San Francisco Area, schools, neighborhood (San Jose, Sacramento: real estate, house, law school)

[clampets]

California is the place you oughta be. We are moving from the midwest to San Francisco. With a 12 and 14 year old, our interest is in community and schools. Now we are in a great midwest community where the kids can walk after school for pizza, and hang out and it feels extremely safe. We also have good public schools. Of course, we don't have great hiking nearby, cool city life of SF, driving to Yosemite, Tahoe and all of the goodies that come with SF. So, can we have it all out there? We are currently in a 600K 4/3 home and expect to pay 900K or more for a similar or smaller home. I know real estate is so pricey. Does anyone have suggestions? My husband will work downtown and can drive or would look at the train....whatever to ease the commute.

I know too that some towns have areas that are harder to be the 'new kids on the block'......would like to make it as easy as possible for kids.
One last concern, do any school systems have better reputations for working with kids with learning disabilities? My son has a form of dyslexia that requires a school that can make modifications for writing assignments....

Appreciate anyones help. Its tough deciphering a new area!

[choctawmicmac]

Do you want San Francisco or its suburbs? If it's the City you want, then probably a neighbourhood like the Richmond or the Sunset (out in the West, in "the Avenues" as some people call it) sounds like what you'd be comfortable with. If you insist on keeping a car, those are the most "suburban" neighbourhoods of San Francisco. If you want a house with a backyard sort of thing, then probably Daly City or somewhere on the northern Peninsula (San Mateo County) would do. From those areas you can easily drive into the City every day. ("Easily" being relative for the area) Automobile traffic into the City is a nightmare no matter what time of day and what day it is, though.

A two - or three - bedroom family home, however, will cost more than what you think it should be! That's the one thing that drives everyone away from San Francisco, even if they have good steady well-paying jobs. The closest they can find housing in their price range seems to always be over 55 miles away. Down in San Jose and beyond; out in Fairfield or Vacaville (on the northward Amtrak line towards Sacramento) or out in the Central Valley towards Stockton or Modesto. All of which require 2-3 hours worth of driving in everyday and that's just to the nearest commuter train station!

Plan on spending WAY more than that, competing fiercely for the house, and THEN you'll find the areas like the Richmond or the Sunset or the northern Peninsula (Daly City, South San Francisco) to be a reasonable commute.

That being said, San Francisco Unified School District is pretty good for a city its size. When I interviewed for a Math teaching position at a middle school in Laurel Heights, as I walked around the hallways the classes were actually quiet, the kids were paying attention, even to the "subs" and things were in order. Nothing was noisy and nothing was flying around the room, not even in rooms where there was a substitute teacher. That's just my impression of the school system. Where the students behave, even if the teacher is non-white. Where even non-white students were not acting up, throwing things, or clowning around. To me, that just said it all. But that also gives you some idea of what I am comparing San Francisco, TO.

So that's just my perspective. It would differ vastly from the perspective of someone coming from some small Midwestern town where they are used to things being normal, sane, quiet; public school classrooms being orderly and manageable for the teacher, etc.

(All other areas where I've tried to teach or get a teaching job, I have been told that I look "too young" or too "petite" to be able to have any classroom management skills...in areas where the only classroom management skill you would need would be the ability to DUCK FLYING TABLES AND CHAIRS! But if that's not the kind of area you are coming from, then my perspective on San Francisco public schools would be useless....)

That's for the k-12 public schools. The college and university selection is great, too. Check out the websites for City College of San Francisco and San Francisco State University. If you want to go private, there are also Golden Gate University and University of San Francisco. Also, U.C. Hastings law school, and San Francisco Law School; for med school there is UCSF. The public ones (CCSF, SFSU, and UCSF) are a great deal for the buck. California in-state tuition is one of the lowest in the land.

[clampets]

Thanks for the insight. I guess that I have thought more suburbs than city. I've been reading about Moraga. On paper it sounds like a possibility. Short (?) to the Orinda Bart line, good schools, nice community. Thoughts?

[tande1n5]

Yeah, Moraga's great. If you're looking in that price range, also look into Lafayette, Orinda, Walnut Creek, Pleasanton, places around there. Good schools out there, and they're close to BART (which is the only way to commute into the city if you're sane). In any of those towns, your kids might not be able to walk to school just because of the distance (big district lines), but safety wise, there'd be no problem.