True and i really appreciate it.
Mine was able to make lots of friends at new school due to mutual interest in k-pop.
I personally don’t like Young Korean boy or girl bands much but am very grateful to them. 
Thanks Jane for your perspective.
Did you move to WSJ due to your kids school primarily or other reasons as well?
That’s really horrible.
At least, at my kids’ school, nothing remotely close to this ever happened.
As a matter of fact, when my daughter went PA school, teachers and PIE volunteers were standing at the entrance and stopped and asked parents if they made a donation in front of kids during 100% matching event period (about a month) by local business. Frankly, that was the most extreme way to put pressure on donation that i’ve ever seen truly in person.
Also, suggested annual donation in CUSD is only $250 per kid. No PTA donation after PiE dination after something else (which adds up to over $1000 easily)
In my opinion, $250 annual donation per kids is very reasonable.
There are a few alternative programs(such as Chinese immersion) which asks for extra donation but these are exceptional cases.
When i lived in PA, i always donated more than suggested amount because i believed it was worthwhile. Yet, the way they put pressure on to even low income families bothered me. $1000 is half of RA monthly grant.
So far, i haven’t seen similar level of pressure on donation in CUSD from both amount and soliciting perspective.
Again, everything is based on my real experiences(not from my friends’).
Wow, interesting experiences of parents in different school districts.
I wonder sometimes why after paying so much in real estate taxes & high sales taxes@10% there is always not enough money to pay for services.
@myo,
Move to the City and avoid the craziness of the South Bay. Growing up in a diverse and exciting city like SF is an education in itself for a kid. The schools are fine here regardless of what people say. At the end of the day, it is the nurturing or the lack of it from you as parents that will either be the kicker that either makes or breaks your kids. I have see it with friends and family. The kids that I have seen do well in life had parents that gave a damn and invested time in them. A high ranking school in itself is no magic pill.
Good. At least I’m not alone. Didn’t apply for citizenship too.
Donation??? My sons went from kindergarten to high school, then UC, didn’t donate a cent! Didn’t hear of any shaming acts. Donation is voluntary. May be we are referring to different elementary and different time. My sons attended:
Elementary: Garden Gate, Stevens Creek
Middle: Kennedy, Lawson
High: Monta Vista
No donation issue. No non-racial mixing issue. A is easy to get, just play video games all day. Is not that hard.
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Well, @hanera, I would like to think your parenting (or superior human genes) played a part in the fine upbringing of your kids too.
Too many parents hide behind school ranking scores as if that is the deed to a house. Far from it. Like I said before, I have seen enough kids coming from poor to rich households, bad to great school districts, and there is no direct correlation whatsoever that rich or good schools turned out better kids. Often, far from it.
Ditto. They were at Lynbrook, Miller. No donations request (period 2000 and 2012)
I went science magnet school back in Korea and really enjoyed the time over there.
Then, I found that my kids had similar personality/interest like me.
Thus, I looked for school which has strongest STEM program.
I didn’t really care about API scores but do care about high quality STEM classes and activities.
Many of my coworkers and friends recommend Lynbrook telling me that school has great teacher supports on STEM education (not only classes but also various club activities). I did more research on the school and concluded that this would be the best option for my kids.
Other than that, it is close to me and my husband office (about 20-30mins drive on local road) and close to markets and restaurant I usually go to, and also close to my kids’ art studio.
Frankly, I only looked at Lynbrook neighborhood when I searched for the house.
However, I believe that PA, MV or LA can be much better choices for other families since they have their own preference and priority.
BTW, PA schools are great although I pointed out a few problems I experienced.
Their art and music programs were in high quality and I liked teachers over there.
A few schools have very nice location and facility.
Student/teacher ratio is for sure very low especially given one assistant teacher shared by two classes.
CUSD teachers certainly handles many more kids alone at least at elementary.
However, as a working mom, I found that CUSD schools work way better for me. Here are reasons.
- PA schools asked for volunteering all the time. At Kinder, there were teachers who recorded volunteering time per each parent and published on weekly class newspaper. I felt great pressure to do something and ended up doing weekly volunteering, which was quite challenging as a full time working mom. In CUSD, their expectation on parents volunteering is much lower than PA (nothing like weekly volunteering).
- PA schools never use school bus for field trip. Thus, parents must volunteer to give rides to all kids.
In CUSD, they typically asks for a couple of chaperones per each field trip and even do lottery to choose chaperones. - Ratio of working mom was very low at my kids school in PA. As a result, the quality of after school program (PACCC) was not good… I like YMCA after school care way more than PACCC.
In essence, if you are rich enough to afford to buy a nice house with single income in PA, the place is really good for you.
Otherwise, you may suffer…
West San Jose is engineer town with many working moms and dads. It is boring and quiet but it works great for families like us.
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Some district already pay more per student than others. My take is the donations in my district are for extra programs beyond what is needed. It’s nice to have, but not required. This is the list of what donations are for: extra sports activities; social awareness & bullying prevention; theater performance; new books for library; additional science, computer, tech equipment; playground; classroom supplies; field trips; community building events (ice cream socials, ice skating, international day, etc); teacher aides in every class; reading specialist; science teacher; technology specialist; literacy specialist; teacher training.
In other school districts, the donations are required to have arts/music program; plus donations also pay for extra programs.
