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Sources & how we check

Every “yes” on this site comes from one of these public sources, checked on 2026-10-23. If we can’t confirm something, we say “unknown”.

Charter vendor lists

Pacific Coast Academy: https://pacificcoastacademy.org/enrichment/enrichment-ordering-system. PCA's approved list sits inside its logged-in Enrichment Ordering System.
Cabrillo Point Academy: https://cabrillopointacademy.org/enrichment/cpa-homeschool-hub. Cabrillo Point's approved list is in the logged-in CPA Homeschool Hub. Product vendors don't need pre-approval; service vendors do.
Elite Academic Academy: https://www.ops-online.com/year26/elite/public_vendor_search.php. Public vendor search (OPS). We filtered to San Diego County service vendors.
BEST Academy: https://www.ops-online.com/year26/best/public_vendor_search.php. Public vendor search (OPS). We filtered to San Diego County service vendors.
Compass Charter Schools: https://www.ops-online.com/year26/compass/public_vendor_search.php. Public vendor search (OPS). We filtered to San Diego County service vendors.
Sage Oak Charter School: https://www.ops-online.com/year26/sageoak/public_vendor_search.php. Public vendor search (OPS). We filtered to San Diego County service vendors.
Excel Academy: https://www.ops-online.com/year26/excel/public_vendor_search.php. Public vendor search (OPS). We filtered to San Diego County service vendors.
Suncoast (Charter School / Prep Academy): https://www.ops-online.com/year26/suncoast/public_vendor_search.php. Public vendor search (OPS). We filtered to San Diego County service vendors.
SoCal Scholars Academy: https://www.ops-online.com/year26/scsa/public_vendor_search.php. Public vendor search (OPS). We filtered to San Diego County service vendors.
Dimensions Collaborative School: https://www.dimensions.org/resources. Dimensions vendors are managed by Element Education; we did not find a public searchable list.
Sparrow Academy: https://sparrowschool.org/homeschool-vendor-list. Sparrow publishes a simple public vendor list.
Mission Vista Academy: https://missionvistaacademy.org/enrichment/mva-homeschool-hub. Mission Vista's approved list is in the logged-in MVA Homeschool Hub.
Julian Charter School: https://portal.jcs-inc.org/. Julian's vendor list sits in its logged-in vendor program (Parent Portal).
Freedom Academy (Literacy First): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14-ROMnP80DDA-OE_HX8zDsOWj38XGso5m6oD_sOZIOw/edit. Freedom publishes its approved vendor list as a public Google Sheet.
Springs Charter Schools (incl. Pacific Springs): https://springscs.org/programs/at-home-learning-options/homeschool-tk-12. Springs' vendor list is inside its family portal; we did not find a public search.

Extra listing details (added 2026-10-23)

Faith, student-teacher ratio, school-day length for private schools: NCES Private School Universe Survey 2021-22. Older than 12 months; matched only on exact name and city.
Accreditation: ACS WASC Directory of Schools 2022-23. Older than 12 months. Other accreditors (CAIS, ACSI, WCEA and others) haven't been checked yet.
Safety and licensing: CDSS Community Care Licensing, child care centers (data as of May 25, 2025). Each license links to the CDSS facility page with public inspection and complaint reports. We don't copy or summarize citations.
Ages, grades, prices, days and special-needs mentions for vendors come from the text of the charter vendor listing itself.
Sports, rules and insurance pages cite their own sources line by line.

Known gaps

Google and Yelp ratings aren't shown yet. Both sites ban scraping, and their official APIs need an account and an API key (Google also needs billing set up). We'd rather show nothing than copy reviews.
Not public for most listings: real cost, openings and waitlists, class size, teacher credentials, parking and transport, and facility or renovation news. We'll add these as schools and vendors claim their listings and parents answer our survey.
Public citations for private schools aren't published in one place. CDSS reports only cover licensed childcare and preschool programs.

From the public vendor searches we kept service vendors (classes, lessons, tutoring) with a San Diego County ZIP code (919xx–921xx), filtered to San Diego County. We left out curriculum/material sellers and internal “ADMIN” entries.

Note: the Elite list we could reach is labeled “Elite Academic Academy (LR)”, the Lucerne Valley program. San Diego families usually enroll in Elite Mountain Empire, whose list is not public. Elite’s 2025-26 handbook covers both. Please confirm with your ES.

Freedom Academy publishes its active vendor list as a public Google Sheet. We used the service tabs (sports, enrichment centers, arts, STEAM, field trips, HEC, languages, tutors, clubs) and left out curriculum, online and magazine tabs.

Source dates. Every ✓ shows the date we checked it. When a source has its own date (for example a vendor blog post), we show that too, and anything older than 12 months gets an amber “may be outdated” label.

Names. Listings that look like one-person teachers show as “Independent teacher in [city]” until the teacher claims them.

Vendor websites

State school data

CDE Private School Data 2025-26 (schools with 6+ students)
California School Directory (city, ZIP, grades, website)

Funding amounts

See the notes on the charter comparison. Each amount has its source and a confidence label.