Best School Districts for Your Buck in Southern California

Some of the best school districts in the nation are found in sunny Southern California. Here students are challenged by rigorous coursework, compete in athletic and academic events and create outstanding performances and visual art. The students in these districts also have high rates of graduation and enrollment in postsecondary education.

But Southern California is one of the priciest places to live: In Orange County, the median housing price is upward of $700,000, according to the California Association of Realtors. As well, the most affluent areas also tend to produce high-performing schools, posing a challenge for families who are looking for great schools and affordable homes. But it doesn’t mean you can’t find districts with more reasonably priced homes and schools with award-winning programs to match your needs.

NerdWallet’s Analysis

A previous NerdWallet study analyzed the Best School Districts for Your Buck in California. This time, we crunched the numbers to compare Southern California schools only — in the 10 counties in the region from San Luis Obispo, Kern and San Bernardino counties to San Diego and Imperial counties.

To find the best schools in Southern California, we weighed a district’s affordability, standardized test scores, college readiness and student-to-teacher ratio. We analyzed 153 unified and secondary school districts in Southern California.

Best school districts in Southern California

1. Walnut Valley Unified

Walnut Valley schools in eastern Los Angeles County are among the most impressive in Southern California. About 14,600 students attend 15 schools, where there’s a student-to-teacher ratio of about 24:1. Both high schools have International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement programs, while two elementary schools offer International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme. Many schools have been honored as California Distinguished Schools and National Blue Ribbon Schools, and this year, Walnut Valley’s three middle schools were designated California Gold Ribbon Schools, the award given during the hiatus of the distinguished schools program. In addition to general academics, the district also features targeted learning in areas such as Chinese languages, STEM, health, design, performing arts, college prep and advanced placement.

2. Irvine Unified

Irvine Unified School District in Orange County has 39 schools in the district, including an independent study high school. Students see average SAT scores of 1813, the second highest on our top 10 list. About 85% of students go on to postsecondary education. Irvine schools have won California Distinguished Schools and National Blue Ribbon awards multiple times. This year, Northwood and University high schools were both named 2015 California Gold Ribbon Schools. Irvine Unified’s unique academic offerings include an Elementary Science Specialist Program, comprehensive visual and performing arts education and an Integrated Mathematics Pathway that focuses on math programs.

3. Arcadia Unified

Arcadia Unified School District in Los Angeles County has 11 schools that offer student-teacher ratios of about 22:1. The average SAT score is 1789, and about 84% of students go on to postsecondary education. The high school offers several Advanced Placement and honors courses, and earlier this year, the school unveiled a $3.8 million library, media center and cafeteria. During this year’s Super Bowl, a commercial featured a performance by the Arcadia High School band.

4. San Luis Coastal Unified

San Luis Coastal Unified School District in San Luis Obispo County includes 10 elementary schools, two middle schools and three high schools. At a median value of $484,900, homes in the San Luis Obispo area are more affordable than in most districts on our list. Student-teacher ratios are low — for every 19 students there is one teacher. In the past few years, schools in the district have received numerous awards including California Distinguished School designation, National Blue Ribbon award, California Business for Educational Excellence Scholar School and a 2014 California Gold Ribbon Schools Award. Earlier this year, the district was the site of protests by faculty and staff over contract negotiations, but a resolution was reached in May.

5. Conejo Valley Unified

Conejo Valley Unified School District, located in Ventura County, serves 21,000 students with 27 schools in the Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park and Westlake Village areas. About 84% of all students go on to postsecondary education. Over the past few years, the district modernized schools, installing new roofs, repaving parking lots, replacing playground equipment, renovating bathrooms and updating athletic facilities. The school board also recently picked a new superintendent for the district. Academically, the district’s schools have won several awards, including a 2015 California Gold Ribbon Schools Award. The district offers honors, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs as well as school-to-career opportunities, intervention programs and support for all kinds of learners.

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6. San Marino Unified

San Marino Unified School District, located in the affluent city of San Marino in Los Angeles County, has just four schools. The median home values are the highest on our top 10 list at $1 million, and SAT scores also are the highest on our list at an average of 1831. The graduation rate is 99.3%, the highest on our top 10 list, and 85% of students go on to postsecondary education. Every school is a California Distinguished School and the district consistently receives accolades. The district offers a range of rigorous academic and advanced courses, along with emphasis on arts and athletics.

