French schools and surrounding neighborhoods in LA? (Beverly Hills, Westwood: cul-de-sac, 2010)

[Mimi64]

Since school location largely dictates where a young family chooses to live, this is kind of a two-part post. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

We are planning to relocate to LA for the 2010 school year (kids will be 3 and 6 at move time). We are French citizens currently living in Montreal, and it is important to us that the kids be schooled in the French system to give them future flexibility to continue their studies in France somewhere down the line.

I have looked fairly extensively, and to my knowledge there are only 2 possibilities for schools - the Lycee Francais (LFLA) and the Lycee Internationale (LILA). My husband has visited the LILA school in Los Feliz and really liked it, and we'll likely visit the LFLA (which has a cluster of campuses just south of Century City) our next trip out. For work purposes, I think it would be best for us to be located west-ish, which is why for the moment we're not looking at the other LILA campuses (Pasedena, OC, Tarzana).

My questions are:

1) Does anyone have experience (preferably direct) with these schools? If so, what are your impressions? Have I missed any other French-language/system options?

2) Where would our best options to look for a home if the school choice is either Los Feliz or Century City? Work 'could' be home-based (a more affordable address would make this possible - we need studio space). We will probably lease short term while we look for a home to purchase. We've looked around and know that we'll likely need to spend between $800 and $1.5 for a home.

Any suggestions / advice would be welcome. My husband has been in LA regularly over the past 2 years, but we've just started focusing on the logistics of how to transfer our lives there and are feeling a bit lost.

[Charles]

Where will he be working (commuting to)? (Not sure what you meant by "home based", school or work?)

School Performance Maps

http://www.city-data.com/forum/orang...ing-tools.html

[cali_to_nj]

If you are looking to live in a single family home, Los Feliz will have more options. Century City is more of a business district with high rise condo buildings, with small pockets of surrounding (and very expensive) residential areas such as Cheviot Hills, Beverlywood, Beverly Hills and Westwood.

[Mimi64]

[quote=Charles;9055038]Where will he be working (commuting to)? (Not sure what you meant by "home based", school or work?)


Thanks for the quick responses Charles and cali_to_nj. We 'could' be working at home, if we find something that we can afford that has sufficient space for a studio. We would still want to have easy access to key movie-business networking and studio areas (Sunset Blvd., Sony etc.) as DH is in the music side of the movie biz. 'If' we could work at home, the commute to school would be the main thing to work around - as well as being comfortable living in the neighborhood.

My sense is that Los Feliz would be more attainable for a s-f home, but I don't know much about the area. I've read things in other posts re: safety etc. that made me a bit nervous. The v-expensive residential areas scare me for other reasons. Any comments on Los Feliz as a place to live?

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Mimi64

Any comments on Los Feliz as a place to live?

If you found a home in Los Feliz that was absolutely perfect in every way except it didn't have a lot of kids in the neighborhood for your kids to play with, would you still move there?

[BRinSM]

i would go with the french school on the westside. they have two locations, on Pico and on Overland. there are some really nice neighborhoods in that area and it is also very close to sony and fox studios. los feliz is also very nice and not too far from some other major studios. overall though, for a family i would say that the westside is a better place to live, especially if you have the financial means to afford it.

[Mimi64]

Originally Posted by Charles

If you found a home in Los Feliz that was absolutely perfect in every way except it didn't have a lot of kids in the neighborhood for your kids to play with, would you still move there?

That's a good question - one I'm not totally sure I have the right answer to...will need to think about it. If there are no kids around to play with, it also tells me that Los Feliz might not be that 'family friendly'. Is that an accurate interpretation?

Re: French schools on the west site - I agree regarding that area as a good place to live, budget permitting, but we have some concerns about the Lycee Francais as the right fit for our kids. Would commuting from the West side to the school in Los Feliz be a big issue (sorry but I'm a bit ignorant about these things....). We have the disadvantage of not even living in the states at the moment, so this move will mean a lot of changes which of course makes us all a bit nervous

[timelesschild]

Los Feliz is plenty family friendly. Of course, it depends on your family. I would live there with my 3 children, no problem. It is a beautiful area with plenty of families of every description. All the families I know who live there, really like it a lot. Griffith Park is right there - it's hard to imagine a nicer place than that, for kids.

It is not a suburban cul-de-sac kind of a place. The people who find that to be ideal for families would feel a little lost in Los Feliz.