Consumer Advocates...Not Sales People
 
Mountain Panorama
Group Photo
Photo by Charles Pfeil
 

Schools in Boulder County, Broomfield County & Jefferson County

The quality of community schools is consistently ranked as one of the most important factors in parents' decisions about where to buy a home. School quality is also important for home buyers who have no children, since it has a significant impact on housing values and on the ease of selling homes in various communities. In this section, I provide links to information on local schools and how they compare to schools across the country.

Schools Districts by County

As we noted in our Community Information section, Wikipedia is a great place to start when you're looking for information on communities and schools in connection with a home search. They have basic data on all of the counties, communities and school districts in the state of Colorado. In addition to linking to the official school district sites (see bullet points), we'll also link to the relevant Wikipedia pages for each district (see links in paragraphs).

There are two public school districts in Boulder County, the Boulder Valley School District in the south half of the county and the St. Vrain School District in the north. The schools in Boulder, Louisville, Superior, Lafayette, Nederland are all within the Boulder Valley district. Some schools in Erie and Broomfield are as well.The schools in Longmont, Lyons and Niwot are in the St. Vrain district, as are some parts of Erie. The appropriate district web sites contain extensive information on the schools within the districts, on educational philosophies, and on curriculum.

The schools in Arvada, Westminster and the southern parts of Broomfield are in the Jefferson County School District.

The western parts of Broomfield and Broomfield County are in the Boulder Valley School District, while eastern Broomfield is in the Adams 12 Five Star district and some southern parts of Broomfield are in the Jefferson County District.

The following web pages clarify which schools in Erie and in Broomfield are in which districts.

State and National Resources for Comparing Schools

The Colorado Department of Education In addition to providing comparative data on public schools, this site contains information on other schools and school districts in Colorado and on private schools and home schooling. It is also an important source for information on test results in schools across the state:

The National Center for Education Statistics This is the best single source information on schools, school performance, and the demographic composition of communities and schools. If you go to their list of Data Search Tools,, you'll find a wealth of useful data. In particular, you might want to look at:

  • School District Demographics In a minute or two, for example, you can pull up data and compare the average household income and education levels of residents in the Boulder Valley and St. Vrain school districts.
  • Locate School Districts This link will allow you to find out what school district your target community is in and get basic information on the district and contact information as well as a list of all the schools within the district.
  • Locate Public & Private Schools, Colleges and Libraries This link will tell you what public and private schools are located in a given community -- or close by. The site provides basic contact information for each school, student teacher ratios, and enrollment information by grade and by race and ethnicity. You can also locate the closest colleges and and get some good information on local libraries.

Two non-government sites can also help you compare Boulder County Schools to schools elsewhere in the country. Sperling's Best Places and Relocation Essentials both make it easy to compare schools.

Some Thoughts on Comparing Schools

As a former educational researcher, I am often appalled by the information that home buyers use in evaluating schools and how they use it. A few rules of thumb:

  • Rule One: Don't rely on real estate agents or other parents. In a previous lifetime, I did research in several primary schools in the school district where my children were enrolled. The research involved videotaping full days of interaction between teachers and students and interviewing the teachers about what they were trying to accomplish. I was struck by the lack of correspondence between what was "known" in the community about these schools and teachers and what I was seeing in the classroom. When I asked parents about their often very strong opinions of various teachers (what they were like, how they taught, and how they got along with the students), I was stunned to learn that their "knowledge" of their local schools was based primarily on random comments from their 7 year old -- or their neighbor's 7 year old. Because schools are so important to parents -- and because they generally know almost nothing about what happens there -- they will grasp at the flimsiest pieces of information and build very strong opinions on them. Take everything you hear on the street with a truckload of salt.
  • Rule Two: Rely on educational statistics, because that's the only real information you're going to get. Don't rely on them because they'll tell you which school is best for your child. They won't. Most of what is most important in education is not measured by educational statistics. They won't measure whether your child will be inspired to excel or trained to think critically by her teachers. They will, however, tell you whether most of the kids in her school learn to do basic math or to read well and take tests. They will also tell you whether the kids in her school learn enough to do well on the standard tests used in college admissions. That's worth something.
  • Rule Three: Don't imagine that school performance is created solely in the school. One of the few things that educational researchers agree on is that there is a very tight correlation between the educational background of the parents and how a child performs in school. Pick a neighborhood where most of the parents have college degrees and you'll find a school where the students perform better than their peers nationally. Pick a school in a more diverse neighborhood and you'll find a school where test scores are more similar to the national average. Assuming that the district has advanced placement courses for your child when they reach high school, your child can probably get an excellent education in a school with average test scores. In the real world, when you're choosing between schools with extremely high test scores and average ones, you're really making a choice between exposing your child to a school where most of the students' parents have college degrees and a school that is more diverse economically and socially. That's a decision that is important to lots of parents, and a decision that school test scores and demographic data can rationalize.