Very bad experience with this school as Kindergarten teacher. Would not put my child there again.

I really like this school. They have a new vice principal this school year and she's pretty amazing. The teachers and staff are all very attentive and nice. I am a Gallatin Grizzly para siempre, you cant take that away from me, that will be another review on it's own, but RSG is a close second to this school! read more

I don't like that there is little diversity at the school. For two years in a row my son has the only non-Mexican last name in his class. However the school has ample school spirit and the people that work in the office are very helpful and kind. They frankly have so many activities that it's hard to keep up while working, but my son more or less enjoys his experiences at the school. read more

Rio San Gabriel Elementary School - Education Near Me - Downey, California

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What an amazing school. We have two kids who attended/attending this school. My daughter graduated from RSG and my son is graduating this year. All of the staff including the main office, teachers and principal take the utmost care of the kids and are very professional. One of the many things I like about RSG is how it prepares the students for the highest education possible through focused learning and hands on experiences that will help our kids future. Thank you Mr. Sid for a refreshing change. Mr. Sid, Thank you for all you do. I absolutely love Mr. Sid's involvement and commitment to the kids and all he does. Thank you RSG for providing amazing quality with the highest standard of learning for our kids! read more

To be honest,it was a 50/50. The school was decent,but the restrooms weren't. I would see piss on the floor all the time. The air conditioning,it was useless,but the teachers is what I love and hate the most. Mrs Davila Tk-kindergarten:she was a good teacher I would say. Mrs bell 1st grade:if your son or daughter gets this teacher,ask for a class switch immediately,she was the worst teacher ever she would yell at you for no reason and will keep you in if you can't say a word that is on a piece of paper. Mrs rush 3rd-4th:she was the best,the best I can ask for she's nice,caring,respectful and will help you. Mrs Munoz 5th grade:she was nice and mean,I really didn't learn in her class before I got to my new class. Mrs Kim,I forgot her last name so used her first name,she was also the best,sometimes rough but she is still great also she loves sea otters! read more

I'll start off by saying the ladies that work in the office are rude! When you ask them a question they act like its a huge inconvenience. The school looks like it needs some major work done on it. Paint chipping off all over the place! A teach, ms "G" is so disrespectful! Every time I spoke with she was rude and always spoke over me. Definitely wanting my son out of that school! read more

@ C. Dyan C. - if you don't like the lack of diversity... MOVE. This amazing school is in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood.... what do you want them to do? Bus in Anglo children so you feel better???? Seriously... you're part of the problem, lady. Every school has their issues to deal with from lack of funding, to parents who feel it is the teachers and administrators job to raise their "little darlings", and then have the audacity to criticize the school for trying to instill discipline when said parents will not. Having to deal with bigotry and prejudice in this day and age should not be one of the issues. So again, if you don't like the lack of diversity, MOVE. I highly doubt you or your "little darling" will be missed! read more

RSG is a great school. Parents who use this forum to vent in respect to personal issues or concerns are the same parents who drop their children off at school and expect them to return home a better student and model citizen. Although the educators at RSG are some of the best! Parents need to reinforce what their children are learning by example at school. Thank you RSG teachers for helping many children become Pilar's of the community. Teachers and parents together with the same purpose works best. Bell we respect and appreciate you. -Sandra C read more

