Palm Springs/Palm Desert/Yucca Valley - area info and school info needed (Riverside: crime rates)

[Antonia99]

Hello, my fiance is working in 29 Palms (military base) and he is living in Yucca Valley. He wants me and my teenage (bi-racial) son to move to Yucca Valley to be with him but I have been very worried about the high schools over there. I heard some bad things about the Yucca Valley high school, but I'm not sure if any of it is true. I looked online and also found bad reviews about the Palm Springs public high school.. anyone know anything about these schools?

Then I found a charter high school in Palm Desert that has a very nice website (Mirus secondary school) and it seemed good. Is Palm Desert a good place to live?

In that case me an my son could live there, at least we would be close to my finace (now we live in Europe so we would be much closer actually!).

I don't drive though so we would have to live close to the school. Is Palm Desert an expensive area or can 'regular' people live there too?

Thanks so much!
Antonia

[Brandon Graves]

If I were you, I would locate this question in the San Bernardino and Riverside Counties forum first. Just my opinion.

[Brandon Graves]

As for the areas you are asking about, first off, what kind of bad things did you exactly hear about Yucca Valley HS? At least from what I have observed by visiting and checking it out, Yucca Valley itself is pretty darn safe (aside from drug-related crimes and petty theft).

Yes, Palm Desert can be a good place to live, and it can be an expensive area, depending on where in Palm Desert you are looking (which, in this case, pretty much about 95% of it is). And, yes, it is also pretty safe out there, as well. However, you would have to prepare yourself for a higher amount of days climbing 110°F and over on the regular, since it is in the low desert, whereas Yucca Valley is in the high desert, so, less days of +110°F.

I personally do not know much about public schools in Palm Springs, but I would imagine that they would fair around average. Despite what the crime rates may suggest, Palm Springs is still pretty safe (just avoid the northern end of the city going towards the I-10 Freeway).

Both Palm Springs and Palm Desert would be good places to live, and there are other cities in the Coachella Valley that you could look into: La Quinta, Indio, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, etc. Palm Desert has some of the better-performing schools in the Coachella Valley.

Hopefully this helps at least a little bit.

Are there any other questions that you might have?

[nightlysparrow]

Have you looked into visas? Are you US Citizens?

If not, you will be in for a shock.

[sean1the1]

Palm Desert, and La Quinta both have the best school in the region, and neither one are expensive by California standards. If you don't mind seeing your fiance on the weekends than I would choose one of those. Personally if I was trying to be as close to my fiance as possible I would just go with Yucca Valley it's a decent school not terrible, but it's simply not worth it to commute a far distance for a school that's only slightly better, plus he's already living there so I don't think you'll be coming out of pocket.

I was stationed out in 29 recently! Going up and down the hill can be taxing idk how many people do it.

A good site to use is schooldigger it's a great way to compare all the different schools you are considering.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by Brandon Graves

If I were you, I would locate this question in the San Bernardino and Riverside Counties forum first. Just my opinion.

Yes, the OP would get answers from people who live there or at least nearby.

[Antonia99]

Hi! Thanks so much, I will add this question to the other forum then. But thanks a lot already for the answers. So Yucca Valley HS isn't so bad then. It was just one woman on fb who told me that her niece went to that school a few years ago and had gotten inte drugs.. so that scared me.
Our K1 visa is 'in the making'. Also, thanks for the info about the hot weather in Palm Desert.. I'm not a huge fan of uncomfortable tempratures.

There are good schools where I live in where my son could go if we don't move to the US, but unfortunately I don't know if my relationship will survive another almost 5 years long distance. So we will at least first try to see if this plan would work out.