7. Oak Park Unified

Oak Park Unified School District, in the Simi Hills of Ventura County, is made up of eight schools. About 84% of all students go on to postsecondary education, and the average SAT score is 1783. The district’s motto is “Educating Compassionate and Creative Global Citizens,” which is reflected in its academic programs. The district demonstrates its commitment to the environment with its recycling and food waste composting program, and it was awarded the Green Schools Leadership Award by Green Schools California. As well, several new classrooms were built from recycled shipping containers.

8. Muroc Joint Unified

Muroc Joint Unified School District serves the communities of Boron, North Edwards and Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert. The district is small, with 2,000 students. In recent years, several schools have been selected as California Distinguished Schools. Since much of the district is on a military base, the median home values in Muroc are the lowest on our top 10 at $66,000. The district’s SAT scores are on the lower end of our list with an average of 1471. About 63% of all students pursue post-secondary education. The district has faced federal funding challenges in recent years and repairs are needed in the schools and facilities.

9. Temple City Unified

Temple City Unified School District, located in West San Gabriel Valley, has nine schools. Temple City’s average SAT score is 1713, and 78% of students pursue a post-secondary education. The district embraces its core values of service, integrity and honor through academics and extracurricular activities. Schools in this district have received several California Distinguished School awards. The district is in the middle of a massive renovation project, including a new two-story classroom facility at the high school as well as updates at the middle and elementary schools.

10. South Pasadena Unified

South Pasadena Unified School District, in Los Angeles County, has five schools just outside downtown Los Angeles. The median home value in the area is $820,200, which is higher than most other places on our top 10 list. About 80% of all students go on to postsecondary education. The board of education recently approved a Dual Immersion Language Program in both Spanish and Mandarin, beginning in kindergarten. South Pasadena High School offers several honors and advanced placement courses. High school programs are comprehensive and popular — about three-quarters of the student body participate in at least one program.

TURF TERMINATORS HAS GOTTEN RICH TURNING YARDS INTO GRAVEL, BUT IS IT CREATING BLIGHT?

Since Turf Terminators turned her lawn into gravel, Marilyn Williams has complained several times about weeds. Photo by Ted Soqui

On a recent Thursday evening, about 100 civic leaders drank wine and ate appetizers on the rooftop patio of Pacoima City Hall. The building serves as the headquarters of Pacoima Beautiful, a nonprofit that was hosting its annual Environmental Justice Awards.

The award for corporate responsibility went to Turf Terminators, a company that rips out lawns and replaces them with drought-tolerant landscaping. The company barely existed a year ago. But due to the drought, and thanks to generous rebates for turf replacement, it has rapidly grown from three employees to nearly 600.

"The climate is changing. We have to adapt," said L.A. City Councilman Felipe Fuentes. Introducing the company, a board member said, "Turf Terminators is helping us see the new normal."

Ryan Nivakoff, the CEO, was dealing with a family matter that night, so Julian Fox, his chief operating officer, accepted the award on the company's behalf. Fox ran through the benefits of the program, and said that momentum is growing.

"We're really at the beginning of what we're seeing as a significant transition," Fox said.

The company would not exist without rebates from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the agency that supplies most of the region's water. In an effort to get customers to conserve, the MWD last year doubled its turf replacement incentive from $1 to $2 for every square foot of grass replaced with drought-tolerant landscaping. The L.A. Department of Water and Power offers its customers an additional $1.75 rebate.

Turf Terminators offers its service to the customer for free, and in exchange it collects the rebates. In the last year, it has virtually cornered that market in Southern California, performing 97 percent of the jobs under the MWD contractor direct-rebate program and collecting $9.7 million in MWD and DWP lawn-replacement rebates.

And Turf Terminators stands to rake in substantially more money in the future. With the drought making national news, MWD was inundated with rebate applications and quickly exhausted its initial $88 million allocation. So in May, the board voted to increase the program fivefold, committing another $350 million.

But as Turf Terminators has come to dominate the market, it has attracted critics. Many customers have complained about the company on Facebook and Yelp, saying its employees miss appointments and do shoddy work.

