This school was revolutionary when it opened. It saw its heyday in the 30's thru the 70's, but by the mid 80's had declined sharply in quality and commitment to Catholic values. My mother graduated from here in 1976, and when I had to change schools my freshman year of highschool, to Bell-Jeff I went. She thought (so mistaken) that the school was still a haven for great educators, and above-par extracurricular activities. Yeah, right. My freshman year, the only electives offered were sports, or one art class. We didnt even have a theater program (Bell-Jeff was known for its spectacularly well done musicals in the 60's and 70's) until I managed to scrape together some interest and funding my sophomore year. (Thank you Mr. Kane) This school is concerend with nothing more than making a dollar. They will admit anyone with a decent bankroll, juice the hell out of the less wealthy families, and make the money disappear into new floors for the gym and other sports related bullshit. I graduated from here in 2001 and my god, thank goodness I can write a coherent paragraph. The academic staff is a joke, many are not even qualified to be teaching the classes they are assigned. For example, a former blockbuster employee with no degree was my 11th grade ADVANCED PLACEMENT english lit. teacher. I realize that I'm totally bashing my alma mater, and I have to be honest and say that yes, there were some amazing memories, and some truly outstanding staff members, and I dont wish to minimize the impact they had on me, but they alone are not enough to make it a great school. Some still remain like Mr. James Clerihan, the vice principal. Brother Phillip, who is the guidance counselor and Senior AP English teacher and Mr. Boysen, the religion teacher. The school still holds the religious retreat called Kairos, for the senior class, and that experience alone is what made me reconsider my original two stars. But please, if you value rock solid education, save your children the heartache of college rejection later on in life and send them to Providence or St. Francis or any other Catholic school. read more

Bellarmine-Jefferson High School - Middle Schools & High Schools Near Me - Burbank, California

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All four years being at this school i couldn't really relate to what Elise or Kathleen were saying. i believe school is what YOU make it. I love it here. You don't go to school to know whos doing what or whos going to be boyfriend and girlfriend next. mind your own business and people will mind theirs. Its quite funny that you mention Mr. Perez..he is definitely one of the sweetest teachers there. i understand we all have our opinions but i strongly feel you named the wrong teacher. If you are truly into Biology and feel that it is "biting you in the ass" now because mr. Perez wasn't tough enough on you, then you should have taken the book home and studied on your own and maybe then you would not have anyone to blame. I was doing fine in my physiology class with Mr. Perez. He's great. i understood the ins and outs of physiology. if i wasn't doing as great as i should have been doing mr. Perez would speak to me and offer help when i needed it. His door was always open. If he really wasn't doing his job i wouldn't have typed all this up..but i think its only fair that he gets the credit he deserves. He's awesome. Mr. Bergen and Mr. Boysen have been there for about 10 years so obviously they are doing their job just fine. Thy have to be the funnest teachers but when it gets down to studies they are super on top of the whole class on knowing E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G about each chapter. If they weren't there to challenge me i wouldn't be doing so great. I've never had mr. kane so i'm in no position to say anything about him. but overall i love the teachers and haha.. favoritism? NO NO NO its called respecting the teachers to get respect back. but when we have those students that think they are always right and always disrespect the teachers then obviously the teachers are going to see the students respecting them a lot better in their eyes. that's all i have to say (: read more

I loved Bell-Jeff... To say the least there are few teachers the school could do without. Particularly in the religion department but I wont name any names. If you're looking for a small, family orientated, Catholic education BJHS is your school. read more

I don't really care about what people with too much time in their hands say about this school! This school provides very well for the students and tries their best to prep them for college. They do not do a bad job. Education does not just rely on the school. It actually relies more on the student. The school can only do so much for you. If you're dumb, well... too bad! It's funny how you can throw dirt on the school that took care of you for many years! Do you know why you can write very well? It's because you learned from this school! People like these will never get ahead in life, no sense of loyalty... people like these are like sheeps lost in the wilderness. Nowhere to go to... very sad, pathetic... you my dear, have a lot to learn in life, especially RESPECT! read more

