I really wish reaching out to the district was worth it but sadly it isn't. They have zero interest…read morein what goes in their schools. The way some teachers treat students is alarming but since they aren't there to witness it there's nothing they will do. As a whole the leadership and district at these "prestigious" Irvine schools is very disappointing. You're lucky if you get a call back from someone here.

Just look at the reviews for this office. Dose not answer phones. When you you do get to talk to…read morethe receptionist they are unhelpful. Doesn't have any idea of what or where or who. Not friendly at all, hurry to get you of the phone "I don't know, I don't have any information". Then why have a contact or phone number at all if they just tell you to find email by yourself. Horrible horrible. The schools can be good if you keep up with the program. Anything you have questions about is most likely going to be through email but never responsive. Please DO BETTER!

They are awesome because of there awesome staff and teachers!!!!!!!!!! They know what they are…read moredoing and how to teach. They have the best teaching

Terrible administrative staff. More training needed for them so they know the school guidelines and…read morehandbook thoroughly. Administrative staff should be more respectful to students and parents. More inclusive in students who are of minority race at school. Main administrative staff with these issues are the principal and vice principal. Also, teachers should be more accountable for their actions and stand by what they say if questioned. Counseling staff are not very helpful, dismissive and condescending.

Terrible school. My last review was removed however it does not violate any yelp policies because…read morethis review is not critiquing COVID-19 policies. I am critiquing the way that this school handled this particular issue regarding my daughter. Rather than informing parents that masking would temporarily return, they instead tied an adult sized mask to my 2 year olds face that was so large, that it went from her eyes to her neck. The school claims they notified parents however many other parents at the time with me were confused and wondering as to why they were also not informed. Had I been informed I would have gladly put a child mask on my toddler. I had no issue with the mask but wanted to at least get eye to eye with her so I could assure her everything was going to be okay because she was born in 2020 and was terrified of masks literally her entire life and needed to comfort her and reassure her. They instead tied the adult mask to her face and carried her away. I immediately removed her from the school because of how this was handled. Again, to the yelp moderators that are going to flag this again, I am NOT against the masks! The principal rudely told me, I'm sorry we don't agree with your masking philosophy. I'm not against the masks! I'm against the way that you handled this incident with a 2 year old! I proceeded to leave a bad review to which I was called multiple times by their staff asking to remove it. I will not. Yelp, this review violates no policies. Never again New Horizons.

Terrible school. Charged us for entire year in advance, then refused to provide services per…read morecontract. Victimizes your children...and pretend they are Islamic but they know nothing about Islam...or for that matter humanity! Discriminatory and retaliating. The school claims they are a non profit, but they do not provide tax deduction to the donors. PER CALIFORNIA LAW THEY ARE OBLIGATED TO PROVIDE TAX DEDUCTION TO ALL PARENTS WHO PAY THEM. They are a fraud!!!

This high school hosted the CSBC band and Colorguard semi finals yesterday. They were great hosts…read moreand very accommodating. Thank you very much! And everyone LOVES those giant chocolate chip cookies you sell! That's all I kept hearing about in the stands.

Our daughter graduated IHS in 2019. We have included her input in this review. IHS has good STEM…read morewith strong sports, extracurriculars, and counseling and exceptional arts. With so many students and about 30 students per class, a mid-range student may get lost in the crowd. They may not receive the necessary support - unless they excel, fail, or cause a disciplinary issue. As in any other school, parents should continuously advocate for their student. Destinations: The Class of 2019 had about 530 students and 366 students told IHS where they were going. 132 graduates went to IVC, 29 to other community colleges, 36 to Cal State system, 76 to UC system, 37 to private universities in CA, 3 to technical/vocational schools, 46 to out of state universities, 4 to foreign universities, and 3 to serve in the military. Most students who go to IVC then transfer into the Cal State or UC system. STEM may be a little weaker at IHS than at University HS or Northwood HS but is still good enough for a student to excel. Unfortunately, IHS taught biology one year, chemistry next year, and then physics. The biology and chemistry experiences were poor enough to put our daughter off STEM before she could even try physics! The biology notes had been photocopied for many years and were barely readable. The biology teacher at the time no longer works at IHS. To improve chemistry, give explosive demonstration(s) throughout the year and not during the final exam! Parents and students should choose a HS with an integrated-science schedule, in which a little of each science is taught each semester. Math teaching was somewhat uninspired but it's a difficult subject to make interesting and relatable to everyday needs. There were many good teachers. Mrs. Peck teaches European history to a high standard with dry humor and is a student favorite! Mrs. Harrington teaches Social Studies well. Ms. Lux teaches Ceramics well and encourages those who are less artistically inclined. Mr. Munsell is a charismatic English teacher and popular with students. Mr. Phillips teaches keyboarding and PE well. Mr. Szczudlak teaches Adult Living well; we recommend the course which teaches financial skills. Assistant Principal King is helpful. My daughter did not like the Korean teacher's teaching style. They spent many months in classes before even attempting to speak Korean. The teacher poorly balanced the needs of students who spoke Korean at home with the needs of the 20% of students who never had Korean before. Class had good Korean movies screenings and occasional tasty barbecue! It was fun to be the student assistant for the upstairs office and to support Ms. Kamai and Ms. Russell. It was very hard for parents to find out about upcoming school events such as choir performances, plays, or concerts. That was regrettable because the performing arts events were consistently great. That improved somewhat after the Principal began to send out a school newsletter. Hard to find schedule info on the website. In general, the school website is very busy and difficult to navigate. Among high schools in Irvine, only IHS uses an alternating-block schedule with 90-min periods. Every day of the week differs from week to week. For example, the schedule for Friday differs depending whether it is Week A or Week B. Students become used to it, but it is annoying for parents, more complicated than typical college or work schedules, and offers no clear advantage. The idea is to replicate college schedule and get students used to longer classes. We liked the late start on Mondays.

