[quote=poorgradstudent]Out of curiosity, are you going to be commuting to work in San Diego? I *love* coronado, but it’s essentially an island, which makes the commute getting on and off of it pretty challenging. San Diego has some bad rush hour traffic (although it’s nothing like LA). We don’t have good public transportation options like you probably have in New England, so keep that in mind when you’re looking at areas to live. Coronado in particular is just a long drive to almost anywhere, except maybe downtown.
Those are all very ritzy areas of San Diego. La Jolla Country Day in particular has snobbery issues amongst the students. I knew a former UCSD professor who sent his kids there, they probably grossed at least $250K a year, and they were “poor” kids there and hated it. SD actually does have a couple Catholic schools, they are more centrally located. If you have money but want a more “walkable” neighborhood check out Kennsington and South Park. Kennsington in particular is a beautiful, old established neighborhood that is just isolated enough to feel extremely safe. You should at least drive through it to get a contrast to La Jolla and Del Mar. I’ve just heard too many people not from San Diego complain about how “fake” it is, when they only see La Jolla and the Gaslamp.[/quote]
Excellent suggestion, poorgradstudent. rired, he is referring to St. Augustine HS (for boys), which is located in the prestigious “South Park” area of San Diego (92104).
Both HS’s are surrounded by older, very well-built and well-located housing stock which tends to have larger lots but be smaller in square footage than homes in more distant outlying areas. However, homes over 2500 sf can be found in 92102, 92104, 92116 and 92115, which are all short surface-street drives to these HS’s as well as the Blessed Sacrament Elementary School.
The tuition for St Gregory for 3 students in one family is just over $15K yr (for all 3) if the parents are parish members. This location is NOT coastal, however. There are large newer homes available out there for approximately $700-$900K and the larger older homes west of the school range in price from $500-$900K (all 92131). The property taxes are MUCH less in the older tracts because there is no “Mello Roos” bonds to pay on those tax bills. Since your kids would likely be attending private schools, I see no reason for you to pay the hefty annual Mello Roos (MR) tax of Stonebridge (the newer nearby avail homes, of which a very substantial portion of their MR ends up in the coffers of the Poway Unified School District [PUSD]). In any case, the vast majority of public schools located in the older section of 92131 (SDUSD) are also rated very highly!
Cathedral High (92130) and Mater-Dei High (91913) are both newly-built schools which migrated from much older campuses with decades-long histories in SD. Both have fantastic college-prep programs and their campuses are designed much like college campuses. I am aware that Mater-Dei (in Chula Vista) brought in all their teachers from a diocese in Ohio and ALL presumably have Doctorate degrees. Both campuses send buses to different areas of the county to pick up and drop off students and both offer a grade 9-12 college prep and advanced-placement curriculum.
There are many more Catholic elementary schools to choose from in SD County serving students in grades 1-8. It all depends on where you need to live to mitigate the daily commute to job(s).
If I could have afforded it, I would have sent my last kid to Mater Dei High.
