Oklahoma Family of 6 moving to Cherry Creek (neighborhood).... Needs help with school info!!!! (Denver: transfer)

[BoomerSoonerFan!]

Hello! My name is Jess. My husband, four kids, and I are moving to the Denver in December. We've done some research and decided that the Cherry Creek neighborhood is where we want to be. But we *desperately* need help with info on possible schools!

A little bit of background: Currently we live in Jenks, OK (population 20k) and our kids (16, 14, 10, 7) attend a k-12 school. I love these kind of schools because of the "community feel". All of the schools (elementary/middle/high) names are the same, the mascot, everyone knows eachother, etc.

As I understand it, the Cherry Creek neighborhood in Denver is under Denver Public Schools jurisdiction. I've been to the DPS website but can't find what schools my kids would be going to. I'd love to find a k-12 school but I think we might have to go private for that. What is everyone's thoughts on Mullen HS and Good Shepherd k-8? I've read great things about them but you never know. Is that as close to k-12 as I'm going to get? Where are the good k-12 schools? Cherry Creek sounds great for us but we are willing to try different areas...

Thanks in advance for any help we can get! :-)

EDIT: I forgot to add that sports (football) and academics are very important to us. My 16 & 14 year old sons are on a state championship team so they definitely wants that considered (one of the reasons Mullen looked great). And of course academics is always top priority.

[davebarnes]

Find your Neighborhood School - Denver Public Schools

[davidv]

The best high school football programs in the Denver area over the last decade are:

Mullen: Private Catholic School in Southwest Denver. Tuition is about $11k per student, per year. It recently fired its longtime coach and is trying to transition away from being a "football" school and returning to its roots as a Catholic, Christian Brothers school.

Columbine: Public school in Southern Jefferson County. It is an IB school, and is the site of the school shooting in 1999.

Pomona: Public school in Northern Jefferson County. Good football team and academics.

Valor: Private Christian school in Highlands Ranch. Tuition is about $14k per student per year. It has won several state championships in a short amount of time.

Other possibilities include Cherry Creek HS in Greenwood Village. It recently hired Mullen's former coach and has a tradition of good football teams, though none have been great lately. It might be the closest to the K-12 model you seek as Belleview Elementary, Campus Middle School, and Cherry Creek High School are all on the same campus. You must live in the Belleview Elementary attendance area to attend all three schools, as they don't admit any school of choice transfers.