No, not at all. I love this area, and I've been really happy with the elementary school my daughters attend. There might be a little risk going forward, but I'm really not worried at all. I'm a recovering landman, and I'd be happy to talk.

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That's good to hear. We'd likely try the school we're zoned to and then re-assess if we're not liking it (I'm wondering if we'll be too late for open enrollment deadlines.) Me and the fam are actually heading up there for a quick weekend scouting trip in case this actually comes to fruition. If it happens, we'll be there in June. I would definitely be up for meeting up with other Ags in the area.

A topic I'm sure has been covered before, but the price changes this past year have increased greatly and made me second guess my original decision. Our utility prices have gone through the roof with Xcel so I'm debating solar panels. However, a big part of the increase has been natural gas prices and obviously solar wouldn't help that.

Who here has installed them? Felt it's been worth it?

Open enrollment for next year has already started. Not to say you wouldn't get what you wanted, but I think you have it right with trying out the zoned school first. During May/June of when we were trying to find a house to move up here from Houston we knew a general area we wanted to be but not the exact neighborhood. That's why enrolling at the charter made sense, because it was centrally located and we could 'plan" for where she was going to start kindergarten.

agdaddy04 said:

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A topic I'm sure has been covered before, but the price changes this past year have increased greatly and made me second guess my original decision. Our utility prices have gone through the roof with Xcel so I'm debating solar panels. However, a big part of the increase has been natural gas prices and obviously solar wouldn't help that.

Who here has installed them? Felt it's been worth it?

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Prices for electricity or natural gas have not increased for residential customers once 2018/early 2019, except for fuel cost pass-through.

If you talk to solar companies, be very cautious about what they promise you in terms of "break-even" periods and/or claims about what Xcel is going to do. There are pending gas ANd electric rate cases before the PUC right now, but nothing is finalized yet and they definitely are not in effect.

If you get info from the solar companies about break-even period or claims about the utility is planning, send me a PM andI'll get you a direct answer so you can make an informed decision.

Regarding electricity, our humidifier is proving to be a lot more expensive to use than I originally expected.

For natural gas, our usage has gone down from last year but expense is up quite a bit. In their terms we're using 5.7 therms/day this year vs 7 therm/day last year. Cost is $4.79/day this year vs $4.06/day last year.

I've always been against solar as the math never seemed to make sense.

I am curious about the Xcel promise to go to 80% renewable by 2030.

https://coloradosun.com/2021/02/25/xcel-clean-energy-plan-cost-carbon-reduction/