First, there were 75 reactions to my original post plus I received many messages from families who…read morefelt mistreated. I just want to express my deep sorrow for every family who has been mislead and mistreated by this school. It has been devastating to get a glimpse of the dark reality. Final update: this school is even worse and more corrupt than before, in my carefully considered and humble opinion. We had a deeply concerning and disturbing set of interactions with the new director, Luthern. I remain proud of the way that we handled our interactions, and very bothered by the way he treated us. Furthermore, we undetstand that they are removing and/or drastically reducing the nature campus component of their program which was a huge part of the draw in the first place. We are thrilled that this chapter is permanently closed for us. We finally found the most outstanding school for our children, and we will never look back. Good riddance to a poorly run institution with what we believe is an unethical and corrupt administration. And by the way, the "Gifted Qualitative Assessment" is manipulable. It's largely based on parent surveys, and which parent searching for a school for gifted children won't see their kids as gifted? We all do. Your best bet if you're not a founding family is to make sure you have a ton of money and that you are willing to part with in their capital campaign, and always tread cautiously when it comes to expressing yourself authentically.

Having a preschool aged child, I speak to many families about their interest in Tessellations, so I…read morethought it'd be helpful to share my experiences with children in both the K-8 and preschool programs. When my son was struggling in a more traditional education setting (with boredom causing other issues), and as we thought about the skills and traits to nurture in an evolving world, we found what we wanted with Tessellations. "Challenging experiential education" is a core part of Tessellations' mission, and I see it everyday in the projects, conversations, and enthusiasm for school. I've seen the growth in my children's capability and confidence in tackling new problems, and their continued curiosity. It's amazing to me that in 4th grade, my son and his friends can talk excitedly about the latest non-fiction book they are reading, which could span many subjects. One of their favorite games just involves taking turns talking through imagined adventure scenarios. (And that's when they're not being active - I hear that most of their recess and lunch is spent playing dodgeball across many grades.) Video game addiction is pervasive in these times, but I feel we have a haven from it here. The kids have so many interests that gaming is just one of many. Social emotional learning ("SEL") is a priority at Tessellations, and though many schools now say they focus on this, it can be an elusive goal. One evidence I see is how kids (K-8) play together across many grades: this requires empathy and adjustment. I believe that this is promoted by the general culture, the kinds of kids here, and mixed grade classrooms. The preschool program, called Tessellations Children's Center (TCC), started just last year, has been equally wonderful for our younger child. The teachers, who are engaging and observant, supervise almost a full day of free choice time, play-based learning, and novel activity options. Recently they planted vegetables, learned about space, drew self-portraits, and experimented with pendulums. Note that TCC is separate from the K-8 school, and kids must go through a separate admissions process for Kindergarten. Although my kids have loved the school, I'm giving 4 stars since it's been a bumpy ride, and I feel for those who've been affected. We've had growing pains and changes in leadership as we've grown to Pre-K through 9th in just four years. Many admin (and parents) have felt stretched thin as they balance competing needs. As we evolve from a startup to a larger, more established school, there will continue to be bumps. During this time, I'm so grateful to the amazing teachers, and staff, including our new & experienced Acting Head of School, pouring their hearts into the school and mission. Even though Tessellations has grown incredibly quickly, it is just one school, and not enough to handle the tremendous demand for progressive and gifted education, especially in the Bay Area. I hope we will see more schools that cultivate the love for learning and holistic development like this one.

I've been to the school a handful of times, but I never knew there was a theater! Lol mainly for…read moresports events so everything was outdoors. Beautiful, huge campus and a lot of add-ons but this theater sadly needs to be remodeled! Perhaps because Cupertino high school along with Homestead high school's Orchestra were both in the same theater/stage there was no space! There were a number of parents Waiting in the hallways and they had to close the theater doors so everybody was gathered in the walkway towards the back of the theater. Orchestras sounded amazing, but I really think this place could be remodeled since all their sports tracks/buildings have seen to be remodeled and sadly, music, and art always get pushed to the end! The theater was nice for maybe the 60s or 70s, but Homestead definitely need a facelift!