"The front lawn has been a lot of weeds," says Marilyn Williams, 77, of West Hills. "I was pulling constantly. I'm no youngster, and I'm tired of pulling weeds."

This is a common complaint. Turf Terminators replaces grass with mulch or gravel, and plants drought-tolerant plants. But many customers say that within a week or two, the grass grows up through the rocks.

Turf Terminators says it sends field technicians out to fix any problems free of charge. Williams says they've been to her house several times to spray weed killer.

Neighbors also have complained about the work. Lorena Gonzalez, of South L.A., said that several people on her street have used the service.

"You can tell which are the Turf Terminator homes — it's just gravel and a little bush," she says. "It's just a bad business. They're just ripping off customers."

Ellyn Meikle, who runs a drought-tolerant nursery in Torrance, says customers often come to her to fix up their Turf Terminators projects.

"They are causing blight in the neighborhoods," she says. "It's rocks with shrubbery. It's the cheapest thing you can get. It makes it look like inner-city Phoenix."

In an email, Nivakoff, the company's 29-year-old CEO, defended his company’s practices and said that many of the complaints are coming from rival landscapers "who look at Turf Terminators as a threat to their business."

Those critics, he said, want to impose design standards that only they can meet, and that would price out Turf Terminators’ working-class clientele.

Nivakoff is from Connecticut. His father was the Stamford police chief. After attending Columbia University, he worked in finance jobs in New York before moving to Palo Alto, where he got involved in trading emissions credits. With an attorney, he launched Carbon Venture Partners in April 2013.

The company intended to capitalize on California's new cap-and-trade system, which aims to reduce greenhouse gases. One effort was to get credits for reducing methane emissions by turning rice straw into fiberboard rather than allowing it to decompose. That did not get off the ground.

In September 2013, the firm backed out of a lease for space in a San Francisco high-rise, and was sued by the landlord. The following year, the company shifted its focus to turf-replacement rebates and moved 350 miles south, to Santa Monica.

The company got traction in part thanks to favorable media coverage. Nivakoff has appeared in several news reports about the drought, including on The CBS Evening News. Turf Terminators also courted public officials, converting Councilman Mitch Englander's lawn to mulch.

Mayor Eric Garcetti even mentioned the company by name in his State of the City address: "We're even using this drought to create jobs," he said. "Tear up that turf, Los Angeles!"

To get up and running, Turf Terminators had to clear one major regulatory hurdle. The MWD requires contractors to have been in business for at least three years. But Turf Terminators incorporated in 2013 and only began offering its service in 2014. To get around the requirement, the company bought Pan American Landscaping, which has been in business since 2003, though according to its former owner it did not do turf removal work.

"They met our rules, so they're in the program," says Bill McDonnell, an MWD official. 

The company was quickly overwhelmed by demand. It receives hundreds of calls an hour and has struggled to keep pace.

"The addition by MWD has added a lot of interest in turf removal, and as a result we are experiencing more inbound calls and emails," said Andrew Farrell, director of business development.

Environmentalists have expressed reservations about Turf Terminators' work, saying it does not adhere to best practices in landscaping.

"They're just looking to make as much money as they can off the turf rebate program," says Paul Herzog of the Surfrider Foundation. "They're the Uber of landscaping. They've disrupted the marketplace."

Herzog has urged the MWD to impose environmental standards on the program. He says the agency should require landscapes that preserve living soil and plants, which is better for the watershed.

Councilman Paul Koretz, who serves on the MWD board, has taken up the idea and discussed it with environmentalists and with Turf Terminators. Nivakoff says that while gravel is far more popular than mulch, he would be open to requiring mulch if it were made available for free at several satellite centers.

Pamela Berstler, who teaches drought-tolerant landscaping to MWD customers, says that replacing lawns with gravel is actually making things worse.

"We're creating an environment that is more paved over than the existing environment and doesn't hold onto rainwater," says Berstler, who believes that as a bare minimum, plants should cover at least half of a yard. "We have to have living plants. If we eliminate that, we could easily be pushed into an extreme drought situation."

