Best Burbs for Teacher? (Chicago, Rockford: sales, renting, health insurance)

[tenortodd]

Hello all,

My family and I are considering a move somewhere in the US next year. We are in VA now. The Chicago burbs are one of our possible choices. I grew up in Rockford (till high school).

Can you tell me some of the best burbs for what we're looking for:

1) anywhere up to an hour from Chicago
2) lower(ish) cost of living
3) possibly a little more rural...or at least less city-like
4) less traffic
5) safe
6) good place to raise a family

So far Wheaton has been recommended to us by friends.

Any help would be appreciated.

[mr roboto]

Crystal Lake/Lake In The Hills area. Further out, quieter, commuter rail to the city if you need it. Good school districts, my wife taught there for 9 years.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by tenortodd

Hello all,

My family and I are considering a move somewhere in the US next year. We are in VA now. The Chicago burbs are one of our possible choices. I grew up in Rockford (till high school).

Can you tell me some of the best burbs for what we're looking for:

1) anywhere up to an hour from Chicago
2) lower(ish) cost of living
3) possibly a little more rural...or at least less city-like
4) less traffic
5) safe
6) good place to raise a family

So far Wheaton has been recommended to us by friends.

Any help would be appreciated.

...there are a whole lot of things that "relative comparisons" are not going to be enough to base your decision upon. The "lower(ish) cost of living" in Wheaton is really only in comparison to "much higher than US average" for the WHOLE REGION when factor in things like cost of housing, property taxes, sales taxes, utility taxes, and that tends to get things massively out of whack for teachers that typically start at modest salary but count on annual escalation. Not good when you need affordable start...

Similarly the idea that Wheaton or frankly any town in the region with decent local employment and access to jobs in Chicago is going to have other than "kind of miserable traffic" is a fallacy. Even in parts of the region with very good (by US standards) transit there is still a HUGE number of people that drive to work and that results in rush hour traffic that is flat out maddening.

Wheaton is less "city like" than Chicago, and probably does have large lots / more spacing between homes in many parts of town than suburbs that are more dense but it would not be fair to call it "rural". Even adjacent towns like Warrenville or Winfield are not really "rural" so much as more likely to have the suburban pattern of even more widely spaced homes, which frankly is out of favor as it means you can't walk anywhere...

The other factors to consider are the extreme competition for good paying teaching jobs -- there are often THOUSANDS of applicants for ANY opening in nice districts like Wheaton. The pay is decent and the generous retirement benefits for older teachers are currently 100% locked in by court decisions but that is not as lucrative for newer teachers and the state truly is the worst of all 50 for funding those benefits so I would not count anything. The other reasons that so many apply for teaching jobs in the suburbs is because the schools are mostly well maintained, often newer, and largely filled with parents that except good performance. The challenge is with so many applicants the hiring decisions are often based on who has been an aide in the district -- the districts get a couple of years of significantly reduced cost experience in this way but it puts folks from outside the area at a huge disadvantage. It also tends to make it less likely that teachers already holding advanced degrees will be hired into a nice district...


While Wheaton is safe, a good place to raise a family, generally within an hour of Chicago and also has many other nice qualities I am not sure that it really makes sense for someone trying to relocate to the area for a teaching position.

[bigsmoke3238]

Originally Posted by tenortodd

Hello all,

My family and I are considering a move somewhere in the US next year. We are in VA now. The Chicago burbs are one of our possible choices. I grew up in Rockford (till high school).

Can you tell me some of the best burbs for what we're looking for:

1) anywhere up to an hour from Chicago
2) lower(ish) cost of living
3) possibly a little more rural...or at least less city-like
4) less traffic
5) safe
6) good place to raise a family

So far Wheaton has been recommended to us by friends.

Any help would be appreciated.

Carol stream would be my rec but the schools there aren't the best. I'm pretty sure there are a lot more teaching jobs in the city than in the suburbs though. Wheaton is another good choice. I would also recommend possibly Geneva.

[tenortodd]

Thanks for the replies. Just to clarify: I'm an 8-year teacher with multiple degrees...so I wouldn't be starting at a ridiculously low salary...I'd be in the low-middle of the range...and I'm very competitive with other applicants. (I'm at a very high achieving school district in VA right now.)

I understand that I won't find "rural" near Chicago...but bigger plots of land, more woodlands, and less traffic are what we're looking for.

I grew up taking trips into Chicago and I also did my masters in Madison, WI, so I've been around the area quite a bit.

[agallan]

Chicagoland is a huge area. I strongly recommend you find your teaching job first and then identify potential home locations according to the location of your job. It is kind of a futile exercise otherwise. You could easily end up in a situation where it takes you more than an hour to get from your home suburb to the suburb of the school you teach at. Even if you end up with a 30 minute drive, it would be a shame if you ended up teaching in a district where you could get a comparable house in a similar neighborhood 5 minutes away. Even as a highly qualified teacher, there are not going to be openings in every district.

Also need more information on what you consider affordable and what you consider a bigger plot of land compared to where you are coming from.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by tenortodd

Thanks for the replies. Just to clarify: I'm an 8-year teacher with multiple degrees...so I wouldn't be starting at a ridiculously low salary...I'd be in the low-middle of the range...and I'm very competitive with other applicants. (I'm at a very high achieving school district in VA right now.)

I understand that I won't find "rural" near Chicago...but bigger plots of land, more woodlands, and less traffic are what we're looking for.

