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Old 01-22-2011, 11:18 PM
 
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My family and I are trying to decide to take a promotion that will bring us to the DFW area. I have been advised to look in the Grapevine area, I would be working North of the DFW airport in the area around 121 and 635. My wife is a 2nd year {6th grade} teacher and is concerned about being able to find a position in a district close to home. We have a son in the 7th grade this year, so school distict is also important. We have also decided to rent a home until we decide if we are in the area we are happy with and were not going to relocate again, home requirements are to be in the price range of $1500-$1800 per mth, and a home with a pool.

Any info would help in this decision.
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Old 01-23-2011, 08:13 AM
 
Location: Kaufman County, Texas
11,816 posts, read 26,650,028 times
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My husband and I have lived in Grapevine for 8 years and we really love it here. Although Grapevine is a typical suburb, one of the things that we love the most about it is the real sense of community and small town feel. We also love the excellent city services, low crime and low property taxes! We both volunteer in community origanizations and enjoy our town!

Your housing budget should get you a nice rental. It's going to be difficult to find a rental home with a pool because of the insurance/liability and maintenance issues, but you never know what's out there until you look. Do be aware that good rentals here go quickly, and many are not even advertised beyond putting a sign in the yard! I would recommend finding a LOCAL Realtor to help. (PM me and I can provide contact info!) For your work location, I would recommend living north of 114 in the northern half of Grapevine. (You can take 26 to Bass Pro Drive to 635 for work.) There are a wide variety of homes in this half of Grapevine since it includes the downtown historic district. Many people like to live close to the lake since the shoreline is all Corps of Engineers land and is public access park.

Grapevine-Colleyville ISD schools are excellent. Here's their website: Grapevine Colleyville Independent School District
I don't know how easy it will be for your wife to find a teaching position here. There are a lot of other people in your exact situation. (Do a search on the forums for advice).

Good luck with your move!
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Old 01-23-2011, 08:27 AM
 
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Thanks, We have found a couple listings that meet are criteria in the grapevine area:

http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...948?source=web

I really like this one and hope fully will be able to look at it this week while I am in town, concern is it appears to be backed up to apartments and not sure if that should be a real concern or not?

http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...622?source=web

This also meets the criteria but wondering about area

We have also seen a few options in the Flower Mound,Coppell and Bedford areas, Should I steer clear of any of these areas for any reason?

Is it resonable travel from grapevine into other school districts such as Keller,Flower Mound and HEB? Want to make sure if she is able to find a position in another district in the area it wouldn't be a difficalt commute
.
Thanks Again

Last edited by avoninrelo; 01-23-2011 at 09:09 AM..
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Old 01-23-2011, 09:01 AM
 
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Given the looming budget crisis in TX will absolutely impact education budgets (aka teacher salaries/ jobs) for 2011-2012 school year and beyond, your wife should be sending resumes to any school district within an hour's drive of your future home (30-40 mile radius). Shes's a 2nd year teacher, presumably from out of state, and that puts her pretty low on the "totem pole" for hiring. The DFW area is already flooded with teachers who have been laid off in the past few years, plus what feels like thousands of teachers who relocated from out of state, foolishly believing "Texas is the promised" land.

Plano ISD (north of Dallas) just voted to authorize eliminating $10M (IIRC) of administrative & support positions last week and it is expected teacher jobs will be cut too, once the State Legislature votes to increase average elementary class size from 22 to 25. This will affect every district, not just Plano.

Bottom line- there's a decent chance your wife will not secure employment in DFW, so if you need two incomes to afford your lifestyle (even with your promotion), you may want to re-think the relo. Especially if you are both employed and doing ok where you are now.
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Old 01-23-2011, 10:16 AM
 
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actually I don't think many teachers have been "laid off" in recent years except in Dallas ISD (and that was budget screwup--many of them were hired back within couple of months)
what has happened is that if/when a teacher has left a job through retirement or moving, the district has tried to fill that opening with a teacher with similar stats from a school with surplus of "tenured" teachers and not advertise the job opening

most districts if there has been any growth in student population and there might need to be more classrooms in certain lower grades (4 and below) are going to ask for exemptions to the state's 22 per class rule so they don't have to open new classes...
I think some ISDs will close their own grade levels in some situations and require overflow to go to other neighborhing schools--
like if someone moves into area after school opens or does not register timely for the Aug opening of school--and that would create an "overlow" for new class--the student will just have to go to the nearest school in the ISD that does have available space--
schools in my (heb isd) district have done that in the past when the district was seeing strong growth and they could not add classes/teachers after school started--and they might start that now

Your wife will face big wall getting a job--anywhere in the DFW area--most ISDs are well-regarded and pay above state minimum and it ALWAYS has been very competitive job market for past 20+ years that I have lived here in the suburban districts--now even Dallas ISD and FTW ISD have no problem with getting enough applicants...
there are lots of reasons for that abundance--partly because DFW is mecca for move-ins and transfers from other states...

she can check the rules/regs for getting either her current certification recognized by the state or getting temp certification--it IS possible to be hire for job while you have only temp cert but the person usually has some special skill or relationship that cancels out the negative of not being state certified
If she is only a general ed elementary she falls into a pool of applicants that is about as big as the Atlantic ocean

Grapevine is a nice town and good ISD--some parts of Grapevine are in the Southlake Carroll ISD rather than the Grapevine-Colleyville district
Lewisville (flower mound) ISD is larger, well regarded and very desireable to teach in

TX is divided into regions--region X and XI are the two covering the DFW area
you can Google for each web site
there is employment link to each where districts post their vacancies--some districts had ONLY staff openings last year like counselors/speech therapists/asst principals/coordinators for math/etc--vs teaching slots because there were no real openings

some districts even close their sub lists to new apps after they do their "training" classes in the summer...she should make enquiries about getting on the sub list right now--so she can take the training classes (they just review school policies/parking info/how to use the sub finder program--but she will have to be fingerprinted/have a police check/and complete other aspects of the application packet--it will take time)

you should have no problem finding a lease home in that price range and maybe with a pool
lot of homes on rental market now are one that are for sale but found no buyers so the owners want to cover all their mortgage/ins/tax costs and not go in the hole--prices can be steep and usually is cheaper to buy because rates are lower than 5=6=7 yrs ago when those houses might have been purchased...

one thing to be aware of is that in TX school districts do not keep the same boundaries as local towns or even counties--
one town can have 3 or 4 districts within its city limits and some school districts flow into 2-3-4 separate towns--dependins on their boundaries--
so you should make sure you don't assume that you know the district
Districts are ALWAYS important in TX--even if you don't have kids in school--for resale/taxes/and general ambiance

FYI--schools receive ratings from the state based on TAKS scores and other factors like attendance/graduation rates/% of certified teachers in their subject matter--
Exemplary/Recognized/Acceptable/Unacceptable is the flow chart
it is much easier for an elementary school to rate Exemplary than a high school for many reasons
and recently the state allowed districts to give themselves credit for "anticipated" improvements--meaning that some schools received an improved rating over the year before for "imaginary" positives--
and frankly I think that was about the most stupid decision to come down the pike in years--but it happened and the schools definitely took advantage of it
now the decision to remove that enhancement is likely to happen if it has not already happened--so future scores will be reality based...

Spring--around Easter/Spring Break--is when schools send out contracts for the next year and after teachers return them and schools/principals can see their vacancy numbers they start to plan for hiring--
most ISDs had job fairs or used the huge one in Arlington in past but now they are using on-line apps and screening for the few vacancies they anticipate--they cull out the ones with specific backgrounds/certifications that are highly desireable and just ignore most of the others--
job fairs are often by invitation now--and going there with thousands (yes thousands) of other applications is not likely to guarantee you even a face2face interview much less job offer...
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Old 01-23-2011, 10:26 AM
 