Loved it 10/10 !!!!!!!!!! Great four years every second was amazing and I met so many great peopleread more

Graduated from Cupertino High in 1968. School was good then, and has only gotten better! Someone…read moreblogged about Sports being bad, then it turns out it was just whining about the "Cheer" section. Gee - where's your priorities - Don't you care about your child's education? What's that girls future? - Professional cheerleader. Those jobs pay $15.00 a game. People lie, cheat to get their kid into CHS. Wonder why? When I was there, it was a student-run school - with adult supervision. Helped immensely to prepare me for real life. Russ Danielson

I was fortunate enough to attend last week's Spring Choir Show, an impressive presentation of song…read moreand movement, a high-quality formal concert, as described in the printed program but clearly not accepted by the rowdy parents in the audience, who continued to use their cell phones, take photos, move about the auditorium to get better shots, whistling and cheering and shouting. An initial announcement warned that "ushers would be busy enforcing these rules" but they were not. This leads me to wonder if the Music Department should consider giving, in addition to the regular show, one Performance (perhaps higher-priced) for those who truly desire a formal setting and are willing to behave, and where enforcement would be a fact. What a difference it would make to my appreciation of the music!

This school is basically a garbage school，students are required to enter the campus 5 minutes…read moreearly, which causes long-term congestion at the campus entrance and frequent accidents.There are either no people to maintain order or their attitude is very bad. It is a very bad environment and a group of irresponsible school teachers. Do not send your children to this school.

I went here as a 7th and 8th grader. That was before they called it middle school, and before they…read morehad 6th grade there. It was a Jr. high back then. And just 7th & 8th grade back then. I went to by 6th grader's back to school night: My kid told me that Blair and Murphy is still there. My kid really loves her history teacher, Kamp. Because she days, "he's so chill" At back to school night I was that one parent with the tattoos, and being judged by the parents (jokes on you, I'm a sales executive at a tech company). The typical school parents hasn't changed. 2 of the 6th grade parents asked the math teacher, "How they can get their kids into 8th grade math". Y'all I almost laughed out super loud. I'm sorry I'm that A-hole. I'm not sorry about it either.

I attended this school a long time ago and wanted to share my experience. Unfortunately, I found…read morethe teachers to be very poor, and some of them still work there today. If your child has special needs, I strongly advise against sending them to this school. The staff in the special education program and their aides can emotionally traumatize your child for life and try to push back their education from preventing them to succeed or even to move forward in life. There was one kind staff member, Miss.K, who was very tall and thin with her hair styled in a bun. She previously worked at Eaton Elementary as well. I also remember a kind Chinese woman whose name I believe was either Ms. Lin or Ms. Chan. She was very sweet, but I can't recall her exact name. Unfortunately, the rest of the staff was not very pleasant. As for the food services, please keep your child away from them. The meals provided are inadequate, and your child may go hungry throughout the day. However, I am not sure if California's 2022 policy allowing free meals for all students from pre-K to 12th grade has changed that situation. If you're considering putting your child in this school, I highly recommend waiting a couple of years until some of the current special education faculty members leave. Otherwise, they could negatively impact your child's life and end up leaving serious detrimental issues with your child's success in the long run. PLEASE BE CAUTIOUS! Let's fight for systemic justice in educational systems!

My daughter goes to Lawson and LOVES it! She is now and 8th…read moregrader and also a WEB leader. She loves her classes, her teachers, and the food. Especially the food. Every Monday they have Wahoos. Tuesday they have Subway, Wednesday they have Smoothie King, Thursday they have Papa John's Pizza, and on Fridays they have sushi. The accademics are great. My daughter LOVES physical fitness. once a week they run and they have GREAT units. Her favorite was ultimate frisbee in seventh grade. The teachers are superb! Mr. Oncay (8th grade) has probably been the most helpful. He prepares the students for high school and although he is hard, alot of his old students have had an easy A in language arts in high school. Overall, I'm pretty happy with Lawson, my daughter loves it and I'm sure that for anyone living in the Lawson area will be happy that they will go/went to Lawson

Echoing what other people have already posted for Monta Vista, it's a place that has its strengths…read moreand weaknesses. Students and parents both strive for academic excellence which creates a strong competitive environment to get good grades and succeed. Thus, teachers are the not sole contributing factor to the overly competitive environment. There are/used to be some really amazing teachers that actually taught more than just the material, but actual usable life lessons. I was lucky enough to have several of them in my time at MV. To be honest, there is such a diversity of teachers here, you can find anything, people who are super hands-off, teachers who are very hands-on. Administrators in the office, at least while I was here, were absolutely terrible. They were disrespectful, did not enjoy working with students, and plain rude in many circumstances. Same situation with librarians. Perhaps, part of it was that the librarians and administrators couldn't afford to be nice to students, otherwise they wouldn't be respected or listened to when enforcing rules. As you can imagine, high schoolers are quite obnoxious and often don't respect authority.