Our son was attending a large public high school when the COVID-19 pandemic started. This highly…read morerated public high school quickly transitioned to an online learning environment, but only provided one synchronous lecture per week for each class. As our son, and many of his classmates, fell further and further behind in their online classes, we repeatedly reached out to the school administration, including the principal, as did the parents of our son's school friends. However, the school's administration was uniformly unresponsive to our concerns. So, we decided to take our son out of the public school system, and place him in a private school. Our son transferred to Pacific Academy during his junior year of high school. I really can't say enough good things about our experience at Pacific Academy over the past almost two years. Everyone from the principal to the teachers and administrative staff have all been amazing. They are all very passionate about their mission to educate their students, as well as to help their students grow and develop into well-rounded young men and women. The small class sizes allow for a very personalized approach to teaching, and both the teachers and the principal are very interactive and collaborative with parents. The quality of teaching in all of our son's classes has been exceptional, and all of his teachers have welcomed engagement with us. (Unlike at the public high school our son previously attended.) I would especially like to recognize the principal at Pacific Academy, Keith Corpus, and the Director of Student Affairs, Jasmine Hsu. Their dedication, compassion, and empathy towards their students, and their families, has been extraordinary. They have both also been tremendously supportive as students, parents, and teachers have all worked together to manage the enormous (and ever-changing) impact of the pandemic. Honestly, we have come to view Mr. Corpus and Ms. Hsu as if they were part of our family, and we are so grateful to them for their dedication and commitment to their students, including our son. My only regret is that we did not transfer our son to Pacific Academy sooner. We love this school, and its faculty and staff, and we are so grateful that our son has been able to attend Pacific Academy!

This school hired unprofessional teachers like Ms Kuo in 4th grade who wasn't a certificated…read moreteacher and was very mean to kids. It is unacceptable that they allow their teachers to use language abuse on our kids! Principal didn't even care about the issue. Very disappointing.

Good morning/afternoon/evening my good readers, Today we…read moreface the final review of well-known University High-school, which I know you have all been waiting for because of the significance of it. From the pristine art on the walls to the treacherous steep hills, there are many goods and bads to write about. To start, our arrival: "It's a school," one student explained to me, with not many strong feelings. Perhaps they didn't admire the money that went into creating this, what some people might call glorious, school? Or they had no idea of the danger ahead... We blew dandelions for a while, which were luckily in abundance. We hoped for good luck in our marching which we would perform in just an hour. Trees around the parking lot shaded us and added to the beautiful view, which was created with pink and blue contrasting colors and a tiny moon. This was especially cherished during the moment before we stepped onto the field, with a crow flying gracefully through the high sky. The most terrible element of our time at this school was the hill. This hill which brought immense struggle and buckets of sweat. With this addition to our problems the ending amount of stars could in no way be five or even four. Waiting for food was a different struggle, instead of something of the school fighting against us in our venture back to the buses (the hill), we were instead found with the pain of waiting. Signage was minimal and people were forced to yelling at others about where to go. "People aren't picking up their food," a person at a food stand told us. There also definitely should have been a sign towards the restrooms as well. Thank you for taking time out of your day to thoroughly read this review, ultimately making yourself more knowledgeable of the true marching band ways. Dearest, marching band pro performers