37,315 posts, read 59,474,655 times
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PS--construction happening on the 121/114 corridor in Grapevine now and soon to travel into Bedford/Hurst/FTW area on 121/183
Hwy 26 (Grapevine Hwy) going to undergo widening also in near future which will cause double burdern since people are using it and other surface streets with 121/114 messed up--

you can live in Grapevine and work as far west as White Settlement/Castlebury ISD probably--
Grand Prairie/Eagle Mtn-Saginaw/Arlington/Coppell/Lewisville/Carrollton-Farmers Branch/Irving/Richland/HEB/maybe Azle and Northwest ISDs --depending on where your house might be and where the school might be are all "reasonable" commutes in that they are probably within an hour's drive--
Dallas ISD/Mansfield/Burleson/Argyle/etc--those are more difficult

the region X and XI sites also have maps with ALL public isds on them and links to private and charter schools as well
R10 Home Page

now it looks like the Region XI site has listing for all districts in both X and XI although the listed jobs only goes to the FTW region schools
http://www.esc11.net/cms/lib/TX21000259/Centricity/Domain/68/job_consortium_map.pdf (broken link)
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Old 01-23-2011, 10:41 AM
 
Location: Kaufman County, Texas
11,816 posts, read 26,650,028 times
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The house on Harmon in Grapevine is a really nice neighborhood! I live less than half a mile away!

Coppell is a nice community, but the property taxes are MUCH higher than in Grapevine because it is in Dallas County. Also, you will get even less home for the money there.

Flower Mound is definitely an option based on where you will be commuting to.

Bedford isn't nearly as nice of a community as Coppell, FM, or Grapevine. It is definitely within commuting range.

The part of Grapevine that has Southlake-Carroll ISD schools is the far northwest part of the city. Many of those homes are under the approach path for DFW Airport and tend to get a lot of noise. It would also be a much longer commute for you since that part of Grapevine doesn't have as easy of access to 635.
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Old 01-23-2011, 11:01 AM
 
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Flower mound was our next area of consideration:

3305 Fox Hollow Court Flower Mound TX - Home for Rent - MLS #11531247 - Realtor.com®

But as with all the areas, we are not sure of the reality of what it's like to live in the area. Sometimes the raw data doesn't give you an actual picture of what to expect, it always nice to hear more information from people in the area.

Thanks again to everyone for their information, it sounds like the real concern will be with my wife's career. We do have some relationships that MAY make it easier to get a foot in the door. She has went through the licensing in other states since we have relocated several times, currently she has PA,OH,IN under her belt, hopefully TX is not much differant, IF we decide this is a good opportunity for the entire family. We are happy where we are with our careers and location at the moment, even tho the climate change would be nice.
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Old 01-23-2011, 11:15 AM
 
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you are correct that having "relationships" with other educators can help the process--

I take issue with the comment that Bedford is 'not nearly as nice a community"--
Bedford is lovely--for variety of reasons--BUT it has relatively few homes that are "new"--the newest neighorhood with homes (vs townhomes) is probably 12 yrs old
it has some excellent schools and its IB program in jrhi/high school is probably one of the top ones nation-wide--not just in the US--and the IB stats for graduation rate and scores substantiate that
Bedford has a great location/easy access to 121/to Arlington/FTW/Dallas or any of the closer towns
it has great hospital close/churches/restaurants/parks/a new library/ and a great YMCA

it does not have the historical downtown that Grapevine has or some other amenities but that does not mean it should not be considered--but that depends on what a family is looking for--some people would say that because Bedford is smaller with more of a community feel to it that it is "better" than Flower Mound --
It just depends on what you are looking for...
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Old 01-23-2011, 11:23 AM
 
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The listing in Bedford has limited pictures but the most sq ft and the higher end of our budget:

2213 Pine Thicket Lane Bedford TX - Rental House - MLS #11526162 - Realtor.com®

I plan on trying to make some time this week to visit all the homes I have listed in this thread so far. Several people I would be working with live in Grapevine so I didn't know how bias they were to thier area vs others in the same vicinity.
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