Considering move to Lafayette (Denver, Boulder: house, neighborhood, school districts)

[natelpeterson]

Hi, we're a young family thinking about leaving the SF bay area for more livable prices. We'll miss the ocean but love the mountains. My wife is Hispanic and we want our baby boy to speak Spanish and be around other Hispanic kids. Can anyone tell me about Pioneer bilingual school in Lafayette? Are housing prices trending up or down there (we can afford up to 350k)? Any other suggestions for a bilingual family?

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by natelpeterson

Hi, we're a young family thinking about leaving the SF bay area for more livable prices. We'll miss the ocean but love the mountains. My wife is Hispanic and we want our baby boy to speak Spanish and be around other Hispanic kids. Can anyone tell me about Pioneer bilingual school in Lafayette? Are housing prices trending up or down there (we can afford up to 350k)? Any other suggestions for a bilingual family?

Pioneer Elementary is very popular in Lafayette. It is designed to teach both English and Spanis proficiency for all students, both native English and native Spanish speakers. The school tries for a 50/50 mix of students English/Spanish. Some of the Hispanic students are English speaking only. I don't know anything specific about Lafayette housing prices as I live in the next town west, Louisville, but the general trend is always up. Lafayette has a true diversity of housing styles, old to new, and inexpensive to quite expensive. You could find a house in your price range there. Lafayette is a good town for a bilingual family. Also Denver, but then you have big city living.

[HighPlains]

I know this is an old thread, but please consider the following if you are considering a move to Lafayette, CO:

In the past year, the city has decided that a great way to make money is to run traffic stings all over town, with unmarked cars waiting in places where it is very easy to make minor violations, and ticketing like crazy. I'm talking about minor stuff, like 5-10 over the limit on very rural stretches of road where the posted limits are 30-35, and most people are doing 40+. Or crossing a double yellow painted median for a few feet on the way to a left turn lane. It has gotten so bad recently that I go shopping elsewhere just to avoid the town.

Other negatives on Lafayette:

If your dog bites a Vet while being treated, you are subject to their vicious dog ordinance that might require you to euthanize the dog. I'm not kidding. Do a google search on "spork lafayette"

The public middle school and the public high school both have very low CSAP scores.

One side of town is very affluent, and the other side of town is poor. It is a weird spectacle to see all the well to do people dropping off their kids at Peak to Peak Charter school (CSAP Rating 9), which is right in the middle of the poorest part of town. The vast majority of kids in the neighborhood attend Sanchez elementary (CSAP Rating 2)

If you want to live in the same area, have decent schools and police that are not all ticket-crazy, try Broomfield or Louisville. They are both great towns.

Good Luck!

[suzco]

Originally Posted by HighPlains

I know this is an old thread, but please consider the following if you are considering a move to Lafayette, CO:

. . .
Other negatives on Lafayette:

. . .
The public middle school and the public high school both have very low CSAP scores.

One side of town is very affluent, and the other side of town is poor. It is a weird spectacle to see all the well to do people dropping off their kids at Peak to Peak Charter school (CSAP Rating 9), which is right in the middle of the poorest part of town. The vast majority of kids in the neighborhood attend Sanchez elementary (CSAP Rating 2)

If you want to live in the same area, have decent schools and police that are not all ticket-crazy, try Broomfield or Louisville. They are both great towns.

Good Luck!

Another view:

Public elementary schools in Lafayette besides Sanchez and Peak to Peak include Lafayette Elementary, Ryan, and Pioneer. Pioneer is bilingual, Lafayette has a gifted and talented program.

Centaurus HS is ranked average based on CSAP scores, not low. Centaurus offers the IB program, an engineering program in partnership with CU Boulder, and a full range of AP classes. It also has a diverse student body (as diverse as you can get within Boulder County) and educates many poor kids and kids learning English, beside the middle and upper class kids it also educates.

Check online parent reviews (such as at GreatSchools.net) for some other opinions about the public schools (part of BVSD) in Lafayette. For many families, ranking on CSAP scores is not the sole (or necessarily the best) measure of a school.

Open enrollment in other BVSD schools is another option for people who might choose to live in Lafayette and feel that other schools offer better opportunities for their children.

A note of caution about preferring Broomfield because of the schools. Broomfield has schools in four different school districts; schools in Broomfield are not uniformly rated excellent nor are they all better than all public schools in Lafayette. Lafayette offers a wide range of housing styles and prices; there are few lower cost options in Louisville.

[HighPlains]

Centaurus CSAP scores for 2009 were below the BVSD average in every category. They were below the state average in 5 out of 7 categories:

Centaurus High School Test Scores in Lafayette, CO | Education.com

Further, this "average" school did not make adequate yearly progress in 2009 under No Child left behind:

Centaurus High School in Lafayette, CO | Education.com

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by HighPlains

Centaurus CSAP scores for 2009 were below the BVSD average in every category. They were below the state average in 5 out of 7 categories:

Centaurus High School Test Scores in Lafayette, CO | Education.com

Further, this "average" school did not make adequate yearly progress in 2009 under No Child left behind:

Centaurus High School in Lafayette, CO | Education.com

None of this means anything to any individual student.

[suzco]

Originally Posted by HighPlains

Centaurus CSAP scores for 2009 were below the BVSD average in every category. They were below the state average in 5 out of 7 categories:

Centaurus High School Test Scores in Lafayette, CO | Education.com

Further, this "average" school did not make adequate yearly progress in 2009 under No Child left behind:

Centaurus High School in Lafayette, CO | Education.com

Note that Fairview HS (one of the "best" schools in the state, and the highest performing BVSD high school on CSAPs) also diid not make adequate yearly progress in 2009 under No Child left behind.

For 2010 (CSAP scores were released a few weeks ago) Centaurus scores were:

9th grade

math 41% proficient & above (state average was 39.1%)
reading 72% proficient & above (state average was 67.6%)
writing 50% proficient & above (state average was 48.8%)

10th grade

math 32% proficient & above (state average was 30%)
reading 63% proficient & above (state average was 66.3%)
writing 44% proficient & above (state average was 46.9%)
science 48% proficient & above (state average was 46.9%)

[Scores of native English speakers are across the board higher; Centaurus has a large number of non-native English speakers and students eligible for free lunch for BVSD (also correlated to lower scores)]

Scores downloaded from BVSD website Downloadable Results Spreadsheet