People overly negative about CA and Orange County (Santa Cruz, Empire: schools, gated communities)

[NaplesRes]

Originally Posted by cheekymamie

The school districts you mentioned in South OC, even North San Diego County has some top schools, but it seems to be pockets of schools. I'll give you an example, my daughter (a 5th grader) goes to a school within Long Beach Unified in one of the most affluent parts of Long Beach on the water. Across the street, they just finished building a $6 million home with a yacht docked out front. Her school is a "10" school, small and private-like and even with the infusion of money from PTA and parent contributions yearly, they still had to "cut" art, music, and their marine science program (which left my daughter devastated). The Jr. high she should be attending from 6-8 grade is bigger and more diverse socio-economically and introduces other elements into the mix, not only socially, but kids from poor performing schools and that were deprived of a proper education, holding up the performance of the whole class.

Collin County in Texas (where Plano, Allen, Frisco, etc.) is ranked #2 for its schools in the entire USA! I'm not saying that Texas will solve all the ills of the world, but for my young family of 3 it seems right for now. I would miss the weather here (we live so close, but never go to the beach), having 3 kids and a mortgage here prevents us from taking vacations too often, unless you count quick Vegas trips, so in my almost 29 years, I still haven't seen everything in the state. We will miss our family, but I have a feeling they will follow eventually.

The only good things about California for me are:

1. Weather
2. Culture (things to do/great food)
3. The Coast
5. Family

The good things (for me personally)about Texas:
1. Cost of Living is good
2. Schools are better than California's best
3. Better healthcare in Texas for my special needs child (top 5 children's hospital in the US in the DFW metro, not to mention Baylor)
4. Better economy & job market since so many different sectors are located in the DFW metro
5. The state isn't bankrupt and sending out IOU's
6. Not a "nanny state" telling you what you can't and cannot do, I swear California is really leaning towards Marxism, this coming from a former lefty liberal. Won't go further into the political debate.

You must be a neighbor of mine. If you are, the middle school is Rogers and I think it is hard to complain about that school. No matter how you evaluate it, it is either the best or second best middle school in the entire Long Beach/Seal Beach/Los Alamitos area. It gets a "9" ranking and has very high api scores. Lots of parent involvement too. Yeah it has a little more diversity (not much for socal) but I actually think that is a good thing.

By the way, how could you leave wonderful Naples for any other area especially boring Rossmoor or south oc. It's the best! (Obviously I'm biased.)

[JesiJay]

Have you visited Collin County?

[cheekymamie]

Originally Posted by JesiJay

you live paycheck to paycheck on 180k a year?? Wow.

How much are the utilities there? Because here in Texas for example, our electric bill in the summer is anywhere from 300-400$ a month (and we keep our a/c on 80 degrees). In the winter it's normally 80-100$ a month.

Utilities are less from what I understand here in California, but I guess it depends. I live about 1 mile from the ocean so we don't get too hot on a hot day, maybe high 80's when its 100+ inland. If you more than 6-10 miles from the ocean, its hot and the A/C is cranked up. If its 90+ outside, I have the A/C on all day. My house is small so my bill in summer with high AC usage is $200/month. This past summer was mostly mild, so only used the AC during a few heat waves, bill was $150/month. How big is your home?


$180k/year would be if I went back to work, but $120k is what we earn now gross. We do live paycheck to paycheck now too, with a smaller mortgage than the hypothetical $800k, but thats because we have high credit card debt.

If we move to Texas and keep the same salary (likely in my DH profession)
and buy a nice house in the $300-400k range, we would have close to $3k extra/month to save for a rainy day. If we stay here, not only does that savings vanish, but I would have to work as well to afford the next house up. We've been in our home for almost 10 years, a 1953 ranch house, 1350 sq. feet. Remodeled and still working on it, but we need at least 2,000 sq. feet for a family of 5 with 2 big dogs. Out here in the "true California lifestyle living" in the upscale areas on the water, homes are $800k+, usually $1.2 million and up. You need a high income to afford the mortgage on that, unless you like renting forever. Even with the equity in our home for a downpayment, $800k is a stretch unless you have a multi-family situation, which we don't and would never want.

[cheekymamie]

Originally Posted by NaplesRes

You must be a neighbor of mine. If you are, the middle school is Rogers and I think it is hard to complain about that school. No matter how you evaluate it, it is either the best or second best middle school in the entire Long Beach/Seal Beach/Los Alamitos area. It gets a "9" ranking and has very high api scores. Lots of parent involvement too. Yeah it has a little more diversity (not much for socal) but I actually think that is a good thing.

