Info on high schools and neighborhoods in Novato Petaluma and Santa Rosa (Vallejo: apartment complexes)

[soccer/rocker mom]

We are relocating from Florida to north/east bay ca. Hubby will be working in Vallejo. I need suggestions on nice areas with safe high schools. I have two teenagers. What are the high schools And cities to stay away from (gangs). An area where they can have some freedom but is safe(movies, mall etc.). One plays football and other is into the music scene. We also like fishing and outdoor activities. Our budget for a rental is around $2000 a month. Commute to Vallejo no more than 45 min.

[CyanideThistles]

I'm from SR, and I can recommend Maria Carrillo High in northeast SR which is a good school, and many of the students there come from a wealthy part of town. it's kind of the "prep" school of Santa Rosa. avoid Elsie Allen or Piner High.. not to denigrate them but they're kind of regarded as the "ghetto" schools and do tend to have a lot of students who are gang members. of course, there are some students who take their education seriously but you'll find more dedicated students at other schools. but any school will have "bad" students or kids who are willing to do well in academic and in society. Carrillo High also is a good school for sports, or at least to my knowledge, especially for football. Montgomery High does too. I don't know too much about Petaluma's high schools, but Casa Grande is not a bad school from what i hear.

there are several movie theaters in SR, like one downtown for instance, and there's two malls. one is the SR Plaza and the other being Coddingtown Mall, which is kind of a dead mall. Santa Rosa Plaza may attract a lot of gang banger types, but it's a mall in a kind of urban area, so nothing out of the ordinary, lol. However, there's a lot of parks to hang out at. Annadel State Park is a great state park to fish at, hike, and see animals like deer. Not gonna lie, it's not the most exciting city for a young person. Not much of a music scene here, but there's a hip hop community that is somewhat present in Santa Rosa.

Homes are expensive here. I've never owned or rented any property here but the cheapest homes are in the southwest/northwest areas, but they're generally not nice places to live. Rincon Valley is probably the nicest affordable community, but some of the apartment complexes here are notorious for drug use, carjacking, etc. For the most part, it's a pretty nice area and even the lower-income areas are not too bad, it's just that the schools in these areas are definitely avoidable.