All California school districts have experienced a huge contraction in terms of budget and payroll…read more Layoffs in classified and certificated fields remain eminent. It's a tough time to work in the education field period. However, you still have a duty to the public to put your best foot forward and execute on a day to day basis, even if you're overall operating budget has been greatly impacted. Murrieta Valley USD has continued to operate at the highest level of professionalism and their schools continue to be recognized as California Distinguished Schools. In all of my dealings with various administrators, I remain impressed with their ability to stay on task. Not all is grim...

Great school and staff, which continually works towards innovation and development of students and…read morestaff alike. I taught there for two years and would still be there if my commute wasn't so long and draining. Congratulations on becoming s Lighthouse school, you all are amazing!

I went to this school as a little kid kindergarten to 6th grade and left in 2021 for I'm military…read moreofc. I love the new reconstruction for the old school was. Rotting to death. I love that it looks like a college campus

The Short Version: Our experience with Balboa City School, including the director and the staff,…read morehas been fantastic. We have seen a vast improvement in our daughters' academic abilities and overall confidence. The school's facilities need some improvement, but the staff knows this and is actively working toward that goal. Overall, I would highly recommend Balboa School to any parent. The Long Version: After struggling for several years with the public school system, despite all the help that the elementary school staff could manage, my wife and I placed both of our daughters at Balboa City School in the middle of a school year. They have attended the school for two years, now, and we still believe it was the best choice we could have made for our children. Having read the other reviews, here, I think it's important for me to address some of the things mentioned by others: First, and foremost, our children have had only the best and most caring attention and support from the entire staff, from the director all the way down through administrators, counselors, and teachers. Dr. Parker is involved with every student. He is direct and forthright, and I have never seen him be cruel or demeaning to anyone. I get the feeling he understands the students because he's been where they are and that he truly wants to create an environment where they can excel. Balboa School is a place where children's specific needs can be addressed. While many of the kids have learning challenges, such as attention deficit disorder, this is not a place where the kids have severe behavioral problems. Children's individual needs are assessed and addressed by skilled teachers and counselors in very small classroom groups. There are many brilliant students at the school who are able to challenge themselves academically, while improving their social skills and learning how to navigate the world outside of books. My wife and I have always been impressed with how polite and attentive the upper grade students are. Even as they depart from school in the afternoon, their behavior is amazing, especially compared to some of the things I've seen from kids who attend public schools. Those good manners are at least in part the result of modeling and molding that happens at Balboa City School. When we came to Balboa City School, our daughters left a classroom of 36 students. They were a full year behind in mathematics, despite our efforts to help and guide them through their schoolwork. Their previous teacher had allowed their classmates to grade homework and in-class assignments and had no idea what our daughters' capabilities or deficits were. Now, they are in a classroom of 6 students. We are able to work directly with a teacher who fully understands and can engage them and the other students at all times. Both of our girls have completely caught up in their grade-level-appropriate skills and express a much more positive attitude to math and science, classes that they didn't like at all at their old school. As for the apparent misrepresentation of the school's facilities, you should know that the school is not, in fact, in the middle of Balboa Park. It is on the corner of Hawthorne Street and 6th Avenue, right across the street from the park. Every few weeks, the children take field trips to attend art exhibits, symphonic concerts, ballet performances, and other cultural events. While not actually part of the school campus, as one might assume from the pictures on the website, the school absolutely incorporates the park as a learning resource. Additionally, our experiences in the handling of problems between students has been nothing short of amazing. As sometimes happens, one of our daughters has been having difficulty with one or two other students. The entire staff has worked very hard to assess the situation, ensuring that all sides have been presented, and has worked with us to address things. The director's personal involvement has been phenomenal. He has made sure to work with us and our daughter, enabling her to see her role in the problems, as well, rather than simply viewing herself as a victim. I wouldn't normally share even this much personal information on a public site, but I think it's important for people to understand how valuable the school's staff can be in handling both academic and social challenges for the kids there. Lastly, I will say that the facilities at the school could use some improvement. The building is large enough for the students they have, but unless the class takes a field trip into the park, the only area for recreation is in the inner courtyard, which I think is insufficient for real "recess time." Improvements in the facilities are ongoing, and the director is working hard to ensure the kids have the best possible environment. Overall, we are very happy at Balboa City School and look forward to having our girls attend for many years to com

