Page 6 of 8 FirstFirst ... 4 5 6 7 8 LastLast
Results 51 to 60 of 80

Thread: would you move

  1. #51
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    DC Suburbs
    Posts
    21,474

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by sdjeppa View Post
    Long time reader, I don’t post much, but feel I have to defend my city a bit. I live in a San Diego suburb (not in north county). Our elementary school does have all that, in fact, minus the social workers. You can’t compare LAUSD (or SDUSD for that matter) to ALL CA schools. Our school district is getting national and international attention for its technology and curriculum, and while 1/2 the schools in the district are in nice, upper middle class areas, 1/2 are not. We also have dedicated language immersion charter schools.
    If you look at what I said, I said "So many things that I know have been done away with in *a lot* of California schools." I intentionally didn't paint all California schools with one brush. You can't argue that most California schools have the programs your district has. I also pointed out in a previous answer that Poway is separate from SDUSD.

    I'm not trying to pick on the schools in my home state, or home town of SD, but moving from a place where all the schools are considered good to a place where you have to really take schools into account when deciding where you buy a house is a big change. If I were in OP's place, I would move back to SD!

    BTW, our immersion programs aren't in charter schools, they're in regular public schools.
    Mommy to my wonderful, HEALTHY twin girls
    6/08 - Preemies no more!

  2. #52
    bisous is offline Red Diamond level (10,000+ posts)
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    .
    Posts
    14,564

    Default

    Regarding California schools, I agree that they seem to be able to produce graduates capable of going toe to toe with students from other states. I do think a lot of that is despite the system and not because of it. I feel like there is a subtle "tax" on many CA families because we must somehow come up with programs and facilities that schools in other places provide. Our schools don't have social workers. I've never even seen a school with one. Our elementary schools don't have school psychologists. We don't have busing in many areas. We don't have music programs or daily PE. We don't have cafeterias. The schools in my city DON'T HAVE LIBRARIES! Our family makes it work because both DH and I come from highly educated families and are ourselves very educated but we have to strain a bit to fill the hole that is created from not having access to these resources. That's not to say that getting a good education is impossible in California. At all. But my sister who teaches in Arlington, VA is ASTOUNDED by the vast disparity between what her high school students have access to and what we had access to as children.

  3. #53
    Kindra178 is offline Red Diamond level (10,000+ posts)
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Chicago, Illinois
    Posts
    11,821

    Default

    Historically, California has been known for excellent universities and poor k-12 public schools because all the money is funneled into the universities. This is still the case in certain areas as cited by our very own posters here based on specific factors. Our elementary (k-4) has 2.5 social workers and a full time psychologist, 1.5 slp for 400 students. Nicci posted that in her district kids don’t get help from a slp until language scores fall into lien the 10th percentile. That’s shocking to me!!


    Sent from my iPhone using Baby Bargains

  4. #54
    ged is offline Gold level (500+ posts)
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    California
    Posts
    981

    Default

    I've only known CA public schools. Of course there is a range even within CA, but I'd venture to say that financial contributions by parents are often expected, esp. in areas of higher income. My DD1 only attended 1/2 a semester of public school in San Diego before we moved abroad. We returned to CA (but not SD) in her 4th grade, and her current school expects a lot of contributions. Field trips, musical teacher salary, and more are all paid through parent contributions. We don't have daily PE and a whole host of other things. At this point, I'm so glad I don't know what we're missing out on!

    My cousin was seriously considering a move to SD from Austin, TX, but ultimately decided against it when they realized how much they would need to supplement.

    Re: SD, I only lived there for 5 years, and at the beginning, I was not impressed with how parochial it felt. And it's lack of cultural activities/places was also strange. But over the years I drank the cool-aid and definitely fell in love with the place. The weather is unbeatable. It's easy living. Traffic keeps getting worse, though, and of course you know about the COL.

  5. #55
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    .
    Posts
    6,042

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by marymoo86 View Post
    Not sure how that jibes with the property tax rates you mentioned before editing. According to the tax table various areas in SD county are 4-21%.

    Using an average of rates is misleading.

    http://www2.sdcounty.ca.gov/pts/trasearch.asp

    ETA - misread the term in the wallethub article for Tax burden versus rates. I wouldn't base my finances on generalized information. I would want to make those decisions based on specifics for my personal situation to make the best informed decision. As you see from the county site - RE tax rates vary greatly and can be quite costly. Poway area seems to be on par with Mass.

    If you want to do this analysis correctly, you also need to look at COL. Outside of housing everything else costs less on CA than MA, enough so according to the calculators to make San Diego cheaper than Boston, even factoring in housing costs. https://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-l...oston-ma/75000. This was my personal experience as well, everything is expensive in Boston, even our car insurance was less in Southern California.

