Now is the time to Start Thinking About College and Financial Aid

If you are a student or parent of a student in the California bay Area, from San Francisco to the South Bay or East Bay, you need to start thinking about college and how to afford college.

College is not inexpensive. In fact, it could be the most financially expensive thing you will ever do in your entire lifetime, possibly more expensive than purchasing a home.



The first step you need to make is to start saving for college. There are many ways to do this. One way is to use a 529 account. Consult your financial adviser to determine if a 519 is right for you and your family. You can find out more about 529 accounts in California at scholarshare.com.

Once you are getting closer to high school age, you might want to start thinking about applying for financial aid, grants, loans and scholarships. Make sure you speak to representatives at your California Bay Area high school.

You can also investigate the financial aid details at well-known websites. You can review information at California Student Aid Commission at this website, and for FAFSA you should go here.

College may seem a long way away for you or your child, but given how much it costs, you should do as much planning as possible long before any deadlines. Good luck!

Top 5 Best Sites for Information on Finding High Quality Preschools or Daycare Facilities in the East Bay (Contra Costa County)

For parents with infants and toddlers in the East Bay, in cities like Walnut Creek, Concord, Pittsburg and Antioch, there are many choices for daycare sites for infants and toddlers. The hard part is narrowing down the choices to see which ones work best for where you live, work or both.

It can be very hard to find affordable daycare centers in Contra Costa County that offer a quality environment that has some educational content and also is not too expensive. The key word is affordable. If you do not have family or friends to babysit on a regular basis, you will need to find an East Bay daycare center or preschool for your child or children.

Here are my choices for great websites that can help you find quality daycare sites and preschool sites or schools in Contra Costa County cities in the East Bay.

1. Contra Costa Child Care Council. This website has an excellent system to help you get in contact with staff to help you find local child care. The CDE website has other contact info for this organization.
2. State of California Licensed Facility Search. Maybe you want a list of licensed child care facilities in Contra Costa County. You can get that through the State of California website. For the first question, find Child Care Center in the dropdown box. Then in the second question, pick Contra Costa County as the county. Then press search and you will get a list of licensed daycare / preschool providers for this East Bay county.
3. WASC accredited schools list.  To narrow your list some more, you definitely want to make sure your site or school is accredited because then you can be confident in the curriculum and standards for your site. Review the WASC website and search for your county, then it will provide a list of schools that are accredited by WASC. Pick from one of those if possible.
4. ASCI accredited schools list. If you want to go to a Christian school, simply use the ASCI schools directory website to narrow your choices.
5. Berkeley Parents Network. The website of Berkeley Parents Network has lots of helpful information that can direct you to a great preschool or daycare center near where you live.

Remember, accreditation can really make the difference in determining quality in a preschool or daycare facility. Conversely, the lack of accreditation says something too. Try and use the websites on this list to find schools and daycare facilities with quality teachers and quality curriculum. 

How to find list of charter schools in the East Bay (Contra Costa County)

If you are thinking about a charter school for your child, you need to start your search by finding the charter schools in your neighborhood.

The best place to start is the California Department of Education (CDE) website.

For a list of charter schools in Contra Costa County, view them at this website.

For other counties, click on the CDE map at this link and then click on the county for which you are searching for charter schools.

Tips on finding Infant Daycare in the East Bay (Alameda County and Contra Costa County)

Do you need help finding quality infant daycare for your babies, infants or toddlers?

Here are some tips:

• Check out craigslist.org for daycare ads for East Bay childcare.
• Review companies on yelp.com.
• Check out parentspress.com for "best of" lists

These resources should help get you started.

After this, make sure the school or daycare center is fully licenses.

Even more, see if they are accredited by WASC. Find out more here.

Best private elementary schools in the East Bay (Contra Costa County) based on student-teacher ratios

Everyone knows that student-teacher ratios at schools really matter, in that you want a low student-teacher ratio so each student can have both quality time and quantity of time with the teachers.

But how would you find East Bay schools with low student-teacher ratios for, say, private schools? Well, there is a way.

First, go to this website to find a list of Contra Costa County private schools. Then for elementary schools you will need to remove schools form the list that are high-school-only schools.

Next, say you want student-teacher ratios to be 15:1 or lower. So then remove all those schools with student-teacher ratios higher than 15:1. This is just one sort of cutoff and you can pick your own. Of course, this data from the website may change over time, and the schools' data may also change.

Then you have the results of this search:

Contra Costa Christian School
Walnut Creek, CA 94597

El Sobrante Christian School
El Sobrante, CA 94803

Kings Valley Christian School
Concord, CA 94521

Meher Schools 
Lafayette, CA 94549

Palmer School
Walnut Creek, CA 94597

Prospect Sierra School
El Cerrito, CA 94530

San Ramon Valley Christian Academy
Danville, CA 94526

Seven Hills School
Walnut Creek, CA 94598

St Mary Elementary School
Walnut Creek, CA 94596

St Perpetua School
Lafayette, CA 94549

Tehiyah Day School
El Cerrito, CA 94530

The Athenian School
Danville, CA 94506

The Dorris-Eaton School 
Walnut Creek, CA 94595

Trinity Christian Schools
Oakley, CA 94561

Windrush School
El Cerrito, CA 94530

Finding daycare in the East Bay (Contra Costa County)

Finding quality daycare for your infant or toddler can be a challenge in the East Bay region that includes Contra Costa County and cities like Antioch, Concord, Pittsburg and others.

Luckily there are websites that can help you find day care sites and preschools for your little ones.

First, start with IES and their website which lists schools.

I did a search for large private schools in the greater Contra Costa East Bay region and this can help narrow your search.Now these schools focus on the elementary grade level but may also have preschools on site. Some preschools have minimum ages such as two years old or older or younger.

Next I did a different search for daycare learning centers that focus mostly if not entirely on babies or infants and toddlers.

It all depends on the age of your child and what environment is best for him or her.

How to find highly-ranked public and private Contra Costa County schools (for cities like Clayton, Concord, Walnut Creek, etc).

If you are new to living in the East Bay region of Northern California, say in Contra Costa County, and you have kids, then you know you need to start looking at a school for your children.

You have choices when it comes to schools. You can do public school or private school. But to make that choice, you need to know a little bit more information to make the right choice.

There are websites that can help you find the perfect preschool, elementary school, middle school or high school for your kids in the East Bay.

First, try and look at a map of your city and you can see which schools are closest to you. After all, convenience and location are really important. You can do this schooldigger.com.

For example say you want to see a map of all schools in Concord, California. Go to the Concord, CA SchoolDigger website and scroll down to view the map. There, then magnify the area around your house to see the local public and private schools, then click on the icons to see more information about each school site.

Next, once you've decided your school or narrowed it down to a city, you can find out the most highly-ranked schools near you. To do this, go to greatschools.org.

For example, to find the highest-ranked public schools in Walnut Creek, click here.  To find the highest-ranked public schools in Concord, click here.  And to find the highest-ranked public schools in Clayton, click here. These are just rankings for public schools, as private school rankings and data are not easily found.

Good luck in your search for the best schools in Contra Costa County.