By the way, how could you leave wonderful Naples for any other area especially boring Rossmoor or south oc. It's the best! (Obviously I'm biased.)

I agree that Naples is fantastic, but I live near Cal State close to the freeway, in a nice quiet neighborhood, but Naples and Belmont Shore it's not. Even though we have remodeled our home, our neighbors have not right next door and across the street, they have run down houses and have lived there for 30+ years. Nice people, but not the calliber I'm looking for. During the boom, a few young professional couples moved in and remodeled on our street, but that is not enough.

Rogers in comparison to the Collin County junior high schools performs way below their level. Rogers in comparison to McAuliffe Middle in Los Al is also not on par. I agree that Rogers is acceptable, but I would not send any of my kids to Wilson/Poly/or Milliken. Diversity is good, but not when bullets are flying at school (always happens at least once every 2 years at or near Wilson).

[cheekymamie]

Originally Posted by JesiJay

Have you visited Collin County?

No not yet, but I will next month. We are looking at Austin and surrounding areas and Plano/Allen & Dallas 'burbs. I'm not visiting with any expectations that Texas is like California and I don't want it to be. We want a change for now. We do want to find a nice area though and job wise the DFW area seems more robust, but Austin seems like more of a fit for us. I read on this board that Frisco is like the Inland Empire here and that we want to avoid, any input from Texans would be greatly appreciated!

[NaplesRes]

Originally Posted by cheekymamie

I agree that Naples is fantastic, but I live near Cal State close to the freeway, in a nice quiet neighborhood, but Naples and Belmont Shore it's not. Even though we have remodeled our home, our neighbors have not right next door and across the street, they have run down houses and have lived there for 30+ years. Nice people, but not the calliber I'm looking for. During the boom, a few young professional couples moved in and remodeled on our street, but that is not enough.

Rogers in comparison to the Collin County junior high schools performs way below their level. Rogers in comparison to McAuliffe Middle in Los Al is also not on par. I agree that Rogers is acceptable, but I would not send any of my kids to Wilson/Poly/or Milliken. Diversity is good, but not when bullets are flying at school (always happens at least once every 2 years at or near Wilson).

If you live over by CSULB those are some lovely neighborhoods. I would be proud to live over there, El Dorado, etc.

I dont know anything about texas schools. You may be correct. McAuliffe has a little better API scores than Rogers but really at that point you're arguing the edges. You the parent are going to have much more effect than a few api points. I have friends that could send their kids to any private school but they love Rogers. As far as bullets, you could make that case at Poly due to the area it is in, but not Wilson. Wilson has a lot of diversity but the biggest problem with all the high schools is size. Los Al has the same problem. They are too big. The one promising thing for LB Unified is the district is building 4 new thematic high schools to take enrollment pressure off of the traditional college prep high schools.

But actually now that I read your feedback you probably would feel more comfortable in south oc where people pay a bit more attention to "caliber of people", etc. Even in Naples where people are generally rather wealthy nobody cares. LB is just a lot more comfortable with its middle class roots than a lot of parts of OC which ties to my original comments in this thread. Although I guess youre moving to texas. Good luck and I hope you love it.

[JesiJay]

Cheekiemamie I sent you a message!

[k374]

Orange County is great, if you're either:

a) a multi millionaire
b) bought your house before 2000 and earn $250,000/yr+

for the rest of us it is a very challenging place to get ahead.

[Raelyn28]

Oh please!! maybe the heating bill is a little higher but that is about it...big deal. The pros far outweigh the cons...

Originally Posted by JesiJay

you live paycheck to paycheck on 180k a year?? Wow.

How much are the utilities there? Because here in Texas for example, our electric bill in the summer is anywhere from 300-400$ a month (and we keep our a/c on 80 degrees). In the winter it's normally 80-100$ a month.

[RobE]

Never thought I would say this, but I am finding that people are tending to be a bit too negative about CA, particularly Orange County.

I have written a lot of negative stuff about California and OC, but I would move back there in a heartbeat if I could afford to.

But you also have to realize that there are those of us who are old enough to remember when OC and CA were great places to raise a family safely and where living in a working class community was nice rather than a sentence to a rundown area with dysfunctional schools. So a lot of the dismay is driven by those memories of what once was.