Not sure if you’re still checking on this blog, but I hope I can help. My family and I have just moved to La Jolla from Santa Barbara about a year ago and just recently spent a lot of research into this as our first daughter was entering Kindergarten at the time. Now after just finishing her first year (Torrey Pines Elementary), I have these insights to add.
1. Well funded = More programs- The school has a lot of fundraising events. This allowed my daughter to have a music teacher, science teacher, and computer teacher. Not sure if this is available in other San Diego Unified schools, but it was a great option.
2. Parents – The majority of the parents are well-educated and related to UCSD as reseachers/teachers/doctors. Some of the families are on visas, others are here on research grants, and others are here more permanently. At first I thought this was a negative, I was thinking it would be like Beverly Hills 90210 and the kids would be made up of the upper echelon, but I think I would rather have this now. The parents are very supportive and come in weekly to teach the kids about their profession (ie. one mathmetician parent taught the kids Fibonacci series). In addition, having a makeup of parents whose lives are devoted to science and academia doesn’t hurt.
3. Diversity – Because of the student makeup, her class had 5-8 different nationalities and languages. She was able to play with kids who spoke French, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew and Indian. Personally I enjoy this, as everyone had different backgrounds and pot luck parties were fun and interesting.
4. API Scores – I guess scores don’t hurt, I believe TPES’s was 990 which placed them somewhere in the top 20 elementary schools in California.
5. Class Size and Makeup – I thought the class size was perfect, not too big not too small (around 16 kids). In terms of demographics, I would say it was around 20% asian, 20% african american/hispanic, and 60% caucasian. Asian parents were predominately researchers from Korea/Japan and a couple local professionals (which I am), caucasian parents were mixed with local researchers/doctors and some from abroad, and the hispanics/african americans were local too (not bussed in as someone was saying). In terms of socioeconomic I think it’s varied. I would say that none of the parents were in the top 1%, but I don’t think anyone was really hurting too. I think the majority lived around the area we do (UTC/La Jolla Village area) and rent or own a condo. In terms of median household income, I would say most were > $150K/yr < $600K/yr (with the exception of the researchers from abroad, since many were single income households).
6. Nice house = Big $$ - When we moved here our idea was to rent first, figure out the area and buy later. Unfortunately, now we are currently priced out of the market based on our needs and wants. We are currently looking around the same price range as you are, and like someone else alluded to, SFR in that price range will get you a 1,200 sq ft fixer upper, or a condo. In addition, as someone else mentioned, most affluent homeowners in the area send their kids to private schools (eg. La Jolla Country Day) and your kids will probably not be playing, or going to the same schools as the kids on the block.
So right now we are looking at Carmel Valley and Scripps Ranch; hoping to find the 2,500 sf+ house of our dreams with a good education system. Unfortunately it's a little farther from the coast than we would like and a little cookie cutter, but at least I don't have the 45 minute-1 hour commute from Temecula and Poway like some cooworkers. If you would like to discuss further feel free to shoot me an e-mail.[/quote]
Yamashi,
Thanks so much for posting about your personal experiences. I think that is the BEST and MOST informative way to keep abreast of things is current information from actual parents with kids in the school system there.
I think there are some great points made. Especially about the fundraising events. I also posted about this before on this and other forums. Many of the schools in the PUSD have parents that contribute directly to the schools.
Our daughter went to preschool last year at a PUSD school and we saw first hand just how much parents contributed. Often times, the school would send a list of items in the classroom they needed or were low on. By the following week, they would be fully stocked on most items they asked about. I think this is great and really goes a long way. I'm not sure how much of this is done in other school districts.
Our daughter went to a PUSD school this year as well and when they needed ipads for the class, they only had money for one and the parents put money together to buy more.
As well they have fundraisers throughout the year at most of these schools that seems like it raises quite a bit of money to use for aids and other employees.
Parent Participation: Another good point is parent participation. I think this makes a HUGE difference in how the schools do. There were so many parents that volunteered to help out. An eye opener was going to the Tb skin testing for the PUSD. (Parents that want to volunteer have to do a Tb Skin test). Wow, they had to have tons of employees helping out with reading the tests and there were LONG lines. There were so many parents that volunteer to help and stay so very involved with the schools. It's great!
Diversity: Last year at our daughter's class, white kids were the clear minority in her class. They had 2 black kids, MANY Asian or Indian or biracial kids of Asian descent. There were a few Mexican/Hispanics as well. It was GREAT for our daughter to be around so many different cultures and ethic backgrounds.
This year at another PUSD school in a more affluent area the kids are mostly white kids but several Asian kids as well. I was surprised to hear the class sizes are good at your school. That's great! 16 kids per teacher is VERY GOOD. At the Kindergarten classes at her school it's more like 26 kids per teacher! Granted the classes have room moms and assistants but wow that is a big difference!
Housing prices: We looked all over the place. Originally we thought we'd buy a place in La Jolla. But it was impossible to find something big enough that we liked. We could have gone up with our comfort zone to buy in La Jolla but ultimately we are VERY happy to buy where we did. In La Jolla most of the places were VERY dated and would have involved extensive renovations.
We looked at many houses in Carmel Valley as well and we did see some nice places but ultimately we bought in Santaluz which we are THRILLED about.
If you are looking at the Carmel Valley and Scripps Ranch you might want to also check out Santaluz. Prices are on the move up and things are going quickly but I MUCH preferred it over Carmel Valley as far as the communities, housing and just the general community.
If your budget is $1.2 million you can still get a nice house here now. This just sold:
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Diego/7575-Delfina-92127/home/6482881
You mentioned 2,500 sq. feet. This was is 2,958 sq. feet and I believe is going for around $915,000 (it's in Escrow now). It went into escrow within days of being listed.
It went into escrow within 12 hours of being listed. You probably don't need anything that big but you can see it's a gorgeous house with 5 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms. Good sized yard, nice interior courtyard and gorgeous community.
Here is one that sold a few months ago for $906,000 a few short months ago and it was over 3,500 sq. feet.
We looked at many homes over in Carmel Valley and all were over $1 million and many of them had like 4 or 5 houses directly looking into their backyard.
There seems to be more and more houses hitting the market now that inventory is so low and prices are on the rise.
There ARE Mello Roos taxes over here but quite honestly even with them we felt it was well worth it. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. At that $1.2 million or so range, I just feel it's GREAT value for the money compared to many other areas.