Carjacking Suspect Foiled by OnStar Location Service The carjacking happened in San Dimas and the truck traced to Placentia, where the pickup was slowed to a crawl so cops could make the arrest

City News Service

SAN DIMAS (CNS) - Authorities Sunday released the name of the man arrested after a Chevrolet pickup truck carjacked in San Dimas was located using the OnStar service, which remotely slowed the vehicle on the Orange (57) Freeway in Placentia, prompting him to surrender.

Twenty-six-year-old Joshua Frontino-Deaton was booked into the San Dimas Sheriff’s Station jail on suspicion of carjacking, with bail set at $100,000, said Lt. Elisabeth Sachs.

The carjacking happened at 7:22 p.m Saturday outside a Red Robin restaurant in the 500 block of West Arrow Highway, Lt. Tonya Edwards of the sheriff’s San Dimas Station said.

The suspect, a man in his 20s, attacked a 74-year-old man, who fought back but was overpowered and unable to keep the younger man from taking the truck, Edwards said.

Authorities were notified of the carjacking minutes later through OnStar, according to Lt. David Buckner, watch commander of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Walnut Station, whose deputies assisted in taking the suspect into custody.

An OnStar operator provided the sheriff’s department with “up-to-the- moment locations” of the white pickup truck, which was remotely slowed to about 5 mph after deputies “got a visual” on the vehicle as it headed south on the freeway.

It stopped just north of the Riverside (91) Freeway about 8 p.m. and the suspect got out and surrendered, Buckner said.

“He stole the wrong vehicle,” Buckner said.

The California Highway Patrol backed up sheriff’s deputies during the pursuit, Buckner said.

OnStar Corporation is a General Motors subsidiary whose subscription-based service provides vehicles with communications, navigation, security and remote diagnostics.

--City News Service

Man Stabbed in Diamond Bar Road Rage Incident The victim was airlifted to the hospital.... More

A road rage incident that began in San Bernardino County this morning ended with a motorist stabbed off the Orange (57) Freeway in Diamond Bar, authorities said.

California Highway Patrol officers received a report about 6 a.m. of a traffic crash and parties involved in a fight on the southbound side of the freeway and as they responded they learned that someone had been stabbed and was at a Wienerschnitzel restaurant on Diamond Bar Boulevard at Sunset Crossing Road, according to the CHP.

When officers arrived, a 31-year-old Alta Loma man was being treated by medical personnel before he was airlifted to County-USC Medical Center for treatment of two stab wounds to his back, the CHP reported.

Investigators learned that the victim had gotten into a road rage incident with another man on westbound San Bernardino (10) Freeway in Montclair and that it led to them getting into a fight when both stopped on the Orange Freeway near Sunset Crossing Road, according to the CHP.

“The suspect used a knife during the altercation and stabbed the victim ... before fleeing the scene,” according to a CHP statement.

The suspect is described as a Latino, in his 30s, 5 feet 8 inches tall with a thin build, short dark hair and a mustache. He was possibly driving a late 90s black or gray Jeep or SUV-type vehicle.

Anyone who may have witnessed the incident was urged to contact the CHP’s Baldwin Park Station at (626) 338-1164.

--City News Service

Alert, Diamond Bar: Rabies is Another Drought-Related Problem Health officials stress that the disease is 100 percent preventable and urge the public to keep their pets vaccinated.

The record-breaking water crisis in California has led to agricultural and economic problems, but another side effect of the drought has emerged: an increase in the risk of rabies.

As summer approaches, more wild animals are looking for water and coming closer to homes, according to health officials. This drought-amplified trend endangers humans and pets who may be spending more time outside.

“Getting your pet vaccinated is the only way to protect them and the entire community against rabies, which is 100 percent fatal in animals and usually fatal in people if not treated right away,” Dr. Julia Wang-Lewis, veterinarian at Humane Society, said in a statement.

Rabies can be spread and transmitted via saliva from animal bites. Pets, after contracting the disease, may also spread the disease to other humans and animals they interact with.

County health officials stress that the disease is 100 percent preventable and urge the public to take responsibility for their pets, their families, and themselves by getting their pets vaccinated for rabies.

Photo: “Dune” is pet of the week at your Rancho Coastal Humane Society. He’s a 1 year old, 37 pound, Australian Shepherd /Labrador Retriever mix.

--Bay City News contributed to this story