school district help (38 or 20) (Colorado Springs, Monument: fit in, spring break, apartments)

[elevenpast]

Hello, please help me make some decisions as I relocate.
I'm looking for some current opinions on schools in the northern part of COS metro. My work is right where D20 and D38 meet and we are not sure which way to go. It seems they are both great so it may be hard to make a bad choice. My two kids are early elementary.

This forum has a wealth of information, and I would appreciate any help. Which elementary are best, which feed into the best high schools, etc.

[froggin4colorado]

What can you afford? Either one is great!

[Mike from back east]

Most folks here consider these two districts to be equal.

One thing that might be used to consider one over the other is the recent election; D38 area voters nixed a slight tax increase for the sake of schools, whereas D20 area voters approved a slight tax increase for hiring more teachers to lower the number of students per classroom. Not sure how all that breaks down when you look at the scores for the schools. I'd still say they're both so close that it doesn't matter much at all.

The boundary between D38 and D20 is generally Baptist Road. If you live south of Baptist Rd you're in D20, north of Baptist Road you're in D38 - generally. See this old thread for the zip codes involved. Housing along the Baptist Road corridor should be fairly even, I'd be surprised if the comps changed from one side of the road to the other.

[elevenpast]

Froggin, renting at first but eventually something in the 265k range.

[froggin4colorado]

Than D20 will suit your needs. Both districts are comparable in their "greatness"....lol. The only difference is that my teacher friends in D38 recieve ridiculous expensive gifts from wealthy parents and the D20 teachers don't. There is more of a material competitive feel with the parents there on who has what. In fact one of my friends has a teenage daughter in HS and her daughter is bugging her to upgrade her BMW because it doesn't allow her to fit in anymore. Also, she doesn't want to vacation in Baja anymore, she wants to go to Europe like the rest of her friends. And she is expecting her first car to be a BMW when she turns 16 and is horrified when her parents tell her she is getting the used Jeep Cherokee. They only live in Skyway too!
Anyhow, both have higher SES schools and I would prefer to take my kids to D20.

[otowi]

Wow that's absolutely insane froggin. I didn't learn about that other side of the fence until I went off to college and met kids for the first time of the type that went off to Mexico for Spring Break on their parents' dime, who partied all night and flunked out of college on their parents' dime, had apartments and cars on their parents' dime and still had the gall to call home for more $ with some sob story. I'm glad I didn't grow up that way.

[froggin4colorado]

no kidding!! my gf isnt that way is disgusted with her behavior and blames the crowd shes with at school.

[Amery523]

Living in Monument will allow you to be in a more forest-y type of feel, lots of trees, bigger sq. acreage home lot sizes, but with that also comes just a tad more snow, and depending on how your house faces and how "deep" you are surrounded by trees and hills, will determine how easily you can get out to take your kids to school, get groceries, etc when there's a lot of snow on the ground. If you lived in the north part of D20 (Pine Creek/Northgate) you won't have that much of a problem since the homes are newer and therefore not too many large trees. Monument is a much smaller town than the north part of Colorado Springs. My co workers in Monument tell me they frequently drive into Colorado Springs to get things they can't find in Monument. Just know that Monument will have a much smaller town feel than the Springs, so you should definitely consider if you want something like that. When the lot sizes are so big, sometimes kids have problems finding one another to play with, etc. I know for me I would want to make sure my kids had an easy time finding friends and being able to just play outside with tem without having to walk a half mile up the street to find them. Just a couple more things to think about. Don't get me wrong, I love Monument if I could afford it, but there's definitely things to consider.

[elevenpast]

I found something I like in the Briargate - Fairfax neighborhood. Prairie Hills, Timberland, Liberty schools. Anybody care to chime in on this area?

[CTownNative]

Originally Posted by elevenpast

I found something I like in the Briargate - Fairfax neighborhood. Prairie Hills, Timberland, Liberty schools. Anybody care to chime in on this area?

All of Briargate is a good neighborhood, look up crime maps for Colorado Springs. Briargate is a Northern neighborhood not much crime. I got a friend who goes to Liberty High School, he says its a very good school.