This is the worst school (in the worst school district) ever. This school doesn't teach the kids anything. All they do is push the Common Core testing. Instead of actually fostering useful knowledge in the students, they only want the kids to pass those tests so the school can benefit with the distinguished school title. In reality the kids are not learning anything they should be learning. The principle, Mrs. Barnes, is the worst principle I've ever encountered. She never returns phone call and is never involved with the school. Her incompetence at being a principle was highlighted last week in an incident that occurred. Last week some parents and myself witnessed a teacher physically abuse a child. After the incident I reported it to the school's office and wanted to speak with the principle. She never returned my phone call and was coincidently never there when I walked in hoping to speak with her. Since I couldn't get through to her I decided, to take it up to the district office. Getting through to the superindent's office is a tough feat as well, they don't want to listen to you and just tell you to talk to the school's principle...when the whole point of the call was telling them how unavailable the principle was! I finally managed to get through to the superintendent's (John A. Garcia Jr.) secretary and told her what some parents and I witnessed, when I asked to speak with the superintendent directly she said he was not there. When I told her I would be filing a police report at the Downey Police Station on what me and the parents saw, she responded with, "Oh, he actually just walked in"...what a coincidence. When I spoke with the superintendent he was so rude and would never let me talk, he continued to try to overpower the conversation by talking louder, not listening to what I had to say, he just kept making excuses for the principle's behavior. He assured me that the principle or vice principle would call me back that day, I left a message later that day on his secretary's voicemail telling her how no one (not the principle nor vice principle) called me back that day. It has since been a week and I hadn't heard back from the Principle, Vice Principle, or superindent's office. I called the school today and the principle happened to answer the phone, and as soon as she heard it was me, she said "I can't talk to you right now. I'm busy" and hung up on me. I called the superintendent's office again and spoke with the superindent, John A. Garcia Jr., and again he was rude, talking over me, not letting me speak, and again kept making excuses for the principle's behavior. He told me when he followed up with just the principle she assured him that they called me back and spoke with me, which was a total lie! No one ever called me back. I do not feel safe sending my child back to a school in a school district that condones teachers abusing the children. I will be taking my kids out of this school district. read more

My son started Kindergarten this last Fall (August, 2018), and I came to the District through a transfer because I work so far from my home district. There were two schools that had room for my son, and after looking at their SARC's, they were pretty evenly matched, so I went with RSG because I liked that they had an on-site YMCA program that operates year-round. Some of the Yelp reviews were disturbing, but the thing about an SARC is that they are OBJECTIVE; no emotion, no baggage, just straight facts, so I wasn't worried. Now that it's February, and the school year is more than half over, I am VERY confident that I chose the right school. This school CARES about their students, and they ACTIVELY ATTEMPT to involve parents in their children's education. Top marks for their administration; Mr. Cid (Principal) and Mrs. Vaughn (Vice-Principal) are GEMS...they know my child's name, and give him high-fives when they see him. I received a call from the Vice-Principal on her personal cell phone to say 'Hey - your son seems down today; he's usually so happy - is everything okay? Maybe not enough sleep last night, or could he be coming down with something?' The Principal called to thank us for the (very small) gift we gave him at Christmas. How's that for a personal touch? His teacher, Mrs. Walker is the hands-down BEST!!!! She is so great with these kids, and she is very interested in getting your child to be they best they can be. She is ALWAYS available, and makes time for you if you need to speak to her! I volunteer in his class for ONE HOUR a week, and let me tell you something - on a rainy day with 27 kids, I can be exhausted after an hour...how she does it five days a week, 6+ hours a day...I will never know! I have NOTHING but wonderful things to say about the school - my son is getting a great education - he reads like a champ and is writing sentences that crack this mom up...there is nothing at this school that I would change. Don't let the other reviews discourage you; this is a GREAT school, with amazing teachers, administration and office staff - shout out to Mrs. Reyes for dealing with all of it with a smile on her face! read more

I am so proud of my Alumni and now my son's school. The teachers are wonderful and the staff is extremely polite and helpful! The school is clean and well maintained. I am so greatful for the staff here and how loving and kind they are to the children. Every teacher my son has had so far has been outstanding! He truly loves them all and they are now apart of my family! Thank you to Mrs. Gutierrez, Mrs. Aguirre and Ms. Gibson for your love and help in teaching my child not only academically but positive life lessons that he will always have with him. read more

It's a refreshing change this year at Rio San Gabriel. The new principle Mr. Sid has truly made an impact on leadership at this school this year. The school and play ground equipment has been freshly painted and visibly looks better. The communication has improved with newsletters and more voice messages to parents. Use the class dojo app. to communicate with the teachers really is helpful. It's great to see the principal out in front of the school in the mornings. If you have a question, concern or even something nice to say he is there to listen. Sets a good example for the kids as well. The teachers are the same but I think they appreciate the new leadership too. It's amazing how a teacher can teach 26 students in one classroom. But they do the best that can. My child is going on the second year here. It's nice to be informed when your child is doing well and when they are not the teachers communicate. Seeing great changes and improvements keep it up! read more

