What are some nice suburbs of Oakland with good schools?

Piedmont is good but very expensive. Oakland Hills neighborhoods have great schools like Chabot, Hillcrest, & Thornhill(elementary schools). People try to cram into these areas to be in the school districts. You'd be hard pressed to find a house less than half a million, but there are condos that are. The real "towns" that fall in your financial category are San Leandro, Castro Valley, Hayward, El Cerrito. The problem is the schools aren't that great. Better than Oakland, but that unfortunately, isn't saying much. Basically, where the public schools are good the property values are high. You might have to compromise one or the other a little bit. Alameda is a consideration, that might be your best bet.