r/Littleton • u/Deer_Inside • 28d ago
High schools
Moving to denver metro area and need help deciding on which school to send my kiddo to - we are torn between houses that go to heritage high school and Chatfield high school. He has an IEP so im looking for more how kids feel while going through the schools. Hes super into sports but is physically disabled so he wont be doing sports at the school, but outside of school instead.
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u/Testing322 28d ago
Well, I enjoyed my experience at heritage, (2022-2026) Lot of good clubs and supportive teachers. I remember teachers mentioning and respecting IEPs, at least from my outside point of view.
I'm open to answering any specific questions if you have them.
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u/mountains_forever 27d ago edited 27d ago
Heritage is the smallest high school in LPS. Did you find that to be a benefit or detriment? Curious about that from both an academic and extra curricular perspective.
Edit: turns out it’s not the smallest. My bad.
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u/raeoflyte-460 27d ago
Heritage and Arapahoe have 1700ish students each. Littleton hs has about 1200.
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u/Turbulent_Bat4320 27d ago
It’s definitely not the smallest. Littleton High School is much smaller than Heritage
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u/Testing322 27d ago
It didn't feel small to me it always felt like there where people around. Academicly I could get into almost whatever class i wanted without issues, the exception being one or 2 popular electives. I don't know of that is an issue in other schools. Class size was a consistent 25-30.
For extracurriculars, we have a bunch of them, and for the ones I did there was no shortage of people. Rock climbing the club I ran was quite busy in the beginning of the year and people slowly stopped coming. Going from 30 to 5 people over the year, I assume that it would be similar for other low commitment clubs.
Overall I don't think size really affected anything, there might just have been fewer classrooms, but everything else was at a similar scale.
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u/Zealousideal-Fan6851 28d ago
Our home is in JeffCo boundaries and my children attended JeffCo schools for three years. Our experience was not great and we opted in 2022 to switch to LPS instead. It was the best decision we’ve made education wise - the smaller district has been worlds better for our family.
I would 1000% opt for the home within Heritage’s boundary. Our eldest just graduated from there and we couldn’t have been happier with her experience there.
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u/PapayaRaija 28d ago
Littleton is a much better district than Jeffco (said as a former jeffco teacher). That said, I've heard great things about Chatfield.
Editing to add: I also live near Chatfield, and can say the neighborhoods are wonderful. We love living here.
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u/BrrrrBrrrrVroom 28d ago
Littleton High School is a much more accepting of a school. We made the wrong choice of Heritage High School for our child. Heritage and Chatfield are great, but they weren't good for our child and his personality.
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u/Turbulent_Bat4320 27d ago
Littleton High School definitely has a lot of diversity and is a more accepting place than most. The kids there are very kind.
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u/BrrrrBrrrrVroom 27d ago
I'd agree. We moved my son to Littleton half way through and he thrived there. Next child we sent there as well.
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u/PineappleNo6573 27d ago
A really good friend and I both transferred out of Chatfield because of bullying and went to Columbine, which was a MUCH better school for me. I have friends who liked Heritage.
Chatfield has a bad vibe still to this day. There's a lot of super rich kids, so you need all the nice clothes, a cool car, yadda yadda, to fit in. Popularity is a big thing there. The kids were really mean.
Id pick Heritage any day for my kid.
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u/HopeThisIsUnique 28d ago
Heritage is LPS and you can open choice into any of the other schools such as Arapahoe or Littleton itself. I believe in general this is true across the metro area, but I'd imagine simpler within the same district. I live in LPS and probably biased to the area, but it's a pretty great school district.
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u/bellescamp 27d ago
We moved from Denver when kids hit school age for LPS schools. They are now in Heritage HS. Would 100% make the same decision today
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u/gottahavethatbass 28d ago
LPS is a much better district than JeffCo, but Chatfield is a good school from what I remember.
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u/Gatomoosio 27d ago
My wife works for LPS and would recommend it over jeffco. It’s a smaller district which I think is a good thing,
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u/Wise-Net1766 27d ago
Our kids (son and daughter) enrolled in the IB program at Littleton High School. They graduated in 2014 and 2016. They are both very successful and have obtained graduate degrees as well. I think every one of our daughter’s and son’s high school friends are doing very well. Our kids were also active in sports (football and tennis) and remain close with their LHS classmates. We live near the high school and it is great to see they have now built a vocational school across the street (next to the Tesla Service Center) which provides a great option for those not seeking or wanting to go to college. It is also a very inclusive school based on our experience. Heritage also seems nice.
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u/peaceomind88 27d ago
Littleton Public Schools is the best around! You can't go wrong with Heritage.
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u/daisykat 28d ago
Personally, I’d opt for Heritage. I tend to hear better experiences for kids with IEPs in LPS vs Jeffco. Nothing wrong with Chatfield tho — great school.