My experience with Northern Light School was extremely disappointing. After removing my child and…read moreenrolling them in another private school, I could clearly see how academically behind my child was. The difference in curriculum, expectations, homework, and preparation was obvious. For a private school, the product does NOT match the price tag. The curriculum did not compare to what my child receives now. Homework was poor, and I often felt like I had to teach my own child at home. Parents should not pay private-school tuition and still have to teach the curriculum themselves. There is a serious lack of transparency. Parents should be able to see student work, testing scores, academic progress, and meaningful statistics. Conferences and Back to School Night provided very little substance. Parents should not have to guess where their child stands academically or be discouraged from seeing what is happening in classrooms. I also had concerns about teachers being mean or treating children poorly behind closed doors. When concerns were raised, I felt administrators made excuses, defended the behavior, and ignored the concerns. Constructive criticism was not welcomed, and I felt administration and teachers became defensive instead of working with me and became very unprofessional, to the point not speaking and other administrators acting in same rude manner! There were also inconsistent school-wide rules and expectations. I strongly disagreed with the school's approach to ADHD and neurodivergence. From my experience, there was too much emphasis on pushing the idea of neurodivergence and encouraging children to question whether they were neurodivergent. Children should be supported without being pushed toward a label or agenda. I also felt Northern Light had moved away from the professional-family environment I originally associated with the school and was accepting families who did not seem aligned with the professional, academic, and behavioral culture I expected. The facilities are old, staff appeared burnt out, and the school needs fresh leadership, including more male leaders. There needs to be accountability above administration and a place for parents to be heard. After transferring my child to another private school, the academic difference became undeniable. My child is now receiving stronger curriculum, expectations, and preparation. Moving my child was the right decision. Northern Light needs more transparency, accountability, stronger academics, consistent rules, better leadership, and a serious evaluation of whether the education actually justifies the price.

I am an alum of NLS from a single parent home in East Oakland. From there I went to Marin Academy…read morefor high school, received a bachelor's degree in economics from UC Berkeley, last year I received my MBA from Stanford University, and I currently work at Google. I would not have achieved any of those things without NLS. I split my elementary school years between public school and private school, so I'll speak to what makes NLS special. From my perspective, many schools (public and private) can provide a strong academic foundation. NLS was just as good as my strong public school in that regard. What I gained from NLS is belief in myself that anything is possible. It came from the dreams fulfilled that line the walls, the stories told at morning circle, and from teachers and administrators truly caring about what I wanted to be when I grew up. And in a practical sense, the school provided access, access to the most elite prep high schools in the U.S. Before NLS, I had not even heard of the majority of them. NLS represents a turning point in my life in terms of building confidence, ambition, and knowledge of opportunities that were previously unknown to me.

Date: 8/22/2016 Time: 2:10 PM 71° Sunny…read more Paden Elementary School is within walking distance and the closest school, besides Encinal High School from my home. I don't have any school age children or grandchildren attending either school. It never hurts to pay a visit to the schools and occasionally volunteer some time to help the teachers in their classes, be chaperones for school excursions, or read to the students. Monday was the first day of school for the students and there were plenty of parents picking up their children. There were parents in the attendance office, too. Purpose of my visit: Since I know the school secretary, Sue, through a mutual friend of mine, I waited to talk to her. I am aware of the fact that teachers will spend their money to buy school supplies for their students. This time around I decided to offer a hand by donating 25 boxes of 24 Crayola crayons to a class. I requested Sue give them to any class with at least 25 students. The cost of the crayons was less than $15 and it was for a worthy cause to give back to the community. I still have other supplies (staples, post it notes and 4 rolls of scotch tape) to donate to the school office. Thus, a return visit is forthcoming to Paden. Go Pelicans!

Paden is a great Alameda school. It is nestled a few blocks down from Webster Street and two blocks…read morebefore Encinal High School on Central Ave. Many of my friends are products of Paden's education. Traditionally an IRT, year-round school, Paden is now a traditional K-5 school. The site's current focus is on putting students first and cultivating skills for life.

Our son has been attending Kindergarten since fall 2021. From the interview last Spring we as a…read morefamily have adored the Vice Principal and Kindergarten teacher, Ms. Scherer. She has been amazing! My husband and I are very pleased with our son's growth socially, emotionally, and academically. The Principal, Mrs. Rocheford shows outstanding leadership through being available weekly for virtual coffee and chatting. She is also very responsive to community concerns, and makes herself available as needed. Everyone is very approachable and welcoming. The sense of community we feel at Assumption is unmatched and as a family we are thrilled to be a part of the parish and school.

Assumption is a wonderful environment for education and community involvement. As a parent of a…read morestudent(s) for the last 6 years and few more to go, I can't recommend this safe, supportive and structured school enough. #assumptionschoolsl #togetherwesoar

Catholic private school located in East Oakland, near Oakland Zoo. I am not an alumnus of Bishop…read moreO'Dowd but I came here for my LMU Extension classes for the last two years. The campus is small but beautiful. Money really does make a significant difference in the type of education any student receives. All the facilities and grounds are well-maintained and are up-to-date. Classrooms have a maximum of 25 desks and include an electronic panel for projector, sound, and lights. This school also has as a separate center for environmental studies and are now raising money (upward of $1 million) for another brand new building. It's crazy that a school could accomplish this.

We came here to pick up our niece. This was my first time picking her up. The pick up line of cars…read moreis an experience. There is even a line just getting off the freeway. Luckily we saw her as soon as we pulled up. I was worried we wouldn't be able to find her in the crowd. Picking up isn't for the lighthearted.

Decent school. Small class sizes, lots of one-on-one attention for students, however discipline is…read morean issue. As a student, I had witnessed multiple occurrences of staff getting physical with students, restraining them and maneuvering them into solitary 'time out' rooms. These are bare, tile floored rooms with no interior door handles and are used to lock kids inside when they are having emotional outbursts. They are secured by having an adult physically hold the door shut from the outside. Honestly, i cant think of a time when a person needs support more, but yeah, throwing them into a room by themselves works too i guess. I wouldn't send my child here unless it was approaching the last resort.

i attended both middle school and high school at clc and i can honestly say that it was the…read moregreatest experience of my life

Well, the school has been closed for a few years now. Not safe in an earthquake. I will always…read moreremember Mrs Brownsen (2nd grade), Mrs Hansen (3rd grade) and Ms Foster(4th grade). Thank you.

I am a little brother using my sisters account. I attended…read morelum school from 2006-2009 and let me tell you this school is a piece of shi.... I mean CRAP. I have diabetes and i got suspended for TWO WEEKS just because I had trouble with it. So there you go. Go to this school and see for yourself. Oh and by the way, I also got beat up and ridiculed because of my diabetes, my weight, because I was ugly and because I was poor. But who got in trouble for it? ME. This school sucks!!!!

As good as it gets! Went to parent teacher night and got to…read moremeet all of my daughters teachers and they are so up to date on all of the different ways to communicate with the parents to ensure your students succeed. Really nice teachers and really nice campus. My poor kid has to walk so much because the campus is HUGE!!!!

First of all, I have met many good people at this school, but a lot of the staff lack leadership…read moreand responsibility. This school looks a lot better from the outside than it really is when you start going there. Many (Not all) of the teachers really can't teach. A lot just show up, grade, and give bs assignments. Math and science department is horrible. Science teachers only give busy work. Math department is probably one of the worst in the state. Sure, test scores are high, but that doesn't reflect actually teaching. Math department uses a rigged standards based grading and if you want to retake a test, you can essentially only do a quarter/rubric of it at a time. The schedule here doesn't is so long and we never had early release. It's not even much to ask for. Most schools have it. I remember having very strict teachers and instructors. Sometimes they would single you out for making a mistake despite you actually showing remorse and being regretful for it (which is not even something you should ever have to do). They give you detention for simply 2 tardies in a week In conclusion, the school is run by idiots.

My son has been going to PEL for over a year now and it's definitely positively supplemented his…read moreregular school learning. We felt like he was starting to fall a bit behind and school work/assignments alone weren't giving him enough practice/rigor. He's been doing both English/language arts and math programs. The extra attention and practice/repetition caught him up and then some. PEL also has some fun incentives for kids to help support their motivation: they earn "money" for work completed successfully and can "buy" prizes. This also helps teach value and rewards/incentivizes saving for bigger prizes. If your kid could benefit from some extra practice/structure, it's worth at least doing the free consultation to see if PEL would be a good fit for their learning style.

PEL stands for "Pre-Eminent Learning" and is the new Kumon with the Singaporean math trend focus on…read morecommon core math that us millennial parents didn't grow up with. There aren't any Russian math options around Alameda yet so we decided to sign up for the free consult/testing for PEL for our then five year old at the end of TK to see where he was at and he's been enjoying it ever since. We go twice a week for one hour and with the daily homework, our kindergartner is enjoying math drills and writing practice/phonics/reading. It takes a second to make it a habit but now he enjoys it and timing himself on the homework (cue childhood trauma from Kumon where my mom had a stopwatch!). I stopped correcting the homework for my sanity (more trauma - my mom corrected all our Kumon with the borrowed answer books and yelled if we got too many wrong). At this young age, they have Junior PEL which is with a teacher in a small group (versus the older kids who independently work and then raise hands for help). Our son's favorite teacher is Teacher Anna. For the waiting parents, this place has better parking, location and amenities than Mathnasium or Kumon with the Southshore shopping center. You can go grocery shopping at Trader Joe's and Safeway, pickup dinner, get a foot massage at W Spa, go for a run/walk by Crown Beach, return Amazon purchases at Kohl's, go to the bank, charge your car, etc. It's a carve-out time for errands that makes PEL seamless into our hectic family life with two young children. You can also just veg on the phone or work while waiting in the lobby (they have a super clean bathroom and it's quiet). The couple that owns this location also has a sister location in San Leandro and they run it efficiently and smoothly bc Alameda is their second location. Director Lawrence and Ms Kiwi are caring and kind and they also conduct regular parent teacher conferences, which is helpful at projecting and quantifying the hours invested into PEL. The icing on the cake is the annual honor roll ceremony in October. They did a great in putting the event together with the kids and parents in mind and our son is so proud of his honor roll trophy and shows everyone that comes over. Highly recommend PEL (especially those in public school in alameda bc K doesn't have homework!)