Moving to Sac, Pocket or Carmichael? (Sacramento, Roseville: job transfer, established neighborhood, buying)

[Leo4]

I am moving my family to Sacramento in March due to a job transfer and will be working downtown. We have two small children so we are looking for safe neighborhoods, good schools, and a relatively short commute.

So far, the Pocket area and Carmichael have the most appeal to us in our preliminary search and visits. Are there any opinions out there on which neighborhood is better? Also, it looks like both have great elementary schools, but Pocket does not have very highly rated high schools while Carmichael does, why is this?

Finally, should I be worried about flooding in the Pocket area?

[CityGirl72]

Cuz the Pocket area is right by the most dangerous area of Sacramento, Florin Rd and Meadowview.

I like the Pocket too - but would never raise my kids there because it's WAAAAY to close to the gangs and ghetto for my comfort level.

[wburg]

Carmichael is outside the city of Sacramento, in the unincorporated county. The Pocket has levees that stop flooding, while Carmichael is higher above sea level.

[zen_klown]

The areas are served by two different school districts, the Sacramento City Unifided School District and the San Juan Unified School District. During the 70's, the Sac City District was sued for discrimination, as a result they implimented a program to bus schools to integrate the schools. Later they dropped the busing, but replaced it with a series of magnet programs.

San Juan was built out later. In San Juan, they still have a system of neighborhood schools, but if the local neighborhood school is under enrolled, you can apply for an intra-district transfer, allowing your child to attend the better performing school. This open enrollment policy meant that the district never had to start a program for busing nor a system of magnet schools.

You can compare schools in Sacramento County here by test score. Generally the high scoring schools in the Sac City District are magnet programs, in San Juan, if you buy into the local attendence district for the school, you have a pretty high probability of attending that school. In Sac City District, if you move into an area l

2007 Base API County List of Schools - Sacramento County

If you click on the link for a specific school, it will bring up more information about that school. You can get a break down of school enrollment by ethnicity, average level of educational attainment etc. Here is an example of the test scores for where my girlfriend's kids attend school.

2007 Base API School Report (CA Department of Education)

If you wanted to find the attendence map for a specific school, you can go down to the district office, or you can check the local school website. This is the attendence map for Del Dayo, so you know what I am talking about.

http://www.sanjuan.edu/files/filesys...elDayoElem.pdf

This is an educational attainment map that covers both regions. If you look on the left tab under demographics, you can also see maps of ethnicity, income for the region.

STI: ERsys - Sacramento, CA (Income)

This is a map of school performance by test score on the API. You may have to click on it a few times to bring up the Sacramento region.

California School Performance Maps

The Pocket and Greenhaven are very popular with well educated minority members. It has probably one of the highest concentrations of educated Asians in the region. The areas where the schools are strongest in Carmichael is less diverse, but that is probably starting to change.

The Sacramento Mandarin School offers its classes at Rio Americano.

The other strength of Carmicheal is the proximity to CSUS. Its a neighborhood where lots of the professors live and they send their kids to the local schools.

CSUS offers a talent search program. Students in the local schools participate fairly heavily because its nearby and often because there parents were the ones who told them about it.

Academic Talent Search

For researching flooding information see my older post here.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/7437203-post8.html

[MamaToThree]

I have three small children and we live in Carmichael. There are some great schools here and not so great schools here in the SJUSD. It depends on what you want for your child's education. Do you want a straight up fundamental school like Harry Dewey or do you want a charter school like California Montessori Project or Golden Valley Charter (Waldorf)? Do you want a school with high test scores in an affluent neighborhood? There are so many things to consider. I just went through this whole process trying to figure out where we belong. It.Was.Stressful. Uggghhh.....

Anyway, I'm an east coast transplant and have loved raising a family in Carmichael. Close to everything (Roseville and downtown) and very established neighborhoods (unlike Elk Grove and Natomas). Keep doing your research. You should also check out the Fair Oaks area, too. Good luck on your move!

[Reloc]

Originally Posted by Leo4

I am moving my family to Sacramento in March due to a job transfer and will be working downtown. We have two small children so we are looking for safe neighborhoods, good schools, and a relatively short commute.

So far, the Pocket area and Carmichael have the most appeal to us in our preliminary search and visits. Are there any opinions out there on which neighborhood is better? Also, it looks like both have great elementary schools, but Pocket does not have very highly rated high schools while Carmichael does, why is this?

Finally, should I be worried about flooding in the Pocket area?

Check out this ASAP Relocations Scams before moving

[leavingcali]

I work for the CA Department of Water Resources--The Pocket area is considered especially dangerous regarding flooding (as is Natomas). If you plan on buying, DON'T in either one of these locations.

[cncsmomndad]

We used to live in the Pocket. The thought of flooding made us very uneasy and we eventually moved. I'd choose Carmichael just for that fact alone.