Large Family Relocating from New England

[tfox]

Really the closest suburbs to DT are still going to be about 20-30 minute commute in Rush hour. Some further than that. Any closer than about 20 minutes away will almost certainly be in the city of Denver itself.

Most of the suburban districts are pretty good -- even inside of Denver there are some good schools. If you're serious about living close to DT you can research individual schools, as their are usually some good schools in all of the districts.

The "best" suburban school districts are thought to be Cherry Creek, Douglas County, Littleton, and Boulder Valley. None of them are particularly close to DT. Parts of the Littleton and Cherry Creek districts are not too bad in terms of distance, though, but the closer in parts of these districts are also tend to be the most expensive parts of them. (No surprise there). Surprisingly, the "best" district (at least according to conventional wisdom), Cherry Creek, contains both neighborhoods of multimillion dollar mansions as well as some pretty low-income areas (though nothing too shabby).

The state's largest district, Jefferson County, does have some very good schools but also some not so good schools. Parts of this district are fairly close to downtown -- parts of Arvada or Lakewood, for instance. Lakewood High School, for example, is a very highly ranked school but there are some other schools around that school that are not so highly ranked.