I am a Bellarmine-Jefferson alumni, and after reading the reviews already written I felt I had to give a fully rounded review. I will start off by saying that I had a great high school experience at Bell-Jeff, but I do have criticisms, as one would have of any school. I think the assessment that Bell-Jeff won't get you into a good school is simply false. From Bell-Jeff I was accepted into Brown University, UCLA, UCSB, UCI, and UCMerced without even applying to the latter. While I didn't get into Harvard or Yale, both schools showed interest and even interviewed me. After Bell-Jeff, I came straight to UCLA with almost a "full ride" scholarship, and while UCLA is challenging, I can promise that wherever you send your child, they will still find UCLA challenging, and I fair pretty well for myself with my Bell-Jeff education. As far as the academics are concerned, your child NEEDS to be in the Advanced Placement/Honors Program. If you don't know what that is ask. Unfortunately, my mother did not know about the honors program, so I got off to a late start. Most of the teachers in the honors program are great, overall I give them a 5 of 5. Still, Bell-Jeff lacks in the number of AP classes offered, and it is something I think the school desperately needs to work on. As a student at UCLA, I am surrounded by peers who took upwards of 10 AP classes in high school. I took 3--that was all Bell-Jeff had to offer me. With that said, I have many friends who had public education in LAUnified, and they make sure to constantly remind me that they are struggling to pass classes at UCLA because of the lack of preparation their high schools provided. These are people who ranked first or second in their graduating high school classes and took the toughest courses they could at their schools. Bell-Jeff's AP program is better than any LAUnified AP program, and you NEED AP/Honors to get into top universities. Bottom line: if the student is willing to challenge themselves at Bell-Jeff they can and will succeed at top universities in the future, but Bell-Jeff is not going to do it for anyone by itself, and again, I can promise no school will. There are good teachers and there are also some questionable teachers, and AP is a must, but what about money? Well, I came from a very poor family as my mother was unemployed and my father was very ill and paralyzed. Even with the subsidized tuition it was still very hard for my mother to come up with the money for tuition. She would tell you it was worth the money. I have thought about it, and I don't think she is wrong. Yes there are better schools, but Bell-Jeff is not bad, it got me to UCLA and did so with scholarships. Again, its what you take out of the school, not just the school. Extracurricular activities were another big part of my high school experience, and I believe it is the extracurriculars that made my time at Bell-Jeff great. I played 3 sports, participated in student leadership, did community service, and even joined clubs. Sports were fun and good character builders, as one would expect, though we didn't always win. I loved student leadership, and I highly recommend that your student get some sort of leadership experience. Honestly, clubs were a joke for the most part, even CSF and NHS (the academic clubs) were borderline comedies. Still, join join join. Colleges want well-rounded students, and for that I STRONGLY recommend doing as much as possible: and Bell-Jeff has plenty. Why did I rank the school a 3 of 5 stars? Well, I think Bell-Jeff has a lot to offer, but it does need more. Many students are just not motivated, and I believe Bell-Jeff needs to improve its ability to motivate students. I was self-motivated, and I still didn't take advantage of every opportunity I was offered. The true problem with academics is that people are not always failed when they need to be failed. This allows people to sail through high school, mostly by cheating, and get into college. If they can get their act together there, then that is great, but realistically, this is not common. Obviously this means that they feel unprepared when they reach the new and challenging environment. I think its easier to blame the school than it is to accept any responsibility. Bell-Jeff is by no means a 5 star school, but is also no where near a 1 star school. I sit here at UCLA and tell you that I get A's. Im not a genius. I fight for my grades, and some of the people I fight are geniuses. Meanwhile, I feel that Bell-Jeff helped foster some of the attitudes I keep going even at UCLA. That sounds small, but I promise you it is not. Just this year, a male student slit a female students throat for 'insulting' his intelligence in a chemistry lab. Students attempt to sabatoge experiments, and refuse to offer help to any competitors. This has not affected me. I still lend my notes, I still pause to help others, and I still see good in people. That is Bell-Jeff. read more

Bell-Jeff it's a small High School were the principal Mr. Stumpf cares about it. The staff is very professional and you find help when you asked for it. I'm driving 14 miles every day to take my daughter there and my other daughter is going too. You should consider this school as an option before making any decision. Financial aid is available.... read more

This is the first high school I went to before transferring over to Burbank High. The school itself was great, nice campus. The teachers didn't know what they were doing. There was too much nitpicking. Basically if you pay the full $800 monthly tuition, you'll pass all your classes, the education is very minimal. read more

I am a proud parent of Bellarmine Jefferson High School. My three children have attended this school and have had a wonderful, academic ,and morally enriched education. Bell Jeff offers a well rounded education along with terrific sports teams; considering it's small size. My children have been accepted into many highly ranked colleges such as Occidental, Kansas Weslyan, Cal Lutheran, UCLA and interviewed by Harvard. High school is what you make it folks, and no one in this world is going to hold your child's hand through school. Either they learn to work hard now, or they will most certainly fail in the "real world". Bell Jeff teaches their students this work ethnic-what they do with it is up to them. read more