Just graduated from another high school, and I just wanna say bad, they will never help you on…read moreanything you are struggling with in that pathetic high school. To this point I was there for 3 years of before senior year, and I was completely abused from all those years before transferring high school. I was going nothing but torture, teachers were so bad especially math teachers not giving a support to me when I am struggling with math. Specials expected you to just move on with your issues without caring your mental stability. Let me give one unbelievable thing one teacher said to me which you will not believe of how this is even good advice, One teacher named Leo Maldonado just give me this advice over going through problems and how the campus treats you stupid, "You don't have to tell your parents anything" not even giving the principals information of any stress I was going through also as time moves he talks to me horribly, and treats me like crap, I hope he gets fired. at least some teachers understand my emotions when I am determined, that was at least one good thing some good actual teachers. Bullying is a lot in that school, and the school does not ever help you, for my experience, I fought, hurt threaten, a lot of people to stop bullying, which brings to a fact that every report you filed will never change anything and it will be the same. The most unbelievable issue I have deal with is a aid in a classroom named smacked my shoulder over me talking trash about another aid who didn't even help and made me fail Algebra. not even assault me, but also talk crap about not knowing what I am going through. The last issue I think that was completely disgusting is that counselors and aids have horrible physical behavior and act mostly like perverts. one counselor, and one aid thinks it's normal to touch my armpits showing support which made me real uncomfortable. Their names were Nathan O' Leary, and Ryan Leal. That is what I have experienced in that high school real torture. I hope any parent/ Guardian or Student will see this review, because this is student's experience who used to go to that school. This school is not-supportive, not caring, never helpful, garbage people, and will make you purposely fail your education. If I were you newcomers out there, I would go to a better high school with much better support, treating, and better education. Absolute piece of crap.

My daughter has been struggling her whole life in school and we finally get her into Mardan School…read moreand she's having an amazing time. She's finally getting the support she needs and the education she deserves thank you to her teachers Mr. John and Mr. Zack thank you so much erin! You are so kind and helpful. Thank you Bonnie for everything thing you do thank you so much

I can't say enough about how amazing Mardan is. This school and the staff forever changed my sons…read morelife. Prior to coming here , he hated school , had a ton of behavioral issues and was so unhappy and school was just awful for him. We have been here for 4 years now. He loves school , he's thriving and it's absolutely remarkable to see how much he's changed and grown. The staff is amazing and I'll forever be grateful to have found this school. They truly do care about our children and they go above and beyond every day to make this environment a positive one for my son. I highly recommend Mardan if you're needing an alternative to public school , especially for children with special needs.

One of the best K-8 schools around. I've had kids attending for 15+ years and they all love the…read moreplace. Teachers, administration and staff are always helpful and interested in a very caring way about how the children are doing. Parents are a huge help always volunteering and trying to make the school better through the PTA or the School Foundation which is different from the district set foundation. This all helps keep the kusic, art, technology and nursing in tact compare to other schools.

Our experience has been differentiated. As with many things in life, the exterior - the facade…read morelooks wonderful. The structure is new, clean, and the school receives so many donations that it can offer many extras such as chrome books and computers in every section of the school. But you do need to be aware of the layer underneath the facade. I am not saying that Vista Verde is a bad school, but I am saying that you need to be aware of the type of parents that are at the school and the atmosphere. Many of the children tend to be rather spoiled. I am not sure if that is the reason why certain staff - including the current Assistant Principal - feel compelled to have zero tolerance for normal age appropriate child behavior, such as rough playing etc. Zero tolerance means that routinely, almost on a daily basis, you will find children - mind you young children ages 6, 7, and 8, sitting in the front office, being punished for normal play which the administration considers inappropriate. (because they are scared of parents? I do not know). Not only are they missing recess, but receive a paper to fill out with many points to write about what good playground behavior would be. Further, sometimes methods of shame are used by giving the child a clipboard to run around during recess and write many - in one case 24! - sentences of what constitutes good playground behavior. These seem methods used many decades ago and they humiliate a child. When asked the recess supervisor said that they want to "scare them just a little bit from early on" so that they don't play rough when they get to middle school. We translate that as meaning that they systematically break a child's spirit and ensure that the child follows their rules like a robot - with zero tolerance as stated by one teacher. I am not sure if this atmosphere has started with the new Assistant Principal and Principal or if this practice has always taken place with many parents simply not knowing what is going on. That being said, I am aware of some parents who have noticed or experienced the above mentioned and are leaving the school - we are also leaving. I suppose the moral we will be taking with us is that not everything that seems glistening is truly as shiny as it looks.