The staff are sadists who blame parents instead of their own grade deflation and work inflation. I…read morelearned concepts in first year of college that they taught in intro classes at this school. They brainwash kids into thinking their parents and peers are the "competition" and make racist comments against all Asians. I'm at a public T20 because I switched high schools and completely flipped my GPA. The books they made me read in 9th grade (forced to annotate every page - half page of notes) are the same as the ones we read in 12th grade at another high school and yet they pretend it's the students fault for struggling. Also parents, their "Biology" is NOT a biology class. Also Mr Gan is a pdf who won't round your grade even if you're 0.01 away and Mr Kim said I was incapable of CS and now I'm in CS in college and he never let me look back at my exams. And Ms Borelli, giving out D's before telling people your high expectations on writing isn't helping anyone and your books are adult rated don't label me homophobic because I didn't want to read X books.

I attended this school and loved it! I still have friends I…read moremet at this school 42 years ago! At that time, Mr.Tegley and Coach Henrich were old school fantastic motivators of both moral and achievement! Lot's of great memories.The vice principle,Mr.Simpson did a heap of spanking with his long wood politically incorrect paddle he wield every three days or so. Compared to the laxed attitudes of youngins today.....the discipline of a school like this would have been a back breaker today! Coming from a military school I simply loved it. More later!

This school has really gone downhill in recent years. 1…read more They have had 4 principals in 3 years. Joseph Nuno was absolutely the worst of them all! 2. Cathy Olsen and Cathy Walsh both are not as nice but especially Mrs.Walsh, she screams at kids for no reason and got mad at someone I knew for wanting cold water. 3. Mrs.Heydari was the rudest substitute as she was getting mad at people for the smallest things and even screaming for no reason.

Truthfully this is by far the best community for your children, nieces, nephews and grandchildren…read more I speak from experience, my daughters attended SJC and currently my grandchild is attending. The education, community and lifelong friendships are why I love this school so much.

Absolutely love the TK/K class. The class size is small due to the Cupertino population aging with…read moreno new inflow of young parents. In addition to that, a big chunk of teachers and students left after some conflict with the former principal. The school is now rebuilding with the new principal, Dr. Palladino, who is awesome with kids. The TK class I've experienced so far is fantastic. The curriculum is well structured and my child is engaged all day, thanks to the small class size. They even split the already tiny class to fit each child's needs. I've noticed that a few kids are doing additions and some kids are taking it a bit slower and focusing on writing numbers and counting. I've toured almost every school within a 15 minute drive and SJC had the most productive and structured daily schedule for TKs. I felt like most of the schools have too much free playtime and nap time and some have half-day classmates, meaning all the learning ends by noon. At SJC, the teachers are doing something with the kids all day, whereas many schools have several hours of mere childcare. I love that the day includes number senses, math, English and language arts every day. They also learn Spanish (the teacher is amazing btw), P.E., art, music, science once a week. The teacher follows a well-known curriculum from start to finish, rather than piecing in materials from here and there. Another point I love about this school is that the older kids are nicer in small communities. The big kids play with my child and take care of her at extended care and everyone gives my child a hug when I pick her up. I highly recommend SJC. I've seen some people discouraged to join due to the small class size but I'm seeing positive effects on my child. The kids all play well together and they don't divid into groups. The eight graders look like they are basically a family. I suggest that you at least try it out in TK and see how it is. If you decide to move, most schools expand their class size in K, so it won't be that hard to get in.

A Great school very flexible and relaxing ....................................................read more

Students seem really unprepared for college after their curriculum. Everything is taught unprepared…read morewith a bad online style. Admin is rude and unprofessional

Sure, this school might be good academically, but catch this…read more Students here are depressed as hell. I have known several people admitted into a mental hospital. On top of that, the number of kids here on antidepressants is way more than I should ever know. You wanna know why this is. It's because of the toxic environment. Kids here are mean and entitled. The staff here isn't all that. And the true reason why all these kids are like that is that they compare themselves to one another. Envy and jealousy are a MAJOR trait these kids have. It's just terrible. On top of that, the athletic department isn't great either. Their athletic director is rude and tends to favor all the boys' teams. Completely disregarding other teams' needs. Lynbrook High School isn't the best choice for you if you truly want the best for your child.

great campus great academics great reputation - proud of this school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!read more