Wow! Is there a link to any data on this? That is fascinating. I wonder if it is cyclical or if there is a general downward trend?
Hi Jane, I think you are one of the few good moms (opposite of tiger mom). Just kidding 
Among my coworkers, acquaintances, friends who goes to Cupertino schools, all except 3 are tiger dads and moms. They talk and brag about their kids all the time. Winning piano competition; composing music; kid can read classic Chinese novels (which is impressive); comparing school grades and scores; ice skating competition; their local Cupertino/Saratoga schools are not good enough so they go to Harker; etc.
Then among parents who live everywhere else (Fremont, Milpitas, Sunnyvale, SJ, LA, PA, etc), I would say I know 3 in PA who are tiger moms, and 1 in Fremont Mission SJ who is like tiger dad.
I’m absolutely convinced that majority of parents who buys into CU schools have different mentality than those in other areas.
This is from FAQ section in PiE (PAUSD main fundraising organization):
Because of generous donations to PiE from parents in our community like you, we have music, art, and a range of electives to spark student passions. Through PiE, we can fund 250 additional caring adults who provide support throughout PAUSD schools.
We suggest a donation amount of $1,000 per child.
What I heard all the time from school when my kid was in PA school, PiE fund was main source of spectra art (art program in PA) and without PiE donation, it would disappear. That was one of main reason I was willing to make PiE donation.
I guess what you listed was about PTA donation (which they ask on top of PiE donation).
How many people do you know who live in CUSD? 50%, 20%, 10% of whole CUSD population?
I wonder how you can use such strong terms like “I am absolutely convinced that majority of parents who buys into CU schools have different mentality than those in other areas” and “people going to open houses and buying really care about 1 thing: high school scores” in open forum(where unlimited number of people read and get information) not based on statistical data but based on your personal interaction with your friends.
Don’t you want to defend your community that you love if someone says "people going to open house and buying in PA really care about 1 thing: prestige that the name PA provides"
Bragging about their kids’ success is nothing but immature behavior and nothing to do with parents interest in kids’ education. I do agree that majority of parents in CUSD set kids education as their first priority but I cannot agree that parents in certain area can be less mature than other area.
I am not sure where this discrepancy comes from, but I never met a single parent who bragged about his/her kids’ achievement ever since I moved here. I interact with other parents every single day and don’t think my interaction is less than you who has never lived here.
If I have such negative perception on one area, I wouldn’t even mention it in comparison chart (what’s the point of bringing it up? To highlight how great PA is?) especially because I don’t want to offend anyone who lives there.
Menlo park is beautiful, tree-lined, and homey. M-A has an honors program within a school that is “diverse” academically and ethnically, and last I remember checking it did admit people to Harvard/MIT/Ivys. Everyone spends Freshman year together then goes their own path. Hillview is a new middle school and I have yet to meet anyone who is unhappy with it. Encinal is supposed to be very good. Las Lomitas/La Entrada may be just ok despite the high ratings. From what I’ve been told, most parents are “happy” unless they moved from somewhere with a great school system and then they wonder what’s in the koolaid people are drinking.
That part of Santa Cruz is a major street. Constant traffic. The rest of Santa Cruz that goes West->East is more manageable.
Shirley ave. looks like Laurel school district? Country feel I think. Personally, I love it, but you’d need to like the elementary school and the country feel. I think I only know one or two people who had kids there. They liked it, but their educational requirements may be very different from yours.
Menlo park is very bikable, and is close to Atherton if you want a nice place to jog/walk your dog/bike.
There are definitely things available in your price range, however, they are probably mostly townhouses.
That said, if you’re looking for a lot of Asian stuff, you’re not going to find it, and if you’re driving south, the commute will suck. That’s not to say there aren’t Asians there, but only two chinese restaurants that I can think of, no grocery. No Indian restaurant–those are RWC and up.
Menlo Park is influenced by Stanford. Two benefits there–constant demand on housing by students and staff if you ever need to rent your place out. Housing price is less likely to drop than places farther out.
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Here you go. 135 pages of data.
https://www.pausd.org/sites/default/files/pdm-meeting/materials/160913_pkt.pdf
Page 52 for summary. In total, there are 6 less classrooms used in Elementary schools this year vs last year. And 26 classrooms are available in the district.
Page 59 has enrollment count. K (excluding TK and Young 5) enrollment is 703, Grade1 789, Grade2 830, Grade3 863, Grade4, 924, Grade5 978. Looks like decreasing trend.
Average class size is 19 students in K and gradually increasing to 23 in Grade5.
I don’t think anyone knows for sure the future trend or reason. I suspect high house pricing might contribute to this.
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@jk88cal replying to you, but throwing this question to anyone who might know.
It sounds to me the schools are redefining what their mandate is.40-50 years back there were no computers in school so computers were not mentioned in their “mandate/charter”. Today times have changed, computers should be part of school mandate and funded from Tax/govt funds. I’m feel lot of other programs might be similar. While some new technology incur costs, they must have also reduced costs. [Haven’t researched this & hence have made some assumptions ].
What about other states? Is it similar where one has to pay additional money [PIE+PTA+ etc etc ] for these services or is it unique to California/Bay Area?
PA is increasingly difficult for young families to afford. And the old folks living on Prop 13 never want to move out.
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PA is becoming like Marin County, full of old people that will never leave…