Towns with good Schools in Bay Area

[RMESMH]

Originally Posted by mattja

Those kinds of commutes -- you have to be young to do it and not have an aneurysm.

My old boss had a heart attack from the stress of commuting from Concord to Hayward every day. He was in his 60s and otherwise fit.

And it would be much crazier now, perhaps even impossible, re the traffic being even worse now.

[RMESMH]

Originally Posted by gizmo980

The Central Valley isn't the Bay Area lol. That's like saying "I had a house in Kansas for $250K, can I get something comparable for that price here?" The answer is no, unless you're willing to commute from the mountains or far south Bay.

I bought my house in the Santa Cruz Mountains for $640K in 2021, but I don't know how the schools are up here (I don't have kids). And if they're going to school in the valley, or you're working in the valley, it's not a fun commute. I do it every day, and it can be stressful. Plus my house wouldn't really be suitable for a family - it's only 2br/1ba.

Where in that post did he say or imply that the Central Valley is the Bay Area ?

Answer....He didn't.

[mattja]

Originally Posted by gizmo980

Yeah, Scotts Valley is a commuter town - since it's pretty easy access to Santa Cruz and San Jose/SV, if you're not a nervous nelly who's afraid of highway 17. Where I live, up in the Boulder Creek/Ben Lomond area, the housing prices are still much lower. We have a tougher commute with 2-lane roads in & out (which are frequently blocked by weather or construction), so it's less appealing to people who need regular valley access.

As I mentioned earlier, I paid "only" $640K for my 2br/1ba single-family home in 2021. And with a nice low interest rate, too, since that was before those rates shot up.

That's a pretty area. I've been in the Bay Area for more than 40 years and I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard Highway 9 was closed due to flood or mudslide. It goes with the territory -- the price of living in such a lush and beautiful forest. A generator and a pantry full of supplies are almost required.

Were you there during the fires when the air particulates were something like one gazillion ppm? That was crazy.

[gizmo980]

Originally Posted by RMESMH

Where in that post did he say or imply that the Central Valley is the Bay Area ?

Answer....He didn't.

Where did he say (to paraphrase) "I'd like to find something similar to what I have in the Central Valley, for (not much more money) in the Bay?"

Answer... in his original posts.

Thanks for playing!

[gizmo980]

Originally Posted by mattja

That's a pretty area. I've been in the Bay Area for more than 40 years and I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard Highway 9 was closed due to flood or mudslide. It goes with the territory -- the price of living in such a lush and beautiful forest. A generator and a pantry full of supplies are almost required.

Were you there during the fires when the air particulates were something like one gazillion ppm? That was crazy.

I was in Scotts Valley (north of town off 17) during the fires... yeah... it was crazy.

Here are a couple of pics I took from outside my home; that bright red thing is the sun! And we had no power (or generator yet) for a handful of days, so I couldn't run a fan - but also couldn't open windows due to the air quality. Pretty awful.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by gizmo980

I was in Scotts Valley (north of town off 17) during the fires... yeah... it was crazy.

Here are a couple of pics I took from outside my home; that bright red thing is the sun! And we had no power (or generator yet) for a handful of days, so I couldn't run a fan - but also couldn't open windows due to the air quality. Pretty awful.

Thanks for posting this, giz. I've been trying to get my brother in Fremont to get central air for occasions like this one. He says their furnace filter keeps the indoor air quality manageable during the rare fire season that reaches the Bay Area, but if the weather's warm, they're trapped indoors, the the heat can get pretty bad. I think it's best to be ready for anything, plus the heat waves for a few years were becoming more frequent. But A/C costs, so they haven't gone for it yet.

[mattja]

Originally Posted by gizmo980

I was in Scotts Valley (north of town off 17) during the fires... yeah... it was crazy.

Here are a couple of pics I took from outside my home; that bright red thing is the sun! And we had no power (or generator yet) for a handful of days, so I couldn't run a fan - but also couldn't open windows due to the air quality. Pretty awful.

I have some pictures just like that from up here in Contra Costa, but I seemed to have misplaced them. I know we got above 200 ppm for a few weeks. It was persistent. Even the marine layer couldn't take it out. In some case, the marine layer brought more in due to the cyclone effect.

[mattja]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Thanks for posting this, giz. I've been trying to get my brother in Fremont to get central air for occasions like this one. He says their furnace filter keeps the indoor air quality manageable during the rare fire season that reaches the Bay Area, but if the weather's warm, they're trapped indoors, the the heat can get pretty bad. I think it's best to be ready for anything, plus the heat waves for a few years were becoming more frequent. But A/C costs, so they haven't gone for it yet.

I bought a Honeywell HEPA air purifier at Home Depot just for fire season. I haven't used it yet, but I'm ready for the next big one. I learned my lesson during the 2018-2020 fires.

[RMESMH]

Originally Posted by gizmo980

Where did he say (to paraphrase) "I'd like to find something similar to what I have in the Central Valley, for (not much more money) in the Bay?"

Answer... in his original posts.

Thanks for playing!

Except something similar and being in aren't the same thing.

He said in his post that they have family in the Bay Area. He knows he's not in the Bay Area and informs us that he has family in the Bay Area. Unless he never communicates with his family (which doesn't make sense...why mention them then), his family knows that they are in the Bay Area and he isn't, and he'd already know what overall area comprises the Bay Area. Even some who have lived in the Bay Area for decades don't know the dialed down specifics of some other parts of the Bay Area...knowing more is always better.

[Vision67]

No D’s and F’s? No extra credit? Will Bay Area schools’ switch to equity grading help or harm students?

Dublin Unified School District says the public school grading system is unfair

https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2024/04...harm-students/

"Hrihaan Bhutani is already thinking about college. The Dublin Unified freshman is taking four Advanced Placement classes next year and has crammed his schedule with extracurricular activities to better his chances of getting into an Ivy League school.

But a change at the district designed to get students less focused on grades has done the opposite. Suddenly, in some classes, A’s are almost unachievable, unless you score 100%. And F’s don’t exist. For high-achieving students like Bhutani, who attends Emerald High School, a new school on the Dublin High campus, the pressure to be perfect is even more of a burden.

“I feel more stressed … now with this new system,” said Bhutani, who is especially sweating his biology class, one of dozens trying a variety of new grading scales under a two-year experiment. “Even if you’re at a 99, you would get moved down to an 85,” he explained, which translates to a world-ending B."

"Dela Antoinette, a parent of a sophomore at Dublin High, said she worries that equity grading will harm the high-achieving students who are performing well under the current system.

“Instead of pushing this agenda, let’s focus on lifting this particular group up and get them up to the standard of other students that are excelling,” she said. “Not lower the standards, not change the entire system for everyone.”"