Drove an hour to tour the school after speaking with the principle on the phone-who invited me to…read moretour. When I arrived, we were immediately taken to her office where she told us that after thinking it over that it wouldn't be fair to start my child mid year and disrupt the class (they were advertising on their website they still had openings). No tour, no interview, just said the teacher and students were in a groove now and invited me to apply next year

This is truly a Great School! I have two children at Cottonwood and am thrilled with how well they…read moreare doing and how comfortable they feel. This is due to the excellent teachers and a strong Principal who is both supportive and enthusiastic. My children are succeeding both academically and socially. There is a lot of parental support, avid volunteers and a wonderful PTO. No wonder they have a National Blue Ribbon Award and Distinguished School status

2 of my daughters have attended PALS and we absolutely love everything about it. It is a fully…read moreinvolved, cooperative preschool, demanding time and energy from all the parents and we wouldn't have done it any other way.

PALS is an incredible preschool to be a part of! The early years fly by so quickly, and we are so…read moregrateful that we've had the chance to create special preschool memories with our children. This program definitely provided a bridge of transition into a classroom setting (with a parent there). Our eldest child graduated from the program last year and has done exceptionally well in the first few months of Kindergarten; we think this is largely due to the foundation set at PALS. We have a second child there currently and are excited for our youngest to attend in the future as well. If you want to make some great friends and watch your child blossom before your eyes, come to an open house and check us out!

I was enrolled here as a freshman for the 2025/26 school year. This school is INCREDIBLY…read moredisorganized, and not just in a 'first day chaos sense'. I was not properly informed of the bell schedule, and the reasons that it was different on the first day. The assistant principal read my schedule and sent me to the wrong class. I missed a whole period - thankfully an elective - and sat in a study hall that had more students than seats. They were actively bringing in tables so that they could have a seat for everyone in the study hall. This should not be happening on the first day. Initially, I was supposed to take Math 2. I was priority enrollment, and tested into this. The administration claimed there was no room, and placed me in Math 1. Math 2 was not an option on the course selection. I was then placed in virtual Math 2. During my study hall, the link that was supposed to come up for a recorded class never came. I sat in study hall with AP bio homework that I was supposed to have over the summer. When my friends at the Studio campus texted me about their AP bio homework, I had my mom call the office to make sure I didn't have any at PLC. The office said there was no summer work. This wasn't true, and I only got a huge packet of summer reading on the day before school. While other people had already completed this, I was left behind. During lunch, there were so many kids that there was no room at the very few tables provided. Open tables either had no shade source, so were burning hot, or had a broken umbrella. During Gear Up Day, I was given the wrong information regarding school computers. An adult told me that if I was a Workshop student, that I could bring my own computer. My family ended up driving back to the school, because this information didn't match up with prior instruction. I did end up needing a school computer, and was only set up with Canvas a day before classes. Nobody had said anything about the app before this. I was incredibly excited to start this high school after a wonderful middle school experience at The Classical Academy Bear Valley campus. This school was not at all what I expected, and extremely disappointing.

I went here for my junior and senior year. I transferred from a private school - Calvin Christian -…read moreand I was very glad I did! CAHS-PL is the type of school where if you do your work, you WILL pass with AT LEAST a B. That is from a combination of excellent teaching, engaging work, and non-excessive knowledge. All the people I knew that got anything lower than a B were people who didn't really do their homework. I learned a decent amount of things - not enough to overwhelm me, but not enough to forget too many important details. Everything here was super easy compared to private school, as a junior and senior it was nice to still earn good grades but not have extreme amounts of work to do. When I was in the middle of college application season, I had a college counselor there tell me that CSUSM was impacted and it might be hard to get in. My weighted GPA was a 4.11, so I'm not sure where that came from, but it did stress me out. I was accepted in less than a day. My schedule was great. I didn't need too many credits so senior year I was at school 10.40am-2pm and it was amazing. If you're looking to make friends and have a social life, don't go here. A lot of kids just want to come to school, get their work done, and then go home. Most of my friends left before lunch, so I just used that time to do my work. If your kid works well on their own, this is the place for them. I highly recommend. It is 3 days a week, which is cool. I would get all my Monday and Friday work done on Friday, and then have Monday off! Or vice versa. It can be done, but I'd say around 3 or 4 hours of work will need to be done over those at-home days, but that's barely anything. I loved here, if this seems like a good fit for your kid, please send them here!

