Exceptional, child-centered, high expectation administration and teachers. A highly collaborative…read moreschool with parents. Your child will love it at MVA - and, so will the parents.

I wanted to like this school. But unfortunately far too many points keep going against it. One my…read morechild came home and informed me the other children were using racial slurs toward a POC a child. The front desk lady is incredibly rude and unhelpful. I've had to ask for school records several times. They sent home my son's year book with him to dad's house, even though I asked for the front desk to hold it since I purchased. I always feel out of place and discriminated against whenever I step foot into this school. There is no sense of community. Would not enroll my child again.

I urge anyone reading these reviews to apply critical thinking. Several appear fabricated, and a…read morenumber are clearly written by the same person using different names. For context: I am a parent who has volunteered regularly in both buildings -- classrooms and lunchrooms -- over four years. I have no employment ties to JAA whatsoever. In all that time, I have never once seen a rat or cockroach. My sons have repeated things they heard about vaping and drugs, but both openly admit they never witnessed it personally. Anyone who has raised children knows how powerfully rumors spread and how quickly feelings become "facts" among kids. When my older son had serious conflicts with two different students over the years, the school acted -- and both boys were subsequently removed. That is not the behavior of a staff that doesn't care. Is every single negative review here completely baseless? Maybe not, but the volume of dramatic, unverifiable claims -- many suspiciously similar in tone and wording -- strains credibility significantly. One more thing worth addressing directly: we are not Mormon, and we are not wealthy donors. We are an ordinary family who has simply paid attention, shown up, and seen a school that is far better than this review section suggests

this school and its staff are absolutely horrible. If you want your kids to be trained like…read moremilitary sergeants, this is your place. I was here for about two semesters, and in both i dealt with continuous harassment from an aid who was told to not speak to me, and she directly violated that multiple times. She has zero patience and somehow works with children with special needs and yells at them whenever they have episodes. One of the students she was an aid for even said that he hated her. All of the deans for the school are another reason why your children should not be here. They're all extremely rude, selfish, careless and flat out disrespectful to everybody. The dean of academics has a terrible temper and only talks about himself. Doesn't care about any of the students at the school. The school would have so much more potential if they just had better staff. Another major issue is how political these teachers are.I've sat in Latin class and listened to my teacher go on about abortions and how amazing Donald Trump is. I've also seen how religious these teachers are and I'm not against to anyone's religion, but the fact that they pressure people to be Christian or catholic is a bit much. The school is filled with Mormons, Christians, Catholics and Republican conservatives that will judge you if you are not any of those. All the teachers here are so incredibly strict, you get detentions for breathing the same air as your teachers, you get judged for having to use the restroom and if you go, one minute over there, precious, five minute time limit, you get lectured on how your education is more important than using the restroom. I wouldn't recommend this school at all, unless you want your kids to dread going to school, and never have anything to tell you about what they learned.

It took me a couple of years to write a review with some hope, I would hear great things about the…read moremiddle school as well. Here is the biggest issue, the school is not academically strong, it is actually super weak and behind comparing the local public schools. We came from the Bay Area from a school more expensive, and much better academically. We stayed here at Golden Hills for two years with two kids and we left to the local public school to find out even the public schools here are way more advanced. After some thinking as a teacher myself, I realized the biggest issue is that the school cater for families who is willing to pay, but not to push their kids academically. That combo is a bit odd, but because this is a small school, it makes sense once you see all the drama in the back ground among parents. Both my children are scoring much higher in reading and math than any child same age in Golden hills now. We kept in touch with their friends and it was sad to see their 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade classes being behind curriculum wise than the nearest public school in town. Then, we met some families from middle school and that was quite a disappointment. Any child leaving Golden Hills and arriving to the public school will have to study much hard to catch up to the public school kids in math, reading and etc.

My son is in his second year at Golden Hills School, and we could not be happier with the education…read morehe is receiving. We chose GHS for our son largely because they do teach a curriculum that is advanced (a grade level ahead), and we have seen our son grow so quickly in his reading, writing, and math skills. Thanks to his teachers in JK and Kindergarten, he is developing a true love of learning, and he is constantly asking us questions about math and Spanish, and loves reading new words all the time. We also love that GHS offers exceptional enrichment classes, including Spanish, technology, art, music, theater, and daily P.E. Another thing our family appreciates about this school is the diverse community of welcoming families, and many opportunities to get involved. We look forward to many more years at GHS.

This place is HORRID I must say. My child went here (not mine by the way, my neighbors ( and it was…read moreabsolutely putrid!!!!! FIRST AND FOREMOST the school uses a merit point system which is just as terrible as it sounds. It causes student to turn against student and even make false claims. My son was a victim of this, with 5 students saying he tried giving them test answers, and was then given detention. Yes, DETENTION. I cried upon hearing this news for precisely 25 minutes, and upon calling them they proceeded to HANG UP after NOT solving my ISSue. The teachers AND PRINCIPAL DID not Do anything to help me! Suffice to say my son will not BE COMING BACK WITH no SMILES whatsoever I would also watch out from PGMS, he says they got something planned!

