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My apologies in advance if this is so common a topic and shouldn't be posted here, I'm brand new to this site and haven't quite figured it out yet. But I would love anyone's input if you're so inclined!
My family (husband, 3YO) are Calif natives considering relocating to the Boise area. He's a highly qualified middle school special ed teacher. I'm a writer/editor ready to leave the corporate world who anticipates there probably won't be much of a job market for me there. So questions:
- How is the economy? Is finding a job relatively easy? (Any idea if a family could exist on a teacher's salary there? Because you sure can't in Los Angeles.)
- I've been researching Boise neighborhoods and it seems like there are a lot of differing opinions on the areas. My impression in reading so far is that Nampa is rough, Meridian is crowded and family-centric with big chain stores everywhere, Eagle is expensive and south Boise gets airport noise. We had initially considered Nampa due to the inexpensive housing. We aren't in the greatest neighborhood in L.A., so I'm wondering if it's really that bad, or just compared to other places in Boise...we can certainly handle a little roughness, but I don't want to land in someplace with a lot of gangs, bad schools, etc.
- Along those lines, any recommendations of nice but less expensive areas to look? On zillow, my favorite neighborhood so far is the North End -- I love the old homes and artsy feel. (I'm less inclined toward bland, cookie-cutter new construction and Wal-marts on every corner.)
- What school district(s) should we aim to be in?
- What's the weather like in the extreme, how much snow? (Husband's #1 reason to stay put here is the weather.) Is the inversion thing a big deal?
There's a lot of common questions there so I'd encourage you to poke around old posts for lots more opinions.
- The economy is very good and just about anybody with a pulse can find some sort of work. That being said, the wages for unskilled positions are generally pretty low. There are good high paying jobs here but in most cases you'll have to be in the right professional field and experience helps (engineering, IT, legal, accounting, etc). Teachers salaries are highest in Boise, but from what I understand it's pretty rare for an outsider or new teacher to get hired in Boise. Generally the new teachers will be in West Ada or Canyon County and then can try to transfer over after getting some experience. So I've been told, anyway. Starting pay for teachers is generally fairly low but as you add years of service it gets pretty respectable.
- You can't generalize too much about neighborhoods. To a degree you can get an idea from Zillow and Streetview, but really being here and driving around is best. If you like the North End you'd probably also like the area off of Warm Springs. In the North End, your housing will be cheaper as you move west but your neighborhoods get a lot more transitional too. If you live in a rougher area in LA you'll probably think Nampa is pretty much Mayberry. It has some rough areas but it also has nice areas, and there's more opportunity to own a little property there than in Ada County, if you're so inclined. I wouldn't personally want to live there if I had to drive into Boise every day for work, but again your perspective may be different when you see the area's traffic in comparison to what you see in LA.
- On areas to look I'd really recommend getting a rental for a few months and figuring that out because you might change your mind about things after checking out all the options. You might surprise yourself, basically. In some ways your generalizations about the various areas are accurate but as with most generalizations they're also flawed. For instance I live in an older quiet acre+ neighborhood in Meridian where the houses have lots of character and it is neither crowded nor busy.
- I would shoot for Boise or West Ada (Meridian/Eagle, formally). Boise is generally considered the best but there are good schools in West Ada too. Here are a couple of links if you want to check out specific schools:
Canyon County seems to have more problems with funding than the districts in Ada County, but realistically with good parenting your kids would probably come out of that school system just fine and very well prepared for college.
- Weather in the extreme? I think the record all time high is around 112 and the all time low is around -30. Most years we don't see that, but most years do involve several days with highs in the 100+ range and several days with lows below zero. But overall, aside from about 2 months in winter and maybe 4-6 weeks in the summer, the weather in Boise is very pleasant (if maybe a little warm or perhaps requiring a jacket depending on the time of year). I think the inversion complaints are overblown but it does wear on me a bit to be in fog with lows around zero and highs around 20 for 2-3 weeks straight (wildfire smoke in the summer bothers me more than inversions). Snow isn't generally much of an issue in Boise. I think the average is a total snowfall of around a couple of feet, but it doesn't all come at once and it generally melts fairly quickly unless you're in one of those inversions.
I think the Treasure Valley is a great place to raise a family. I have no qualms with my daughters growing up here at all - in fact I think they've got it pretty good overall.
People say the economy is good here based on one thing - lower unemployment numbers. Construction jobs have recovered, and that's what helped those numbers. There has been NO significant employers who have opened here recently, and this is still an economy based almost solely on construction, real estate, and retail/service. There is a niche tech industry here, but the big news for a new employer is almost always a new call center.
Now, this will be disputed here, so I guess take it for what its worth. I and others on this forum will always disagree in this topic. However, it's pretty unequivocal that the wages here are terribly low, and that it takes knowing someone here to get a job - you won't find one just happening on them online.
Teachers here start at $31k per year. We are ranked 49th in education, and our government has demonstratively waged a war against teachers and education. Beside Mississippi, this may literally be the worst state in the nation for jobs in education. If you want a better chance at getting a job in teaching, look to the smaller towns about an hour outside of Boise.
I've lived here my entire life, but I pretty much confine myself to downtown / North End / East end... anything west of approx 36th / Veteran's Parkway is boring, cookie-cutter dross, and I wouldn't care one bit if it fell into a sinkhole. It could be any other place in the US and you couldn't tell the difference. What makes Boise is those areas I listed above, the river, Greenbelt, and foothills. Those, and its location in the state of Idaho in general. There is nothing special about the rest of it.
I'm going to have to agree with Boisefan88 here, teachers aren't high in demand here. The job that KurtAngleDoesn'tSuck posted is for elementary and is only part time. Wrong grade and highly doubt that they can make in here on part time.
My husband is very highly qualified. He's got the experience, he's got the years, and he's got an extra degree to support his teaching. At one point Nampa had 6 different positions that he easily qualified for. He applied, he reached out with a couple follow up phone calls... they still have one position posted, but they haven't called him at all. They haven't given him any contact. They haven't even had the courtesy to say "nope, we don't want you."
We have not limited our search to Boise, but the entire state of Idaho. Still not getting much response. One interview out of 4 months of applying. This has been the real picture of a certified high school teaching applying in Idaho. We're not giving up. We've got some back up plans and income. But everybody is highly qualified, there's more teachers than jobs, and they favor their own.
I'm going to have to agree with Boisefan88 here, teachers aren't high in demand here. The job that KurtAngleDoesn'tSuck posted is for elementary and is only part time. Wrong grade and highly doubt that they can make in here on part time.
My husband is very highly qualified. He's got the experience, he's got the years, and he's got an extra degree to support his teaching. At one point Nampa had 6 different positions that he easily qualified for. He applied, he reached out with a couple follow up phone calls... they still have one position posted, but they haven't called him at all. They haven't given him any contact. They haven't even had the courtesy to say "nope, we don't want you."
We have not limited our search to Boise, but the entire state of Idaho. Still not getting much response. One interview out of 4 months of applying. This has been the real picture of a certified high school teaching applying in Idaho. We're not giving up. We've got some back up plans and income. But everybody is highly qualified, there's more teachers than jobs, and they favor their own.
I posted a link to 40 different openings in the Boise
District alone, none of which are administrative.
Maybe you should have your husband go to that page?
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