I grew up taking trips into Chicago and I also did my masters in Madison, WI, so I've been around the area quite a bit.

Just to be absolutely clear, I am a former teacher. I have many friends that are still actively teaching or involved in administration. The fiscal situation in essentially EVERY district in Illinois is very very much at or near crisis levels. The environment is such that hiring teachers with advanced degrees severelly hurts the district's ability to put the desired numbers of teachers in the classrooms. It simply makes much more economic sense to get teachers with less educational credentials and frankly little experience but a willingness to be an aide for a year or more. BTW Starting teachers in nice Illinois suburbs do not start at "ridiculously low salaries", this is not a rural area, but the salary even for teachers with a decade of experience and a PhD is likely insufficient to live in a majority of DuPage or Lake communities unless spouse is also working full time...

I totally sympathize with teachers that are well qualified but the fiscal situation is really worse here than it ever has been.

Even in normally high demand areas, like special ed, there are no shortcuts to getting hired in a nice district.

Not surprisingly, rural areas downstate are facing a different kind of crisis -- applicants are unavailable. Period. Full stop. Neither young people nor experienced teachers are willing to work for low wages in the rural areas AND face the likelihood that the schools will consolidate or slash new hires.

There is a word for what is happening to teachers in Illinois in starts with the sixth letter of the alphabet and ends with ucked. The leaders of Illinois education unions / lobby are as much to blame as anyone, they have consistently ignored reality and backed a political system that is utterly unsustainable. They have foolishly looked the other way when wedges to drive younger teachers against retirees have been embedded in the guarantees of automatic 3% cost of living increases that are utterly unjustifiable when many district have frozen pay for teachers with growing families...

If you grew up here you can ask your friends. I hope you realize I am telling you these things in a similar vein...

BTW Despite the protestations of teachers in Wisconsin the reforms that were made there mostly seem to have to resulted in a more stability for working teachers though many have chosen to no longer support the unions as it is not a requirement.

[Lookout Kid]

Give me a break, Chet. We have Kindergarten and Drivers Ed instructors making six figure salaries in our districts, even though they work nine months of the year and have one of the shortest school days in the nation. They have excellent health insurance and pensions. How are they getting, uh, screwed again?

Also, your insistence that every district in the state is in dire financial straits is simply untrue. Many districts are VERY well funded, and some are running surpluses. I agree that signs for the future are ominous, but at THIS TIME we have still postponed our day of reckoning. And when that day does come, I have complete faith that the teachers unions will not budge an inch.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

Give me a break, Chet. We have Kindergarten and Drivers Ed instructors making six figure salaries in our districts, even though they work nine months of the year and have one of the shortest school days in the nation. They have excellent health insurance and pensions. How are they getting, uh, screwed again?

Also, your insistence that every district in the state is in dire financial straits is simply untrue. Many districts are VERY well funded, and some are running surpluses. I agree that signs for the future are ominous, but at THIS TIME we have still postponed our day of reckoning. And when that day does come, I have complete faith that the teachers unions will not budge an inch.

I completely agree that there are lots of Drivers Ed teachers making out like bandits. Truth be told many years ago in a faculty lunchrom I called out a particularly nasty Drivers Ed teacher and coach that not only was grossly overpaid but bullied the heck out of kids for saying something pig-headed about a kid that was on the effeminate side. He was also the union rep in that district and no surprise he was instrumental in seeing me leave that districts. I taught my own kids how to drive and I know I could do that part his job with a third of my brain anesthetized, heck that might be better at it. That said, he was also a coach well liked by the sports minded members of the community and I would not trade the insane schedule of off-season work-outs, practices, games and scouting he personally dove into like a pig in slop. He loved that and the $8K "stipend" he got for coaching was, I am sure not why he did it, but instead the Drivers Ed position was his way of getting back at a community that did not pay for his coaching expertise like he was Bear Bryant ...

I have friends that are kindergarten teachers and I gotta tell ya, the good ones are friggin' angels from heaven -- they get some kids that still don't know how not to poop themselves sitting next to some kid whose achievement-oriented uber parents had the poor things memorizing the quadratic equation as soon as they were weaned off breast milk (probably purchased that online too...). The good kindergarten teachers get kids from those diverse beginnings to all learn cute little stories to read about how to brush their teeth and wash their hands and become healthy little kids. They get kids to figure out things like sq ft by counting the tiles on the floor. They figure out density with little balloons they weigh on scales. They sing the alphabet song in three languages. It is amazing. Then the rest of the teachers spend 12 years messing up...

Anyhow, the teachers unions screwed over their members. Like I said, the retirees continue to get 3% COL increases every year, whether things get more expensive or not. And teachers that are starting out in districts that have frozen wages are stuck trying to figure out to they can afford to stop renting and maybe get a townhouse that is not 50 miles from town. Plus their "Tier II" pension won't let em count of eating other than MREs in retirement while current retirees decide between another world cruise or maybe just buying a sailboat of their own in Baja. It is a messed up system...

[bigsmoke3238]

My relative is a teacher in the area and is struggling to find a good paying job. There really isnt many openings for teachers in the Chicago land area. Unless you want to work as a title 1 or special needs teacher. What degrees do you have? If you have a masters, you might be able to find a job. To get a teaching job in the suburbs, qualifications don't really matter as much as if you have connections in the area.