  6. #56
    AnnieW625's Avatar
    AnnieW625 is offline Black Diamond level (25,000+ posts)
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    35,646

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by TwinFoxes View Post
    I'm a product of California public schools K-12 and then UC Berkeley. The difference between where I live now where our schools are consistently ranked #1 in the country is you just send your kids to whatever school is your neighborhood school, and don't worry about them getting a good education. In LA, my friends are applying to magnets/charters, jumping through all kinds of hoops to get into a good school, or throwing up their hands and going to private schools. I volunteered in LAUSD when I lived there (pre-kids) and I was shocked. They literally didn't have paper in the school I volunteered in. There's no way kids there are on an equal footing to the kids here no matter how much they try to make of it. My kids' school has a nurse, school psychologists, school social workers, band, strings, STEAM, ART, PE, multiple assemblies, we have a big re-enactment of a Colonial village every year. So many things that I know have been done away with in a lot of California schools. Also, if your cousins were in GATE (or whatever it's called now), they get more funding and opportunities than non-GATE kids. I was in GATE growing up and we got music, non-GATE kids didn't. The big thing here is whether or not language-immersion programs will get funded (French, Spanish, German, Korean and Japanese). Even though my kid is in immersion it's really hard for me to get worked up about it when I know what LAUSD is like.
    Yes the funding of school districts is sad. I don’t have any experience with LAUSD, but when we were looking for houses DH said we were avoiding LAUSD all together and tbh LA would’ve been too far for us. We are in the Long Beach area so are in LBUSD and my neighborhood school (500 ft. from my house) went from being awful to being one of the most popular in the city less than 10 years because of a few supportive principals and parents who moved into the area and yes buy supplies, volunteer, and are active in their kids lives. The school is so popular that DD2 was transferred to another school in Long Beach because the school was over enrolled and last one in is the first one out rule applied to her. Her current school is well funded by parents and the pta has an annual budget of $100k. It was nice not having to pay for field trips, but would’ve done it anyway as I already have to do it for DD1. Same thing with school supplies.

    My cousin did an IB program in high school at a public school. She was not a GATE student.




    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Annie
    WOHM to two wonderful little girls born in April
    DD E, 17
    DD L, 13,
    baby 2, 4-2009 (our Tri-18 baby)

  7. #57
    niccig is offline Clean Sweep forum moderator
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    CA.
    Posts
    23,493

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Kindra178 View Post
    Historically, California has been known for excellent universities and poor k-12 public schools because all the money is funneled into the universities. This is still the case in certain areas as cited by our very own posters here based on specific factors. Our elementary (k-4) has 2.5 social workers and a full time psychologist, 1.5 slp for 400 students. Nicci posted that in her district kids don’t get help from a slp until language scores fall into lien the 10th percentile. That’s shocking to me!!


    Sent from my iPhone using Baby Bargains
    Actually, the cut off language scores isn’t just CA, many states have criteria of standard scores below 77. The federal government has NEVER fully funded IDEA, states and local districts have to follow the law without funding promised by the feds.

  8. #58
    AnnieW625's Avatar
    AnnieW625 is offline Black Diamond level (25,000+ posts)
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    35,646

    Default would you move

    Quote Originally Posted by marymoo86 View Post
    Not sure how that jibes with the property tax rates you mentioned before editing. According to the tax table various areas in SD county are 4-21%.

    Using an average of rates is misleading.

    http://www2.sdcounty.ca.gov/pts/trasearch.asp

    ETA - misread the term in the wallethub article for Tax burden versus rates. I wouldn't base my finances on generalized information. I would want to make those decisions based on specifics for my personal situation to make the best informed decision. As you see from the county site - RE tax rates vary greatly and can be quite costly. Poway area seems to be on par with Mass.
    Property taxes in California max out 2%.

    Income tax in California is high...anyone who makes more between $56k to $235k pays 9.3% income tax and the richest of the rich only pay 3% more at 12.3%.
    https://www.bankrate.com/finance/tax...rnia.aspx/amp/

    Here is the state sales tax chart, San Diego is at 7.75%
    https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-f...-tax-rates.htm


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Last edited by AnnieW625; 08-20-2019 at 07:25 PM.
    Annie
    WOHM to two wonderful little girls born in April
    DD E, 17
    DD L, 13,
    baby 2, 4-2009 (our Tri-18 baby)

  9. #59
    Kindra178 is offline Red Diamond level (10,000+ posts)
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Chicago, Illinois
    Posts
    11,821

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by niccig View Post
    Actually, the cut off language scores isn’t just CA, many states have criteria of standard scores below 77. The federal government has NEVER fully funded IDEA, states and local districts have to follow the law without funding promised by the feds.
    As a parent who has kids who get language services weekly with most scores much higher than that, I just can’t believe it.


    Sent from my iPhone using Baby Bargains

  10. #60
    doberbrat is offline Diamond level (5000+ posts)
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    MA
    Posts
    5,354

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by bisous View Post
    Regarding California schools, I agree that they seem to be able to produce graduates capable of going toe to toe with students from other states. I do think a lot of that is despite the system and not because of it. I feel like there is a subtle "tax" on many CA families because we must somehow come up with programs and facilities that schools in other places provide. Our schools don't have social workers. I've never even seen a school with one. Our elementary schools don't have school psychologists. We don't have busing in many areas. We don't have music programs or daily PE. We don't have cafeterias. The schools in my city DON'T HAVE LIBRARIES! Our family makes it work because both DH and I come from highly educated families and are ourselves very educated but we have to strain a bit to fill the hole that is created from not having access to these resources. That's not to say that getting a good education is impossible in California. At all. But my sister who teaches in Arlington, VA is ASTOUNDED by the vast disparity between what her high school students have access to and what we had access to as children.
    This just floors me - esp when some of our school libraries are a similar size to some towns' public library. So much of what I hear about CA schools just baffles me.

    OP no one can really decide for you. I was in favor until I heard the target location. COL, traffic & schools are 3 huge quality of life issues for me and I could not uproot my life w/o assurances in this dept
    dd1 10/05
    dd2 11/09
    and ... a mini poodle!

Page 6 of 8 FirstFirst ... 4 5 6 7 8 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •