I've only been on this campus twice for track meets. this rating is based off visuals and campus…read moreenvironment, which i got to see during warmup jogs. overall very spacious, plentiful parking, the track is like a greek stadium. there are night lights, two exits, home + away bleachers, a commentary stand, an inner field, a lil walkway behind the bleachers to warmup jog around. i can see how it used to be a college campus.

Overall, independence highschool has terrible math teachers. There are multiple math teachers here…read morewho don't teach and blame the kids for their terrible teaching.

What a great day! I was so impressed with OSD School's commitment to supporting its community. The…read moreschool provided food and daily house hold items (like shampoo, conditioner, toilet paper, blankets, and more) for the students and their families during the holidays, which is such a thoughtful and generous gesture. It truly shows that OSD is dedicated to taking care of its students and their families both inside and outside the classroom. We are so lucky to be part of such a caring and positive school environment!

I'm extremely disappointed with the overall quality of this school. Unfortunately, our experience…read morehere over the past few years has been frustrating and discouraging for several serious reasons. First of all, the leadership is completely unstable. The principal seems to change every year, and that lack of consistency trickles down to the rest of the school. It's hard to feel confident about any long-term improvement when the administration is constantly changing. Beyond academics, the school really doesn't offer much extracurricular activities which is a missed opportunity for students who want to explore interests outside the classroom. But by far, the most concerning issue has been how poorly bullying is handled. My child has been bullied--physically and verbally--by the same student for three years in a row, ever since 2nd grade. Even though they've been in separate classes since 3rd grade, the bullying continues at recess. We've reported this multiple times, and nothing meaningful has been done. No disciplinary action has been taken against the student responsible, and we are baffled as to why the school refuses to take stronger action. To make matters worse, when my child finally stood up and defended herself after being hit, she was the one who got in trouble and was warned she might be suspended. That kind of response is incredibly unfair and discouraging. It sends the message that defending yourself is more punishable than being the one causing harm. Yard duties are also a major problem. Either they're not present during conflicts, or they simply ignore the situation altogether. When someone is hurt or gotten into arguments, they were nowhere to be found to supervise the kids or just stood by doing nothing. There are also some strange and frustrating inconsistencies with staff behavior. On one occasion, my child stepped on a roach and was told not to kill it because "it's nature"--yet the school doesn't apply that same level of care or concern to the kids who are being harassed daily. A teacher once even told the class that a rock is a living thing, which is just flat-out incorrect and makes us question the quality of education being provided. We've also had some concerns about the overall school environment. For example, there were a few instances of theft in my child's class, but it didn't seem like the teacher was able to address them effectively. Every year, the good kids my child connects with end up transferring to other schools, and now we're starting to understand why. The ones that stayed doesn't like the school either. Over the years, we've noticed that several families who value a positive learning environment have chosen to move on, which has made us wonder if ongoing issues are prompting those decisions. When I ask my child if she misses this school, she immediately and firmly says 'No' without hesitation -- which, to me, speaks volumes about her experience there. This school desperately needs better leadership, more active, caring, and responsible staff, and a serious commitment to creating a safe, nurturing environment for all students. Until then, I would not recommend it to any family.

As a recent graduate, my time at Piedmont Hills was good and bad. A lot of the teachers are very…read morepassionate about their work and are down to earth. A lot of them are kind and always nice to talk to despite the decades long age gap between student and teacher. There are a lot of resources such as a wellness center to support students. One of the biggest problems about this school is the terrible management over the bathrooms. There are several bathrooms across school, and many of them will be closed throughout the day. Newer and nicer bathrooms such as the ones in the new art building and science buildings are always closed. The bathrooms that most people use in the hallways also were closed on and off. There are also locations such as the portables and track where there is no bathroom close by (or the nearest is closed). There is also a 10 minute bathroom policy where you can't go to the bathroom for the first and last 10 minutes of class. For me, as someone who drank a lot of water as a cross country runner, this was hell on Earth. There were MANY times where I would go to class, wait 10 minutes for the 10 minute rule to pass to be able to request to go to the restroom, have to take a long walk (~3 minute walk) to a bathroom, find out that it was closed, walk to the other hallway (approx 70m away) to see if their bathroom is open and find that it is closed, and then be forced to give up or try to find staff to open the bathroom or go on ANOTHER long walk to the office to go to the staff bathroom where I'm not supposed to go to because that's the only bathroom that was open. The lack of bathrooms being open and 10 minute rule also leads to LONG lines for the bathroom during breaks and lunches, which is only exasperated by some of the stalls being taken by girls who smoke in there. Not to mention the bathrooms that were allowed to be open were DISGUSTING. The soap was almost always out, there was ALWAYS a sink (out of the two sinks in the bathroom) broken, and cockroaches everywhere. Reminder that there are 8+ bathrooms, but only 2 were ever really open. Just stupid and silly. Just because there are a few bad apples who use the bathroom to skip class doesn't mean that the rest of the school population should suffer. It doesn't just end there though. It took months of student advocating for there to be a porta potty installed at the track. Hundreds of students use the school's outdoor sports facilities throughout the year (track, xc, softball, baseball, tennis, badminton, soccer, etc) and there was no bathroom near there for a long time. Oftentimes after school, the closest bathrooms (the locker rooms which are still ~.25 mile away from the track) were closed. While the porta potties were eventually implemented, they were CHAINED shut and padlocked. The school has a great student life and I made a lot of memories and lifetime friends here, but the bathroom situation was so horrible it gives this school -2 stars.

even as a graduate, i still come back to the track! open to residents all summer + during non…read moreschool hours in the school year. sunsets are beautiful and u get the magnificent view of the hills (green in the spring) and a wide assortment of trees (palm, oak, pine, birch). super peaceful track for working out, inner grass area that's cut every 2-3 weeks. no lights after sunset is a downside.

PLEASE DO NOT GO TO MORRILL MIDDLE SCHOOL! I went to this school for my 6th and 7th year and I got…read morebullied harassed and nothing good has happened to me at this school the students vape and do drugs and are also sluts I recommend going anywhere else but Morrill the athletic teams aren't that good either going to this school made me suicidal please choose a different school for you're kids I highly recommend the food was kinda good though but the teacher not so much they were mean to me for doing nothing also there's always fights happening and I almost got involved please if you're kid is going to this school be aware you can't trust anybody there

This review is for some of the students behavior and demeanor…read more One of the students in this school stole my child's yearbook in the locker room during PE - we preordered ours since the beginning of the year. We notified the office about the incident and there was nothing they could really do but advised us to buy again on whatever leftover yearbooks that they had which were only 10 copies. My child properly lined up to buy a copy when a group of 8th graders came and cut off all the students who waited patiently. One girl even ended up buying 5. They should've limit 1 copy per student. And whoever teacher was in charge at that yearbook sale should've kept an eye on the line. Such a disorganization and disappointment! Also, this school have kids bullying and intimidating other kids. Parents please choose caution when picking this school for your child/children. I almost wanted to believe that the students of this school improved till this incident happened to us.

The worst school ever! So many pedophile teachers, disrespectful staffs, unprofessional teachers…read morewho talk down on their OWN students, the new principal(s) don't listen to students families, they ignore all problems going on with a student, over all the worst school to put your child in to. I went to this school, and they openly have favourites towards a specific student, thinking they are "nice and sweet" but in reality never seen the bad side of them. The principal likes to choose sides and is unfair to all students. The staff here only care about themselves and no one else. They ignore any flaws you say about their "safe community" not even half the students here are somewhat safe. This school has become so ghetto! They enrol / hire anyone nowadays.

The campus look bad and I hope the custodian does a better job . The teacher is okay they are…read morepretty nice and chill.

My favorite of all my school years.The best food,the best teachers,the best times…read more The food was way above average than that of elementary.And there were no half hour waits in line like at MHS.The sausage biscuits at recess were hella good as were the sandwiches they served at lunch. The teachers here,for the most part werent your typical cardboard cutout,boring teachers.I actually enjoyed going to school when I went here.Alot more than I can say for my high school years.

I moved to Milpitas when I was 9 years old and went to Curtner. I later moved on to Thomas Russell…read moreMiddle School where I was Vice President of the 8th grade. The school is here is okay. I enjoyed most of my teachers, it was a safe environment, and I learned a lot. Something I didn't appreciate was if I got sick and I wanted to sleep in the nurse's office, my teachers would mark me as absent, and it wouldn't get excused when clearly I was just sick! So when my report card came home my mom was totally furious and thought I was skipping. Until after summer ended and she finally believed me -_- TRMS needs to work on that one. Anyway, I liked being active in school so it was pretty fun being in ASB and making new friends. The dances were always fun and safe. I remember back in the day when we used to sell glowsticks at dances, candy grams, etc. Haha, good times! Any school that's safe with a decent list of caring teachers is OK in my book.

One of my complaints about the Piedmont school district is how much focus is put on the math &…read morescience subjects, and anything outside of that seems to be put on the back burner. So then the students who are more geared towards the "humanities" subjects end up feeling inadequate when comparing themselves to their peers who are more gifted in the STEM subjects. So if I could give any advice to perspective parents it would be... "JUST BECAUSE A SCHOOL IS CONSIDERED 'GOOD,' DOESN'T MEAN IT'S 'GOOD' FOR YOUR PARTICULAR CHILD." You know your child. Do they excel at reading and writing, but despise math and science? Well I can guess that they probably won't magically change their stance on that now. So parents, please listen to your child if they're the kind of kid who favors the humanities subjects, before forcing them into an environment that will only stifle what little confidence they might have in the STEM fields.