Let me first be clear that this rating is not a reflection of the entire school, BUT BE WARE OF MS. BELL!!! She enjoys belittling, humiliating, embarrassing, undermining, and setting up her 2ND GRADE students for failure. She picks a scapegoat EVERY year to help her cope with whatever personal issues she's battling internally, and she mentally and verbally abuses that child and then lies about it and scares the student into lying about her interactions with the child to the school administration and child's parents. If I were able to rate lower than a 1, I sure would. We began the school year with concerns due to her being the 1st grade teacher of our friends child the year prior, however, we set out to stay positive and not let that horror story sway our views of this monster. In about the 2nd week of the school year, Ms. Bell called me and stated herself that since my child had trouble remaining quiet all day, she told him, and I quote "APPARENTLY YOU LEARNED NOTHING IN FIRST GRADE, SO WHY DON'T YOU TAKE YOURSELF BACK THERE!" I understand my child is at a higher level of achievement than the majority of his class, so therefore he finishes his assignments much sooner and easier than the other students, however, it is the teachers responsibility to keep the student engaged and to also keep me in mind that she is a SECOND grade teacher, and all the natural excitement a new school year brings, and instead of fostering his abilities in the classroom, not only did she punish him for that, she humiliated him in front of all of his classmates. If she truly viewed herself as a child educator, she would know that is not conducive to a healthy learning environment. From that day forward, she continued to make every school day a horrible experience for my child. He had to "pull his clip" daily. She had scapegoated him to the point that the other students knew to automatically blame him for things he did not do, just to appease her sickness of picking on an innocent child. She punished him for whistling, although to this day, my child does not know how to whistle. At the parent teacher conference, I asked specifically what her preferences and rules in the classroom were so that I could better prepare my child at home and she became very defensive and rushed to end the conference and stated that her rules never change. I provided several examples of how she did go against her rules and he was still punished for following her original rules, and she had no further explanation. I informed her that I submitted the volunteer info application and requested to volunteer in the classroom, even if it was for a hour or so, once a week. She quickly shut that down and stated she had enough parent volunteers. I explained that again, I was only requesting an hour or so here and there to provide my child with additional support and to help alleviate his 'behavioral' issues. She did not budge and she also voluntarily stated that if I had ANY questions or concerns whether they were related to the classroom or not, to not even address the office, to come straight to her. Why was she trying to keep me away from the school office? She also never provided any way to get in contact with her, no phone/text app number, email, classroom phone number. And when I asked her how I can get in contact with her, she said to send a written note with my child. A few weeks before Christmas the school vice principal reached out to me for the first time. Apparently Ms. Bell referred my child to him for intentionally "stabbing" another child in the face. I was so relieved for her attempt to set my child up because it led me to speak with the outstanding Mr. Cid. This is what really happened, my child sharpened his pencil, the lead fell out of the pencil, as he picked it up, Ms. Bell got within inches of his face and said "Shhhh!! DON'T TALK!!," as she displayed a finger to her mouth. She scared my child into silence and watched him walk over to a classmate that he knew had a pencil sharpener of her own that she shared with other students. Since he knew he could not speak, and was holding the pencil in one hand, the fallen out lead in another, he said he thought it best to tap her shoulder. As he reached out to tap her shoulder, she turned her face, so he did ACCIDENTALY poke her with the lead, but DID NOT break the skin, leave any type of red mark or bruise, nor did the girl complain to the teacher or her parent that my child purposely did or attempt to harm her with the lead. Immediately Ms. Bell said "YOU ARE GOING TO THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE FOR THAT!" My child was so scared, he did not know what was going on. He was trying to figure out how to sharpen his pencil after she removed his tool of communication. TO BE CONTINUED IN REVIEW TWO. read more

I went to this school as a little girl and loved it. I love all the teachers and the way the school works

First off, I've had nothing but good experience with the school. I attended there in the 60's, and my step daughter attended in 2000 and grand kids attend now. Class rooms are fully functional, and the kids generally have a good experience there. My grand son was being bullied, and the staff shut it down immediately.. read more