Teacher ? Cook county (Chicago, Arlington Heights, Schaumburg: low crime, house prices, teaching jobs)

[lisaurart]

Is is true that as a teacher working in Cook county, you must also live in Cook county??

I have been looking in the Lake Zurich/Barrington area, any other nice areas with simliar house prices, lower, crime, good schools, in Cook??

Is Barrington considered Cook?


Thanks everyone.
Lisa

[Frank the Tank]

Originally Posted by lisaurart

Is is true that as a teacher working in Cook county, you must also live in Cook county??

I have been looking in the Lake Zurich/Barrington area, any other nice areas with simliar house prices, lower, crime, good schools, in Cook??

Is Barrington considered Cook?


Thanks everyone.
Lisa

There definitely isn't any type of Cook County requirement because the school system is highly decentralized - there are lots of individual school districts without any type of county-level entity. To get a job teaching in the Chicago Public Schools specifically, you have to live in the City of Chicago, which is within Cook County (there might be exceptions if you start out living and teaching in the city but then subsequently move to the suburbs while keeping the teaching job in the city). Otherwise, I'm not aware of any of the suburban school districts in Cook County (and for that matter, DuPage, Lake, Will, and the other Chicago area counties) that have any type of residency requirements.

Keep in mind that Cook County is a huge area that isn't defined in the same manner as, say, DuPage and Lake Counties. Cook encompasses the entire City of Chicago, North Shore suburbs such as Winnetka and Evanston, northwest suburbs such as Schaumburg, Arlington Heights, and parts of Barrington (to answer one of your other questions), western suburbs such as Oak Park and LaGrange, and south suburbs such as Homewood and Harvey. The county is really a proxy for the entire Chicago area, so you ought to narrow down the parameters a bit.

A better way to approach this is to see what geographic area of the Chicago area that you'd like to live and/or work in (north, west, or south) and then examine how close you want to be to the city. It appears as though that you're looking in the north suburbs right now, which generally have pretty good school districts - Arlington Heights, Palatine, and Buffalo Grove are nice suburbs that are all close to the Lake Zurich/Barrington areas you've been looking at so far.

In summary, unless you want to work in the Chicago Public Schools, you're not going to face any residency requirements for teaching jobs, so you definitely don't need to base your decision on where to live (such as county lines) on that factor.

[lisaurart]

[quote=Frank the Tank;In summary, unless you want to work in the Chicago Public Schools, you're not going to face any residency requirements for teaching jobs, so you definitely don't need to base your decision on where to live (such as county lines) on that factor.[/QUOTE]


Thanks, Frank. I think you have answered several of my questions on this forum and it has been very helpful. If we move to the area, my husband will be working in Des Plaines, so I have been trying to find an area with the best combinations of good schools, low crime, nice houses in mid to upper 400's.
Since our house money is from the South, the company will give us a COLA but still dom't want to push the budget too much.

Thanks again for your help.
Lisa

[jenmal]

We are moving from the south (Atlanta area) back to Mt. Prospect next month. Mt. Prospect is next to Des Plaines, and has much more highly rated schools. We have two school age kids, so the district was very important to us. Arlington Hts. is also nice, but the taxes are more than Mt. Prospect, and with reciprocal library and park district agreements, we felt we could get more for our money in MP. Prospect High School (which MP and parts of Arlington Hts feed into) is the #18 school in the state by ACT rankings. Not too shabby. Lots of AP classes, and some great teachers. (Husband and I actually grew up in MP.) We have also lived in the Barrington area (7 yrs. ago) and while it was very nice, and more rural, much of that has changed, unless you are willing to spend a TON of money. The schools are also good (in Barrington), the Stevenson High School district is one of the best in the state, and usually is nationally ranked as well. Be prepared for really high taxes though. If you are from the south, you may see your tax bill more than double! It can be hard to swallow, especially if the house you are leaving is twice the size of what can be bought in the Chicago area. Best of luck!

[lisaurart]

Originally Posted by jenmal

We are moving from the south (Atlanta area) back to Mt. Prospect next month. Mt. Prospect is next to Des Plaines, and has much more highly rated schools. We have two school age kids, so the district was very important to us. Arlington Hts. is also nice, but the taxes are more than Mt. Prospect, and with reciprocal library and park district agreements, we felt we could get more for our money in MP. Prospect High School (which MP and parts of Arlington Hts feed into) is the #18 school in the state by ACT rankings. Not too shabby. Lots of AP classes, and some great teachers. (Husband and I actually grew up in MP.) We have also lived in the Barrington area (7 yrs. ago) and while it was very nice, and more rural, much of that has changed, unless you are willing to spend a TON of money. The schools are also good (in Barrington), the Stevenson High School district is one of the best in the state, and usually is nationally ranked as well. Be prepared for really high taxes though. If you are from the south, you may see your tax bill more than double! It can be hard to swallow, especially if the house you are leaving is twice the size of what can be bought in the Chicago area. Best of luck!

Thanks for the info. It is quite a sticker shock, yes, and we don't want to get in too deeply. I will certainly will check out Mt. Prospect. Thanks again for the insight.