In our last blog, we talked about the importance of considering the school district when choosing your next home. Not only does it impact where your kids might go to school, but it can also add value to your home.
How much flexibility do you have in your home search?
For many, a reasonable commute to work is the first limiting factor that determines where you will live. If you have greater flexibility, you may want to start with finding a school district within a certain radius that is a reasonable commute and narrow your search from there. If you have a more defined area that you would like to live, you can still evaluate the specific schools in that area.
When you are conducting a home search, the school district and nearest school information are available in the MLS. You can then look up data about that specific school.
Where can you get good information about Colorado School Districts and Colorado Schools?
Here is an overview of available resources:
Colorado Department of Education:
http://www.cde.state.co.us/index_home.htm
This website has tons of information about Colorado schools. You can find out detailed information about a specific school’s performance by reading their School Accountability Reports. The system allows you to search for specific schools. Or, if you are looking for information about Charter Programs and special programs offered, this is the place to go.
Education News Colorado
http://www.ednewscolorado.org
This website offers news about Colorado education. They provide up to date info on how schools in Colorado performed on standardized testing, etc, and how they compare to other Colorado schools.
Great Schools
http://www.greatschools.org
This website allows you to search for all different types of schools in any area and compare them. For example, if you are trying to decide whether you want to move to Lakewood or Denver, you could compare the school districts in those areas. Or, if you wanted to compare specific schools in a particular neighborhood, you can do that as well.
In our next blog, we’ll take a look at top-performing school districts in Colorado.
