Moving out West

[Shimmybro3]

My wife and I have agreed we don't want to live in Texas forever. She has been looking at some eastern states but my eyes are drawn west. My brother lives in NM and i love it out there and would consider. I also like AZ and WY. Not to familiar with either and would love to talk with some people living in each place. She works for the schools here in TX as a speech therapist and would probably do the same wherever we move to so a good school district is important. I am working to become a Firefighter and so can work pretty much everywhere but if anyone knows good cities to work for I want to know! We do have plans to go visit each state to see if its some place we could both live. Thanks in advance for any help

 

[pdun24]

New Mexico and Arizona are typically ranked pretty low for education nation wide. That might deter your wife some. Wyoming isn't ranked highly, but it isn't quite as low as AZ or NM.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education/prek-12

I have never lived in any of these states, but thats something to consider with your wife being in education.

 

[Shimmybro3]

New Mexico and Arizona are typically ranked pretty low for education nation wide. That might deter your wife some. Wyoming isn't ranked highly, but it isn't quite as low as AZ or NM.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education/prek-12

I have never lived in any of these states, but thats something to consider with your wife being in education.

Thanks I’ll look into that more

 

[FLAK]

IMO, MT., ID., WY.

 

[Wapiti1]

Education is an issue you have to look at. That said, even within a poorly performing state there are good schools, but you'll be in the higher rent areas.

I'd look at Billings, and Kalispell in Montana. Sheridan WY, Boise ID, Spokane WA, Flagstaff AZ, Rapid City SD and maybe Colorado Springs CO.

There is good and bad in each, but they are big enough to have a budget that supports firefighters, but small enough to not have some of the headaches of a big city. Colorado Springs is iffy on that since its near Denver.

Now getting on at a firehouse is a different matter. In those cities, those may be higher demand jobs with lots of competition. Consider the departments that work on military bases as well. Many are civilian. My Grandfather worked at Malmstrom in Great Falls for 30 years.

Jeremy

 

[rcfireninja]

Wyoming and the Casper FD works 49/96 which allows for hunting trips and a larger school district that would have opportunities for your wife to get her job.


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[Felix40]

I couldn’t be happier about the perks of living in NM but it’s going to be very hard to make a living as a firefighter unless you are in abq or Santa Fe. I can’t imagine living in either of those.

 

[ODB]

Don’t confuse “my job is found in about any city” with “there is a job opening in XXX city.” Covid has tightened the belt on even essential jobs.

at this point, the smaller the town the better. It will get bigger soon enough.

 

[zion zig zag]

I don't know about other states in the west but Utah is in a damn near firefighter shortage crisis. Departments stealing employees from each other has become the norm. Get your NREMT-P, be able to smoke the physical, be a good dude that can convey that in an interview and you will get a job.

Before commiting to a state, look at the state retirement system, understand how it works and how healthy it is. Work for a city that has a schedule that works for you and runs enough calls for you to be proficient at the craft.

The 48/96 shift schedule has opened up living somewhere rural while working in a city.

 

[Gobbler36]

Idaho is being overran so unless you want to move to a future Denver concrete jungle I’d stay away, everything I have looked at from WY, they have excellent schools in some of the areas because there teachers are paid well due to oil and gas funds and such.
don’t know if that holds water but what I’ve recalled reading and what one of my customers in WY has said

 

[Whiskey_Fish]

Idaho is being overran so unless you want to move to a future Denver concrete jungle I’d stay away, everything I have looked at from WY, they have excellent schools in some of the areas because there teachers are paid well due to oil and gas funds and such.
don’t know if that holds water but what I’ve recalled reading and what one of my customers in WY has said

In some places the student teacher ratio is also pretty damn good. There is little consistency however. From one side of town to the other the high schools are drastically different even with similar demographics.


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[Gobbler36]

In some places the student teacher ratio is also pretty damn good. There is little consistency however. From one side of town to the other the high schools are drastically different even with similar demographics.


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Yeah I’ve seen this too as I was researching Sheridan recently for a possible opportunity
It was pretty crazy some of the schools quoted like 12 to 14 kids to 1. There’s like 20 something here where my kids go.

I definitely give merit to having good education around, but I k ow plenty of people from crummy highschools who are extremely successful and no some people who attended 20k a year private schools who still live at home. So all a letter of what you do with it

 

[ClearCreek]

Idaho is being overran so unless you want to move to a future Denver concrete jungle I’d stay away, everything I have looked at from WY, they have excellent schools in some of the areas because there teachers are paid well due to oil and gas funds and such.
don’t know if that holds water but what I’ve recalled reading and what one of my customers in WY has said

That was the case a few years ago, now the oil, gas and coal revenues going to the state coffers are substantially less and Wyoming is having major budget problems.

ClearCreek

 

[NY16ga]

On the education front I would just say it's important that your wife be clear about what SHE sees as a "good" school and/or district, what she wants out of it. Low teacher-to-student ratios are great (research says one of the most important factors for student outcomes) but if she works in speech she's working with students 1-on-1 or in small groups anyway. Not sure where you live in TX or if she's just working at one school but I've worked with some BIG schools there. If you go somewhere rural, she should probably expect to be employed by the district and split her time between several small schools since there may not be enough students at one school who need speech services to justify hiring someone full-time. Even the speech pathologist who works with my little niece down in FL goes to a couple different schools and that's a pretty big district.

And just because a state or district puts up good test scores doesn't mean they support all students well. Indisputably Massachusetts has the best test scores overall but also had some of the biggest disparities in the recent past...in other words, the students your wife probably works with/cares about aren't always served very well by "high-performing" school systems. Her motivation for being an educator is a factor too. I'm coming up on 20 years in education and youth development and have consulted all over the country, from NYC and LA to tiny rural districts with only one or two schools. I've never once regretted going where the kids needed us most, especially if there were other people there who cared about that too. We have a very serious teacher shortage in this country and it's worse in places with the highest needs so I bet there's plenty of districts that would kill to have a new speech pathologist to support their kids with special needs. COVID + school funding structures = many states with decimated education budgets but they're required by federal law to provide services (like speech) to kids with special needs so I bet your wife has options.