Family with Young Children moving from DC to Burlington (Williston: best cities, how much)

[court25]

We have lived in Washington, DC for over 10 years and are looking for a more quite, relaxed way of life where we can raise our two kids (9 months and 5 years old). We have always loved Burlington and have family on the NY side of Lake Champlain and are now just trying to pull the trigger on actually moving. My husband will actually be working remotely and keeping the same job and salary he has here in DC but the more I read about high taxes and no jobs.....it's very discouraging.

We are tired of the craziness around here, and would love to hear some positive stories from people with young kids who have moved to Burlington. How have you adjusted, how are the schools? Any reccomendations on places to live?

We had also been looking at Portland, ME but I feel that the Burlington area would be a much better place to raise kids and has so much more to offer in terms of summer and winter activities.

Thanks for the feedback ahead of time!

[vter]

The only issue with jobs for your husband is that if he were to lose his telecommuting job there wouldn't be a lot for him to fall back on locally. There are some firms around such as GE Healthcare IT, Mywebgrocer.com, Dealer.com, and a lot of smaller businesses.
That said too...make sure that you have high speed internet access available to you. There are areas of Vermont (mostly rural) that still do not have high speed access.
Lots of stuff to do with kids. I believe there is a group on Meetup.com. Lots of playgroups, open gyms etc.
Hopefully someone who has moved here recently can chime in. I grew up here so not sure how much help I can be.

[arwm]

we haven't moved there yet, but the opportunities for kids (and good public schools) was part of our decision... feel free to PM if you would like to talk more. also worth looking through older posts on here.

you might want to check out these links:

Find & Go Seek - Vermont's Find & Go Seek

very cool. can also e-mail the person who runs the site, she was very helpful.

also of note:

Men's Health Dads : Parents : The 100 Best (and Worst) Places to Raise a Family

Backpacker Magazine - The Best Cities to Raise an Outdoor Kid

Burlington ranked among safest places to live | The Burlington Free Press | Burlington, Vermont


America's Health Rankings - State Healthstats

[BickleTravis]

You can't underestimate the difficulty of finding a job here.
Your husband has a telecommuting job... what line of work are you in?
Burlington schools are not where I would want my kids. I went to school in Burlington. BHS was bad when I was there, it's a lot worse now. I knew kids doing heroin in high school and all I hear is that it has gotten worse. Locals move away from Burlington to avoid sending their kids to BHS. Rice is the only private option in town, and it's a Catholic school. The good high school in the Burlington area is CVU.

[Evan_Lanctot]

You also can't underestimate how bad the drug problem is there too.

[momnh]

We moved from NH and find the elementary school (Williston) to be far superior than what our choices were in the particular city we moved from. That was a huge draw as it meant we wouldn't need to pay for private school. We've been here 18 months now and it's been great. My kids have made a lot of friends and we've then met their parents and have made some good friends of our own. We find it to be a nice area if you like to do outdoor activities with your kids. We're up at Bolton every weekend and see several families we know each time, and we just got back from the outdoor skating rink in Waitsfield.

There is a real fear of eventually being jobless in paradise, so we're living below our means right now to save money, and making plans to start our own business when/if the time comes. We're committed to staying here.