Moderate conservative immigrant family moving from Fairfax VA to Mountain View CA

[Anonymous]

May I ask what turns a Black History Month lesson into a Black Lives Matter lesson in your mind?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:May I ask what turns a Black History Month lesson into a Black Lives Matter lesson in your mind?

Probably ascribing either blame or offering the possibility of solutions

[Anonymous]

OP, you should be looking at jobs in TX and not CA. TX schools seem to be more what you're looking for. There are plenty of IT jobs for H-1b workers in ATX, DAL, or HOU. The S Asian community is big in both of the latter cities - particularly HOU. TX cities themselves can be progressive but also have very conservative pockets.

Your salary is not high enough for Mountain View and given your aversion to things like racial, gender, sexual orientation equality taught in school, you would find TX School Board to be your bag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You don't seem to be absorbing the point. The issue isn't the "progressive stuff" built into the curriculum or not. You will find some variety of progressivism in most if not all schools in the Bay Area (even parochials tend to have social justice curriculum elements). So if you literally want a curriculum with absolutely no progressive elements at all, you cannot come to California.

But I suspect that there are progressive elements in Fairfax curriculums as well, so I don't think the issue at heart is actually a progressive curriculum. The difference is how you expect to deal with it. You seem to believe you should be able to direct a principal to do what you want, and maybe that is true in VA. But it's not true in CA, and puts you extremely far outside the mainstream, even for conservatives (or the very leftist families, for that matter).

This approach of running to the principal/social media/school boards the minute your kids encounter a challenging idea is not tolerated here much.

I am keeping your opinion as a datapoint regarding this matter. But I would also like to hear from someone who had kids both in NoVA and in SV to directly compare.

Anonymous wrote:May I ask what turns a Black History Month lesson into a Black Lives Matter lesson in your mind?

The teacher who made that slideset and sparked the controversy should answer this question..

Anonymous wrote:OP, you should be looking at jobs in TX and not CA. TX schools seem to be more what you're looking for. There are plenty of IT jobs for H-1b workers in ATX, DAL, or HOU. The S Asian community is big in both of the latter cities - particularly HOU. TX cities themselves can be progressive but also have very conservative pockets.

Your salary is not high enough for Mountain View and given your aversion to things like racial, gender, sexual orientation equality taught in school, you would find TX School Board to be your bag.

I don't have a job offer from TX. The offer is from SV. My options are either stay in NoVA or go to SV.

[Anonymous]

Don't move. Public schools are a fail in California and 200K is not enough for a family of 4 to have a good qol.

[Anonymous]

Surely your kids are resilient enough to endure being asked about their pronouns or a social studies lesson you don’t like.

[Anonymous]

OP, I am happy to answer questions. I have children and have lived in both Fairfax County and the peninsula in SF (Burlingame).

Personally, I don't think you would be happy in the bay area.

Yes, there are people who are moderate-conservative in the Bay Area and happy. But they also tend to be people who make enough money to build a small bubble of like minded people around them with certain schools, social circles, etc.--and 200k is not enough to build that kind of bubble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Right, but you said you want to call the principal and demand removal if your kids encounter a rainbow flag in the classroom. Culturally that would put you very, very far out of the mainstream even for conservatives. I am friends with some very conservative and religious California families and that would never cross their minds.

On the private schools, 6th grade is an admissions year for a lot of them. 7th is less so. Even 6th is hard for the K-8s. I had a friend apply to Keys (another good K-8) and I think they had four spots total for sixth grade available.

I was not thinking on "encounter", but rather putting it next to the American flag as if the kids should put those "values" in their minds equally to the American values in general. I brought this as an example of ultra-progressive politics in classrooms, which I don't want my kids exposed to. My kids were never directly exposed into this level of progressiveness all these years in the public school system in NoVA, and I would like to keep it that way.
I brought the flag example in order for me to understand how "bad" progressiveness is in the Bay public schools compared to NoVA ones. Here whenever these things are happening, are exposed pretty fast by some conservative parents and there's some backlash. The privilege bingo thing was one such example. A couple of days ago, one parent circulated a BLM slideset of teaching middle-school kids as part of Black history month. These are still relative rare here, and my initial question was how rare or frequent they are in the Bay schools.

