What do you think of Cupertino, CA?

Where are you now?

Faytteville, AR.

Never heard of it.

Oh, is it Fayetteville? Is that where U of A is?

Lovely place. I would definitely check out Cal. I’ve been thinking of Eureka for I have an uncle there with a new RV he said I could use. I could go anywhere in that thing. Back to you, do you have a connection at Apple. I think that would be fabulous.

I have a friend that is very hopeful about a job there.

Fayetteville is where U of A is. It’s very beautiful up here and has plenty of outdoor activities, as well as the young, indie, college scene.

I’m just ready for something new.

Cupertino is a fine community with excellent schools, part of a cluster of communities in a populous area of Silicon Valley where one blends into another without major distinction (although they do have different flavors and different median incomes). In Cupertino you would be about an hour from San Francisco in one direction and about an hour from the coast at Santa Cruz in the other, and less than an hour from the mountains and the great coastal redwoods. There are many wonderful hiking parks within a short drive. At the same time you would be next door to Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, and San Jose, with universities, opera and theatre, shopping malls, etc., etc. Oh, and in about half an hour your can drive over to Felton and Ben Lomond, in parts of which it is still the 1960s. As long as you wouldn’t miss a heavy winter too much, you’ll most likely love it there.

It sounds amazing. I might miss winter a little bit, but I can always travel over Winter Break.

Thanks for the help!

(But it is an expensive area to live in. That’s something to bear in mind.)

Yeah, I have looked at salary schedules in schools around there, as well as apartment listings. I think that as long as I have a roommate, I’ll be able to manage.

You could teach in Cupertino and live in a slightly more modest neighborhood in, say, Campbell or San Jose.

I lived in Sunnyvale, right next to Cupertino, for four years about twelve years ago. It was a nice “bedroom” community of commuters to SF and people who worked in San Jose or at Stanford. It was also home to the only Del Taco in NoCal that I knew of.

The Bay Area has much to recommend it. Check out the Imaginarium and Villa Montalvo.

They are being hard hit by the recession with unemployment. The unemplyment rate will be over 8% this month and a 1 bed apt runs $1500–1800, 2 bed $2200 up. Most younger teachers can’t afford to live in the area and end up in working class towns across the Bay. We are about to hit a giant wall in education. We have the biggest deficit in the history of California and since education is the biggest expense in the budget, it will take the biggest hit.

Most of us have multiple credentials and a CLAD is almost universally required. Not all states’ credentials transfer without at least rigorous subject matter testing and sometimes add’l classwork. A lot of districts play games when it comes to hiring. For the first few years you might only be hired as a long term sub. Contract teachers have to be notified in April if there might be layoffs the following year. Long term subs are only hired for the year so they are expendable and don’t get pink slipped. This is the worst time I remember for new hires in 20 years

If you are serious about moving out here, you should come out for a few weeks with a great resume and a dynamite interview schtick. Look into the places that have difficulty keeping teachers, like Oakland or Pittsbug/Antioch. If you have some really special skills or experience, you might try some private schools.

Good Luck, there is no place in the world like the Bay Area.

I lived in Sunnyvale (as Dale described above), while going to school. I loved exactly what Jeruba described, the close proximity to everything. I still have many friends in Cupertino & Sunnyvale and they seem to be very happy there, although they do say housing costs can be crazy. Best of luck to you, whatever you decide!

Cupertino is a lovely place. Pretty much the center of my working and spiritual life in California from about 1983 through 1995, at both HP and Apple and at Good Samaritan United Methodist Church at the corner of Homestead and Wolfe.

I can’t afford to live there, can’t afford to send my kid to school there any more (I had him in a private school there for four years), but I’d live there if I could. And it’s funny, too, because the weather there is pretty much identical to East San Jose, where houses cost about one half what they do in Cupertino.

I have no idea whether the questioner is interested in a racially diverse community or not, but I believe that Caucasians may now be a minority in that heavily-Chinese area.