Just another money grabbing racket, borderline devoid of any ethical thought process, that values…read moretheir own bottom line over that of regular families. Unfortunately, this seems to be the norm in 2023. I will never give this school a single dollar of my money, or support it in any single way as a result. They get taxes to fund them, but over zealous planners just see opportunity to get their hands on hard cash and are too greedy to consider the needs and effects this has on families. Attended the "Boo Blast" and the most shocking thing about this is that fact that it's $10 per activity, at least for the better ones, so that's $20 if you have 2 kids, or $30 if you have 3. And what might you get for these VERY overinflated prizes you might wonder? 3-4 mins on a climbing wall. Or 3 mins walking school rooms set up like a ghost house. What makes it completely obnoxious is the fact that young children often want their parents to walk through with them, and that ladies and gentlemen, costs another $20 on top. Forget protesting this, they genuinely couldn't care less. Within 1 hour at this awful event wrapped up in fake smiles, but with green dollar signs in their eyes, a family of 4 might have to spend $200 just to do a couple of activities that all last approximately 3 minutes. That's after you have lined up for 30 minutes to wait for the activity in the first place. They even have the audacity to ask parents to volunteer their free time to support this so that they can maximize profits. The real kick in the teeth is that when raising this to a member of staff, who turned out to be the treasurer, she then asked "Are you one of the low income families here at the school?", which I'm not. And even if I was, it's not the point. The point is that their pricing is totally unreasonable, and unjustified. To not realize that is to be totally devoid of reality altogether. However I can get involved in making changes to this, I will. Yes some parents can afford to waste the same amount of money as it costs to go to Disneyland on some fair games, but again, that's not the norm for everyone. I just had to leave my kids with my ex wife, on my weekend with the kids, as I could not stand to be around this endless money pit. Totally disgusted. I raised this with Mr Pedraza, the School Principle, that was stood marshaling traffic on the front gate. I might as well have been speaking to a block of concrete, as all I got was a blank stare and some vague repeating of some of the words I had just said. He honestly couldn't have cared less, or made it more obvious that he didn't care and just wanted me to slide away so he could watch the money rolling in. He already got his fill, he got slime tipped over him on the Thursday prior. Not for any particular reason, but because he wanted to. That's where the tax money goes huh?

The requirement for public schools to maintain neutrality regarding religion is a cornerstone of…read morefostering an inclusive educational environment. As stipulated by the California Department of Education, while educational discussions about religion are permissible, schools must not promote or endorse any particular religious beliefs or practices. This principle aims to respect the diverse religious backgrounds of all students. It is concerning when a school mandates that students sing religious songs. Such actions are far from representative of the diverse beliefs within the student population. Even with policies in place, students often have limited impact on curricular decisions. Compelling evidence suggests that "mandating participation in religious activities can make students feel uncomfortable or excluded, while inadvertently promoting a particular belief system over others." These practices provide substantial support for concerns about biased inclusivity but not for theories of equitable educational democracy. In times when global events highlight the sensitive nature of religious differences--where conflicts adversely affect people, including women and children, due to religious tensions--schools should be especially mindful of their role. Other studies have demonstrated that forcing participation in religious content can marginalize students of different faiths or secular backgrounds, their comfort and opinions overlooked by decision-makers. It is crucial for educational institutions to create a safe space where all students can learn without feeling pressured or marginalized because of religious content in mandatory activities.

