Private/Public Elementary School

Balboa Gifted Magnet is an amazing public school. Grades 1 - 5. The year before your child starts kindergarten, try to apply to a kindergarten magnet to get waitlist magnet points. You will have a better chance getting in Balboa for first grade.

Both of my kids went to St. Nicholas School on Balboa and Plummer. It's a small school with a great family atmosphere. It goes from preschool (3 years old) to 8th grade and is relatively inexpensive. My kids are now in Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies (aks SOCES) which is a public magnet school in Tarzana (kids can be bussed). It's a little early but right now is the time to acquire points. It goes from 4th grade to 12th with under 1800 kids total. It's also an excellent school. API in the low 800's. I can explain the LAUSD Choices program to you to get your points.

My girls attended Pinecrest and we all loved it! The staff treats everyone like family, the curriculum is varied (computers, spanish, PE, art, music, plus the standard subjects for all kids starting in Kindergarten!), the campus is great (they have their own swimming pool!) and the perks are very helpful. (before and after school care included in the tuition - they open at 6:00am and are there til 6:00pm)

They have preschool starting at 18 months and they go all the way up to 8th grade. They are located at 17081 Devonshire (at Balboa - across from Lakeshore Learning Center) in Northridge. Their phone is ###-###-####. Tuition is about $7500/year.

Good luck!!

I live in Northridge also. If you go on the LAUSD website, it will give you information for finding the public schools that are assigned to your address. There are several really good public elementary schools in Northridge(with API scores over 800) but you generally have to go to the school associated with your address. If you want a different school, LAUSD does give you some options for transferring to another school. I recommend having someone from LAUSD speak to you to explain the process - it is a little confusing.

My son goes to Topeka Drive Elementary in Northridge. He went there for Kindergarten and is now in first grade. We are very happy with the school and they have great API scores. My mother is a special education teacher and she is very impressed with the school. We moved to Northridge because the public elementary, middle and High School assigned to our address all have high API scores.

Balboa Magnet is a great school but you need a recommendation from the Kindergarten teacher and "points" to get in. All LAUSD Magnet schools require points and they also have quotas based on ethnicity (ie a certain percentage of the school must be hispanic, a certain percentage must be white, African American, etc.) An LAUSD person should explain the point system to you as well. You get points generally by applying to a magnet school and getting turned down (we can apply to only one magnet school per school year). You also get points if your child has a sibling in the school, if you are a minority and for a few other reasons. Again, LAUSD should explain this to you because it is a complicated system.

I hope this helps.

S.,

The school I would suggest is actually in North Hills, and is a private school called Centers of Learning. Check out www.centersoflearning.com. Great school.

A. K!!

Hi. I live in Northridge and my kids all went to Beckford. My fourth one is in kindergarten right now. If this is your home school, let me know and I can answer any questions you may have.

St. John Eudes in Chatsworth is a good private school. It's from Kinder to 8th grade. It's only a few minutes away from Northridge. A friend of mine also says St. Euphrasia in Granada Hills is a good school too. Good Luck. I know it's hard to find a good school.

First Lutheran School in Northridge on Roscoe Blvd. Across from the Northridge Hospital is a great school. I actually went there myself in elementary and junior high and loved it! Its a really small school with small classes (I graduated with 13 people in 8th grade in 1994) and you have more one on one time with the teachers.

I have my 4 year old in the private school of HEART OF THE VALLEY off of Sherman Way. I started him at the age of 3 and he loves it. I would suggest you go and see the school and then you would understand why it is such a great school for a very low rate tuition.