People may think this is bad, but it's not. It's one of the best schools in the area. Principals…read morehandle situations different every time.

I really like this school... but a few of the yard duties are rude and inconsiderate. The rallies…read moreare really fun and amazing. I do not like that the school is not allowing us to be on our phones or listen to music in class even if the teacher lets us now. High school is way less strict on dress code and phone polocies so some of the teachers that say, "It's gonna be a lot more strict in high school" have no idea what they are talking about. The amount of lunchtime is good and the classes are short enough that you dont get bored easily. Anyways, I had a relatively good 2 years here despite the ups and downs.

If I could give this 0 stars, I absolutely would. This school is atrocious. I did sixth, seventh,…read moreand eighth grade here. All years were pretty bad. Especially seventh and eighth, when the school truly began going downhill. Starting off with the 8th grade trip--Terri Daniels is honestly one of the worst principals I've had. Not sure how she got that Principal Of The Year state award smh. The 8th graders were supposed to go on the Great America trip -- but Daniels messed up the buses (the buses thought they were going to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, not Great America) and once they were already about 20 minutes into the trip, they turned the buses around and went BACK to the school. Once they got back to the school, Daniels began yelling at the kids, saying that they did not deserve to graduate and that they were extremely disrespectful and rude, when SHE was the one who messed up the communication with the buses. Like, WTH???! What kind of principal messes up a graduating class's final middle school trip and then yells at THEM saying that they don't deserve to graduate??? Seriously???!! However on a more personal note, all-in-all, a friend of mine was basically mistreated in a disgusting way in the school, and she was too scared to report it. When she did (only TWO DAYS later mind you), one of the principals (cant remember which one) said that she should have reported it the day it happened, and that they can't do anything about it now. The person that did it to her got absolutely no punishment!!!! like WHAT is going on at this school??? And to name the absolute worst teachers: Dr Daniels - reasons mentioned above Ms Walters - did NOT teach the class at all and instead sat at her desk all day Ms Agles - just retired this year i believe, but is extremely rude and always picking and yelling at kids in front of the whole class Ms Passovoy - not the worst but still bad, she is constantly judging student's choice of clothing and rude in general, although she is a good TEACHER Ms Campos - absolutely one of the worst teachers I've recieved, she is terrible at teaching, extremely, EXTREMELY disorganized, once I did an extra credit assignment in class and I had to ask her EVERY DAY for around three whole weeks to add it into the grade book. She initally said it was worth 2 extra credit points but only but in 0.2 points, and at that point i was just done. I'm probably missing some but I can't quite remember... The best teachers, on a more positive note: Ms Flowers Mr Von Mr Olsen All in all, i do not recommend!

AP Physics teacher Lisa Moore is the worst teacher, She teaches almost nothing, and her grading is…read moreextremely unfair. So many good students perform poorly in her class, She said to the students, If you guys do bad nothing good for me, If you do good nothing good for me either. School can't do anything about it. Feel bad for our kids.

Sister played a volleyball game there, students from this high school were making inappropriate…read morenoises after being told to stop numerous times, being disrespectful to the parents, when the head person was informed he laughed about it. when a parent was walking past a group of boys to go in the lobby the boys made inappropriate comments about her and when AD was told about it he didn't do anything, they where told to stop acting the way they were, and mouthed off to the ref, AD was told and went to "talk to the boys". but instead laughed with them and they continued to make inappropriate noises. these kids are unmannered and give a bad look to there school and it just shows with the way admin handled the situation.

HORRIBLE BATHROOMS everything about them are bad. but classrooms are clean teachers are okay but…read moreoverall great school

Have had 4 of my kids pass graduate from Ponderosa in the last decade. We have loved our…read moreexperience with the school, finding a great educational environment and a local community. All have played sports at Pondo and been involved in clubs and other groups which both strengthened their bond to their classmates and to the school. We found teachers and coaches to genuinely care about our kids and their friends. Most of the students live in less densely populated neighborhoods and correspondingly you'll see more pickups than BMWs in the parking lot each morning. We enjoyed the lower level of pretense that exists here versus the other choices down the hill and believe our kids benefitted from it.

My child was being bullied and picked on. They said they were doing something. But, this went on…read morefor 2 years. I finally was able to transfer my child out. Staff was real snotty and stand offish. Would not recommend this school. It seamed even the teacher was singling out my child as well.Would have gave them a minus but had to use one star to post

It's horrible - They don't care about their students (They…read moredon't prevent bullying, or anything similar to that.) The only thing they care about is your hoodie and hats. Even when reporting bullying to staff straight up doesn't work. - I developed GAD and Severe Depression and almost commit suicide/left the school multiple times because of the school not caring. - Bad rules, such as their cell phone policy, what am I gonna turn off my phone during a school shooting and go to the office? Including their "No Drop Off Zones" which causes more traffic and making children later than ever before. - School food is not good at all, once I ordered a sandwich, and it was moldy! What kind of school has moldy sandwiches?