Hi Stephane,

You've already figured out how big San Diego County is. Do you have a realtor already? They're a great resource for seeking affordable neighborhoods with highly sought-after schools.

Traffic is pretty tough, and if you've already gotten a job lined up, I'd suggest sitting down with a realtor and finding a reasonable commute, and then focusing on schools in those areas nearer your work and working your way out. San Diego is a very cosmopolitan place, and you will find many families from all over, although I don't know how many French and Japanese families you'll find in any one community.

You can also use the Research and Compare feature for San Diego County, but even looking only at elementary schools, you'll be trying to narrow it down from 700 schools.

The link is here www.greatschools.net/search/search.page?c=school&lc=e&q=San+Diego+County&search_type=0&state=CA

There are several folks who occasionally post from San Diego county so hopefully someone else can help give you more pointers.

My work is in Rancho Bernardo and we're looking for places around the Del Mar district and around the Poway district.
But perhaps there could be other places we would need to look?
For us the school is our priority and we want to live near the school. It doesn't matter if I need to drive far to work. Traffic congestion is even worse in Paris (France) and Sendai (Japan) where we lived previously, so I'm already used to the worst.

I used the search feature on the site and it gives me 30+ schools. It's hard to get a feeling on how the schools really are because most of the time people post all-or-nothing evaluation like "5stars - This shool is the best!" That doesn't tell me much.
And it's impossible to know if they really have other French/Japanese children (the statistics here don't tell for sure).
Before I spend time to go to see each and every school in the list, I would prefer to have feedback from the community on here.

east lake is a great community, salt creek elementary is such a great school. i'm mother of 3, 9 grader, 7 grader and 3 grader. the 3rd grade one is on gate program and he attended this school since kindergarden. the 9 grader has a 3.2 gpa and the 7 grader received a masonic award on 6th grade.

Thank you for your feedback, lupita88.

My twin sons are in 2nd grade at Curie School in University City, centrally located in Golden Triangle east of La Jolla. This is roughly a top-10 school, it ranks anywhere from 4th-12th on most test scores for San Diego County. Houses in the school district cost 60-75% of the price of houses in La Jolla, or roughly $400,000 to $600,000 for a mid-sized (1500-2000 sq. ft) house in University City.

This school has more english-language learners (albeit, mostly hispanic) than ANY other school ranked so highly, at 18%. So, if you are looking for a school with good academics that is friendly to your multi-lingual child, Curie might just be the best in the country for you. Most other top-20 schools have anywhere from 3-11% english learners, one has 14%, and curie has 18%.

We don't have a "JapanTown" area in San Diego, so I don't think there is a school with any substantial number of japanese students.

Give the principal a call, he's a great guy.
www.curiepta.org/

If you are in Rancho Bernardo then Poway School District is probably your best choice. A long commute will take away time spent with your children, and may not be safe (a young friend of mine - a new father - died on that commute, actually), so please consider Poway District carefully.