by Osman Parvez

A recent visitor to my site asked about our local schools. Since many buyers have similar questions, I’ve elevated my response to post status.

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Osman, Can you post a link that gives an overview of area schools? I have some friends coming to work at Amgen in Longmont and they want to decide where to look. Where do most Amgenites live? What are schools like in Niwot? They have a 5 and 7 year old I think. Hal

Hi Hal,

Here’s what you do.
1. Start by searching for property in Niwot.

2. Now pick a home from the list generated, like this $840,000 5BR, 3BA property (link will expire when house is sold).

3. You’ll come to a listing page with detailed property information. Scroll down to the middle of the page and you’ll see a bunch of links. Click on “School Information” That will take you to a page with information on local schools serving the property.

4. Ok, but parents want to know how the school performs too. Write down the name of the school and visit Colorado’s School Accountability website for a report card on the school that you’re interested in. You can also access that database from the Daily Camera’s School Report Card site.

Many Amgen employees live in Longmont, Boulder, and Niwot. Others commute from communities further away. Commute time is usually the biggest issue, so go back to the listing page on my site and click on “Map Location” to bring up a Google Map. Now simply add “to 4000 Nelson Rd, Longmont, CO 80503” (Amgen’s address) to the end of address displayed in the search box, then click “search maps”. You’ll get something that looks like this, a map of your likely commute with approximate travel times.

Last point – remember that Boulder has an open enrollment policy. That means that your child can attend a school other than the one serving her neighborhood, but the parents will have to provide the transportation. There’s also a lottery system to determine eligibility. Here’s a flowchart of the process.

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