The Good: The kids have been enjoying longer classes on each…read moresubject (a year in a semester) structure because it gives the kids more time to master subjects. The teachers have been fantastic. We mostly feel safe here. The other kids are good kids, but it's still a public school. Drug sniffing dogs came in the classroom. The Not So Great (I wish I knew this before signing up): -Not all of the classes are offered all of the time because of a lack of staffing (or so I'm told). This is not indicated in the catalog when/how this happens. Take Computer Science for example. The intro class alternates from year to year and not semester to semester. If you have a kid who is trying to get into college and outline their interests during their sophomore or junior year (as college admissions office presentations say that you should), if your kid didn't happen to be in the right year of when that was offered, you are out of luck painting that picture. There's the option of dual enrollment but if you don't feel like your kid is ready for equivalent of an AP option or has the maturity to be on a college campus, that leaves you in a weird place. And it shouldn't be the college's job to be a high school's overflow. -Some teachers are retiring and it is up in the air whether the programs that they run will come back. -Course catalogs aren't always accurate. If you look at other schools there is even the syllabus, difficulty level, etc for every class. So it makes planning really hard when you lack crucial information. And the period where you can drop or make a class change, teachers do not assign a lot of work so you won't know what the scope/pace of the class is until it is too late to drop. If a family is transitioning from a traditional schedule to a schedule that mimics college, they should have all of the information to set them up for success. -If you have a co-curricular class that involves performances, the teacher should be coordinating with the other staff so that they don't have a major deadline (assigned/due the same day) that is a direct conflict, which either forces the parent to get involved (after the principal gave a clear message that we should let our kids figure it out) or choose between which class that they have to take the academic hit. -The school does not contain all facilities to support all of the extra curricular/co-curricular so if your student participates, you'll have to budget travel time, giving/getting rides to other locations, loading/unloading, etc for every practice. This takes a big bite out of time available for homework. -They require a lot of parent volunteer hours (and stick their hands out asking for $$$), but the minute I needed support for basic, standard services, we were given the run around. -They require a lot of student volunteer hours as part of their contract (not a state requirement). The hours required for one year is close to what other schools suggest over the span of 4 years. Colleges don't care about volunteer hours. Hey, I'm all for volunteering if it comes from your heart, but it is no longer volunteering when it is a requirement. -I call this "Columbo-ing". Remember Columbo use to say, "Just one more thing." Instead of giving the families everything they need up front and when, it feels like things keep getting thrown at us which makes having a family work/life balance out of whack.. -The CEO gave a platform (with tax payer dollars?) to someone with an extremist political agenda at Jumpstart (parent conference) and then later shared the direct safety threat that it brought with it to our campus, stressing the parents out instead of owning it/dealing with it aggressively/insulating us. The Ugly: -Utter planning chaos. In theory, everything should come over their school tool. A lot of information comes out of parent run social media groups (yes multiple) which are fraught with drama. The school should be owning this or have a central location on their website like other schools. -'Partnering with Parents' is code for outsourcing to parents. If you are going to give me that much work without guidance and resources, I may as well home school without the limitations, politics/noise and chaos. -They didn't meet with Freshmen/families for 4 year planning (unless you have an IEP, which we don't have). Our assigned counselor kept putting us off after asking for help because they assigned us 2 academic years worth of school work in one school year, not disclosing this (they have their own system) or asking if this was okay. Contrast that to I walked into my local public school, and without an appointment, their school counselor took time with me. In under 10 minutes, I had it all figured out for two kids complete with paperwork/guides and a solid, customized plan that an expert put together. CAV was fantastic for middle but CAHS is a hot mess that makes me understand the demand for charter accountability. We won't be back next year.

Moving to Escondido and choosing this school was a bad choice. They don't don't seem to care about…read moreyou unless your white with money. The baseball program sucks. Coaches the last 2 years have no interest in any players unless they are committed to top notch schools. IEP students don't stand a chance here. Best thing about this school is the Spanish teacher, Mrs. Lee.