As a former alumni who came to this school, I would like to say that none of the counselors, as…read morewell as the many teachers, did not do anything with their bullying epidemic. Whether they did a anti bullying assembly, or a campaign, none of them did anything to stop the amounts of bullying going on within that school. Leading to one of their students to become depressed and suicidal, and eventually having to go through 3 years of therapy in between the end of middle school, and the beginning of high-school. Overall, terrible school, don't send your kids here (GOD HELP US ALL).

This is a nice campus and the school develops students socially and intellectually to prepare them…read morefor both college and adult life. Investing in your child where your boy becomes a man. You can't put a price on the future.

First, understand that your son will not get into the best college he possibly can if he goes to…read moreBellarmine. This is lost in the fine print and is conveniently elided in the promo materials. The school will tout the few grads that end up at MIT or Harvard and act like they pulled those strings, but the truth is those kids are geniuses and would have gotten into those colleges with or without Bellarmine's name. In order to understand this effect, we have to look at the average performers at Bellarmine --- the average kids who work up until 3 AM every night only to get rejected by UC Davis or Cal Poly. A good portion of Bell grads even end up at SJ State. I personally know a grad who ended up at community college. Allow me to ask a very simple question: if you're paying money for an institution, should you not harvest an advantage from that institution? These types of outcomes are simply unacceptable for the tuition fees that Bellarmine demands (100k). The problem is every student at Bellarmine is ultimately remarkable and intelligent. However, colleges can only accept a certain amount of students per school. Thus, only the geniuses (who are fine on their own) get top acceptances while your reasonably bright son ends up with a disappointing result. This is the dirty secret at Bellarmine. There is a lot of coping built into the culture where people say "Well, at least I'm prepared for college" --- not understanding that their college result would have been much better had they just gone to a public school for FREE. Their grades would be better and their workload would be slashed in half. This outcome is absolutely unacceptable for the dollars spent. Second, the workload at Bellarmine is huge. Even nearly 12 years later, I am shocked at the inhuman level of work assigned if a student opted for a competitive curriculum (APs, Honors, etc.). It was commonly accepted that the average bedtime was 2 AM. Students walked around with heavy backpacks filled to the brim with books. The library was always crammed with students studying and finishing up presentations. Stress was rampant. During junior year, a classmate ran away from home after scoring a B on an exam. For this level of work, one would expect great rewards upon graduating. This never materialized. Tons of students who worked themselves to the bone found themselves matriculating at unremarkable colleges surrounded by students from public schools who didn't work nearly as hard. Unacceptable. Third, the academic difficulty at Bellarmine was ridiculous. English classes expected students to write at a college-level and graded as if it was college-level. Presentations were expected to last the entire class period (30-50 minutes). Afterwards, you were picked apart by an open forum like a thesis defense. Exams were incredibly difficult. I distinctly remember a random pop quiz dropped everyone's grades by 10 percent. A's to B's in 10 minutes. This is absolutely UNTHINKABLE in public school. When I finally had gone to college, I was mortified to learn that presentations were 10 minutes max at even upper division level courses. Now, you might think that academic difficulty is fine for a "college-preparatory" high school, but your son bears that price when his war-torn "B" is weighed disadvantageously against an "A" from a kid who didn't nearly work as hard. Colleges do not make that distinction. Bellarmine is only locally recognized, but it likes to think of itself as Philips Exeter. This is a horrific deal. Fourth, there is a problematic culture of teacher worship at Bellarmine. Now, there are always good & bad apples. But the bad ones had a profound effect on the students. Teachers are very aware of the hyper-academic culture enforced at Bellarmine and understand the power they wield over their students. What results is extremely unprofessional behavior: yelling, berating, inappropriate jokes with underage boys, and deeply personal attacks. I recall a teacher once mocked a student's garage rock band as the reason why he scored a C on a quiz. Such comments upon reflection are incredibly unprofessional and are not befitting of an institution with its hands in your pockets. This culture of teacher worship was perpetuated by students who were afraid of being vindictively graded, and was what allowed controversies like a former English teacher's sexual grooming of female students (visitors from another campus) to be even possible and go unquestioned for years. In summary --- Bellarmine delivers partly on its promises. Does it have a great facility? Yes. Are the teachers good? Most of them. However, it is also a steward of some deeply problematic issues: it is academically punishing and unforgiving, and it screws over your son when it comes to college admissions. A parent who wants to pay 100k tuition for their son to go to this school should understand two things: he will likely give a great talk on food production rights, and he will also attend USF.