alternative elementry schools (art, music, nature based) and rural-ish living around Eugene? (Junction City: real estate)

[Anna Bainbridge]

Thinking ...thinking ...thinking of my escape from Marin... Used to live in Humboldt (college days) and loved it, but don't want to go back there. Grew up in Marin, but man has it changed and I can't take it much longer! Wondering about the Eugene area...
Thanks for your responses

[Mr Eugenified]

Before I moved to Eugene, I also considered (Humbolt area cities) Eureka, Arcata, and McKinleyville as possible living locations. After a 5 days visit there, no matter how hard I tried, I just could not accept it. Sure, it has some great features (forest, ocean, liberal, sorta funky), but the negatives outweighed the positives. The negatives were rundown, grungy, and unkept...not just a little. Really bad.

As for Eugene, I think it has most of the positives of that area (except the ocean is not so close here...hey, fewer tsunamis...) and some of the grungy feeling in certain areas, but only a little. Many areas, especially in the south and southwest parts of Eugene, are really green, laid-back, and beautiful. Fairly neat and tidy too. The people here take pride in their city, and it shows. Of course, there is a grungy, fisher-price-toys-in-the-front-yard, rusted-car-up-on-jacks segment of residents, so you need to avoid the areas they tend to live in. (One of these days I want to put together a summary of various Eugene neighborhoods with pictures on my website, but until then, I suggest you take a look at this other thread and, of course, drive around Eugene yourself...it's pretty obvious which areas are nice and which are not so nice. Fisher-price-toys-in-the-front-yard plus RVs/boats-in-the-driveway are dead giveaways.)

To compare it to Marin, I would say that Eugene is a bit more rustic, and obviously the real estate is much more affordable here. This is good news, but also keep in mind that there is a wider mix of economic classes here because of this. (See above mega-hyphenated-words...hey, that's ironic!...more hyphen-mania below too.)

Most importantly, Eugene has about 1% of the fake-smile, spray-tan, Starbuck-y, leased-BMW pretentiousness of Marin. On the surface, Marin has a nice clean Stepfordish quality, but if you scratch the surface, it is pretty ugly underneath. With Eugene, what you see is what you get. You might not like what you see 100%, but there is nothing hidden or fake. (On the other hand, since you are from Marin, you may think my description is insane, so feel free to correct me...I have only been to Marin a few times and had some college classmates from that area...but I grew up in a similar area).

Re schools: No idea. I'll let someone else answer that one.

[Nell Plotts]

You may find that some of the public schools fit your expectations of an 'alternative' school because many of the adult residents fit the 'alternative' description.

[sarahkate_m]

you may wish to consider Lorane, Pleasant Hill or Junction City for finding a home or homesite.

as for schools:

Eugene Waldorf School

Ridgeline Montessori Public Char

The Village School

Google Maps


Most people whom I'm familiar with usually send their kids to public elementary & then to private for the upper grades.

Kate

[haggardhouseelf]

Hi Anna!

Eugene has a lot of options for elementary schools. (Here's a link to the public options...) If we had lived here before our children started school we would have started our kids out in one of the language immersion schools. There are three language-immersion school programs here: Spanish, Japanese and French. We also have many charter, alternative, and private schools. We also have a rather large homeschooling population here, as well as two (that I know of) online public schools - ORVA and ORCA. I have heard from other parents that the Family School is awesome, as well as Oak Hill School.

A quick google will soon overwhelm you with the possibilities here.

At the high school level - we are very fortunate to have the IHS program here at three of our high schools. That is an excellent program!

We have personally been involved with Gilham Elementary and Cal Young middle school. We absolutely love both. Cal Young seemed to struggle a bit with attitudes and bullying for years... but the past three years seems to have really turned things around. They have a new principal, many new teachers, and are in a brand new - and beautiful - building now and somehow it seems just the freshness of being in a beautiful new building and people with new energy and with all that wonderful natural light that the new building has... somehow it's all worked it's magic to change attitudes... maybe? The vice principal, too, is really cracking down on the bullying that was taking place. It's a very positive place now with lots of opportunities for the kids. And Gilham Elem. is a very positive place as well. The teachers there are fantastic and there is a huge group of parents involved with that school. My kids have especially enjoyed the Japanese classes as well as the digitial media classes.

Good luck with your search!