But I guess this question is now moot, as I am not considering public schools there anymore, and the question is if I can afford a good private one in a commutable area near SV.

What is your fear here? Is it that your kids can’t think for themselves? Or that they might decide they disagree with you? It’s fine to have conservative values but you can’t maintain them by censoring what your kids are exposed to. Your kids should learn to gather and assess information and arrive at their own conclusions. That’s the point of a liberal education. Learning to make arguments with evidence. Learning to argue respectfully with other people. Critical thinking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Right, but you said you want to call the principal and demand removal if your kids encounter a rainbow flag in the classroom. Culturally that would put you very, very far out of the mainstream even for conservatives. I am friends with some very conservative and religious California families and that would never cross their minds.

On the private schools, 6th grade is an admissions year for a lot of them. 7th is less so. Even 6th is hard for the K-8s. I had a friend apply to Keys (another good K-8) and I think they had four spots total for sixth grade available.

I was not thinking on "encounter", but rather putting it next to the American flag as if the kids should put those "values" in their minds equally to the American values in general. I brought this as an example of ultra-progressive politics in classrooms, which I don't want my kids exposed to. My kids were never directly exposed into this level of progressiveness all these years in the public school system in NoVA, and I would like to keep it that way.
I brought the flag example in order for me to understand how "bad" progressiveness is in the Bay public schools compared to NoVA ones. Here whenever these things are happening, are exposed pretty fast by some conservative parents and there's some backlash. The privilege bingo thing was one such example. A couple of days ago, one parent circulated a BLM slideset of teaching middle-school kids as part of Black history month. These are still relative rare here, and my initial question was how rare or frequent they are in the Bay schools.

But I guess this question is now moot, as I am not considering public schools there anymore, and the question is if I can afford a good private one in a commutable area near SV.

What is your fear here? Is it that your kids can’t think for themselves? Or that they might decide they disagree with you? It’s fine to have conservative values but you can’t maintain them by censoring what your kids are exposed to. Your kids should learn to gather and assess information and arrive at their own conclusions. That’s the point of a liberal education. Learning to make arguments with evidence. Learning to argue respectfully with other people. Critical thinking.

I mean for goodness sake, BLM is inarguably a part of Black History.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Thank you for your input. Wow what are these numbers! 5-8k "donation"?? 10-100k "capital campaign"? Aren't they considering lower incomes for that? I think $40k max per kid is what I would pay, not a dollar more, its starting to get ridiculous after that and I can't afford it anyway.
As I wrote above, I am not considering public schools there. Are these parochial schools you refer to in WC or in the Bay area in general?

I attended public school in WC, it was and continues to be mostly white nuclear families. My parents are immigrants from Asia and there was and is some but not a ton of diversity in the suburbs. The parochial schools there vary in quality and should he examined carefully. Parochial schools in Sf are more light on religion that others but tend to be very academic and racially and economically diverse, they have a lot of motivated parents that create nice communities. You’d need to visit schools to see what would be a good fit for your kids and don’t discount public schools. The ones in Marin, like Ross and Mill Valley are phenomenal and not as California Marin progressive as you’d think.

200k is livable in some suburbs but not all. The reality is down in Silicon Valley it’s going to be hard. Not impossible but frankly I’m on this forum bc we are looking to relocate. My kid thinks we are poor because we have to fly our own plane and don’t own more than one house.

[Anonymous]

Op - can you work remotely in Virginia, and commute into CA on the days you need to be in the office?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I am happy to answer questions. I have children and have lived in both Fairfax County and the peninsula in SF (Burlingame).

Personally, I don't think you would be happy in the bay area.

Yes, there are people who are moderate-conservative in the Bay Area and happy. But they also tend to be people who make enough money to build a small bubble of like minded people around them with certain schools, social circles, etc.--and 200k is not enough to build that kind of bubble.

Thank you for your input. Yes that's exactly my concern, I don't want to make a decision I will later regret, so I find many responses here valuable to get a better imporession on what to expect.
My main question at this point is if I can build that bubble in a 2-hr commutable area around SV (Monterey? WC? ..) with reasonable rent and a good private school.

Anonymous wrote:
I attended public school in WC, it was and continues to be mostly white nuclear families. My parents are immigrants from Asia and there was and is some but not a ton of diversity in the suburbs. The parochial schools there vary in quality and should he examined carefully. Parochial schools in Sf are more light on religion that others but tend to be very academic and racially and economically diverse, they have a lot of motivated parents that create nice communities. You’d need to visit schools to see what would be a good fit for your kids and don’t discount public schools. The ones in Marin, like Ross and Mill Valley are phenomenal and not as California Marin progressive as you’d think.

200k is livable in some suburbs but not all. The reality is down in Silicon Valley it’s going to be hard. Not impossible but frankly I’m on this forum bc we are looking to relocate. My kid thinks we are poor because we have to fly our own plane and don’t own more than one house.

Thank you for your datapoints. Based on previous posts, I am discrediting public schools not just for the progressiveness, but because of the quality of education itself. So you suggest I look into private schools around WC?

Anonymous wrote:Op - can you work remotely in Virginia, and commute into CA on the days you need to be in the office?

That would be the ideal thing but unfortunately companies now are slowly moving away from the pandemic remote model and are requiring in-office work..

[Anonymous]

Are you going to work for Google? I have to believe there are forums for Google employees that talk about housing in the SV area -- and I bet they address issues you're concerned about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I am happy to answer questions. I have children and have lived in both Fairfax County and the peninsula in SF (Burlingame).

Personally, I don't think you would be happy in the bay area.

Yes, there are people who are moderate-conservative in the Bay Area and happy. But they also tend to be people who make enough money to build a small bubble of like minded people around them with certain schools, social circles, etc.--and 200k is not enough to build that kind of bubble.

Thank you for your input. Yes that's exactly my concern, I don't want to make a decision I will later regret, so I find many responses here valuable to get a better imporession on what to expect.
My main question at this point is if I can build that bubble in a 2-hr commutable area around SV (Monterey? WC? ..) with reasonable rent and a good private school.

Anonymous wrote:
I attended public school in WC, it was and continues to be mostly white nuclear families. My parents are immigrants from Asia and there was and is some but not a ton of diversity in the suburbs. The parochial schools there vary in quality and should he examined carefully. Parochial schools in Sf are more light on religion that others but tend to be very academic and racially and economically diverse, they have a lot of motivated parents that create nice communities. You’d need to visit schools to see what would be a good fit for your kids and don’t discount public schools. The ones in Marin, like Ross and Mill Valley are phenomenal and not as California Marin progressive as you’d think.

200k is livable in some suburbs but not all. The reality is down in Silicon Valley it’s going to be hard. Not impossible but frankly I’m on this forum bc we are looking to relocate. My kid thinks we are poor because we have to fly our own plane and don’t own more than one house.

Thank you for your datapoints. Based on previous posts, I am discrediting public schools not just for the progressiveness, but because of the quality of education itself. So you suggest I look into private schools around WC?

Anonymous wrote:Op - can you work remotely in Virginia, and commute into CA on the days you need to be in the office?

That would be the ideal thing but unfortunately companies now are slowly moving away from the pandemic remote model and are requiring in-office work..

Peninisula poster again. Please don't do the "two hour commute"; that is horrible, especially if you have a family. Also, I don't think you can swing two kids in private out there, plus the privates are competitive to get in to, especially if you have two children who are both trying to get into privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you going to work for Google? I have to believe there are forums for Google employees that talk about housing in the SV area -- and I bet they address issues you're concerned about.

No I'm not, but even so I would never ask these types of questions in an employee forum, as all SV employers are anti-conservative and my job would be at stake.

Anonymous wrote:
Peninisula poster again. Please don't do the "two hour commute"; that is horrible, especially if you have a family. Also, I don't think you can swing two kids in private out there, plus the privates are competitive to get in to, especially if you have two children who are both trying to get into privates.

I would still consider the commute as a last resort if there's a viable option for me in the Peninsula. I would be only 2 times per week so I could barely tolerate it. What privates specifically are you referring to? Are they good quality without too much progressive stuff in them? I could at least look into them and see what they do.