Good morning/afternoon/evening my good readers, Today we…read moreface the final review of well-known University High-school, which I know you have all been waiting for because of the significance of it. From the pristine art on the walls to the treacherous steep hills, there are many goods and bads to write about. To start, our arrival: "It's a school," one student explained to me, with not many strong feelings. Perhaps they didn't admire the money that went into creating this, what some people might call glorious, school? Or they had no idea of the danger ahead... We blew dandelions for a while, which were luckily in abundance. We hoped for good luck in our marching which we would perform in just an hour. Trees around the parking lot shaded us and added to the beautiful view, which was created with pink and blue contrasting colors and a tiny moon. This was especially cherished during the moment before we stepped onto the field, with a crow flying gracefully through the high sky. The most terrible element of our time at this school was the hill. This hill which brought immense struggle and buckets of sweat. With this addition to our problems the ending amount of stars could in no way be five or even four. Waiting for food was a different struggle, instead of something of the school fighting against us in our venture back to the buses (the hill), we were instead found with the pain of waiting. Signage was minimal and people were forced to yelling at others about where to go. "People aren't picking up their food," a person at a food stand told us. There also definitely should have been a sign towards the restrooms as well. Thank you for taking time out of your day to thoroughly read this review, ultimately making yourself more knowledgeable of the true marching band ways. Dearest, marching band pro performers

I would not recommend attending this school, especially if you come from a difficult or emotionally…read moreunstable home environment. In my experience, it was not an easy place to survive. Looking back, I believe I would have been happier at Woodbridge or Irvine High, where I likely could have earned higher grades and reduced the extreme stress of constantly studying until 3:00 AM while still feeling unable to keep up. Without tutoring or outside academic support, I often felt like I was on my own. There was very little individualized help available to bridge the gap between what students were expected to do and what was actually taught. When students needed concepts explained from the beginning, it sometimes felt like their questions were treated as frustrating rather than as a normal part of learning. If your main goal is maximizing your GPA and chances at highly selective colleges, I would carefully consider whether this environment is the right fit. Many students assume that attending a highly competitive school automatically provides an advantage in admissions, but a rigorous environment does not always lead to better outcomes if strict grading makes maintaining a strong GPA significantly harder. Students who might have earned mostly A's elsewhere may receive lower grades here. Another challenge was that students were often expected to perform advanced analysis without enough instruction. In English classes, we were sometimes expected to analyze entire literary works and identify themes, symbolism, and deeper meanings after limited explanation of the concepts. For students who had never been taught literary analysis before, it could feel like being asked to produce advanced work without first being given the foundation to succeed. While independent thinking is valuable, students still need guidance, examples, and support before being expected to analyze complex material at a high level. The expectation to "figure it out" with limited instruction made learning especially difficult for students adjusting to advanced academic English. This was also challenging for students from different educational backgrounds. Some students grew up in households where English was not the primary language, where parents could not help with English reading and writing, or where they had less exposure to English books and academic support growing up. Even bilingual students can struggle with advanced academic English because speaking a language does not always mean having the same comfort with complex writing and analysis. The combination of difficult coursework and the bell curve grading system sometimes made it feel like success depended heavily on prior exposure, outside support, or the ability to independently figure out advanced concepts. The environment could feel less like students were supported individually and more like they were competing against each other. Many teachers were very strict and unforgiving, with little understanding of challenges students faced outside of school. It often felt like the focus was on maintaining the bell curve and creating difficult exams, sometimes covering material beyond what was explicitly taught. Some students could feel overlooked or discouraged, while the highest-performing students received the most recognition. In my experience, some AP and Honors teachers were also unsupportive, and there were moments when students were embarrassed or called out in front of the class rather than being guided privately. There was very little patience for students who did not understand something the first time, and the pace often felt too fast for students who needed more explanation. There were also situations that felt unnecessarily humiliating. For example, there was a time when a teacher believed they had caught students cheating and angrily accused them in front of the entire class before fully confirming what happened. Even if there had been cheating, I believe it should have been handled privately and professionally rather than through public humiliation. In a high-pressure environment where students compete for grades, public accusations can have lasting effects because classmates may form judgments without knowing the full story. For students dealing with difficult situations at home, asking for help was not always simple. It can be hard to open up when you are unsure whether others will understand or whether sharing personal struggles will actually lead to meaningful support. Some students may feel like they have to silently manage their challenges while still meeting the same academic expectations. The one positive I took away was that the school pushed me to develop strong critical-thinking skills. It taught me to analyze concepts from different perspectives, question assumptions, & think more deeply about ideas, which helped shape the way I view the world and approach complex topics later in life. However, the emotional cost and stress were not worth the practical benefits.

This school hired unprofessional teachers like Ms Kuo in 4th grade who wasn't a certificated…read moreteacher and was very mean to kids. It is unacceptable that they allow their teachers to use language abuse on our kids! Principal didn't even care about the issue. Very disappointing.

Our son was attending a large public high school when the COVID-19 pandemic started. This highly…read morerated public high school quickly transitioned to an online learning environment, but only provided one synchronous lecture per week for each class. As our son, and many of his classmates, fell further and further behind in their online classes, we repeatedly reached out to the school administration, including the principal, as did the parents of our son's school friends. However, the school's administration was uniformly unresponsive to our concerns. So, we decided to take our son out of the public school system, and place him in a private school. Our son transferred to Pacific Academy during his junior year of high school. I really can't say enough good things about our experience at Pacific Academy over the past almost two years. Everyone from the principal to the teachers and administrative staff have all been amazing. They are all very passionate about their mission to educate their students, as well as to help their students grow and develop into well-rounded young men and women. The small class sizes allow for a very personalized approach to teaching, and both the teachers and the principal are very interactive and collaborative with parents. The quality of teaching in all of our son's classes has been exceptional, and all of his teachers have welcomed engagement with us. (Unlike at the public high school our son previously attended.) I would especially like to recognize the principal at Pacific Academy, Keith Corpus, and the Director of Student Affairs, Jasmine Hsu. Their dedication, compassion, and empathy towards their students, and their families, has been extraordinary. They have both also been tremendously supportive as students, parents, and teachers have all worked together to manage the enormous (and ever-changing) impact of the pandemic. Honestly, we have come to view Mr. Corpus and Ms. Hsu as if they were part of our family, and we are so grateful to them for their dedication and commitment to their students, including our son. My only regret is that we did not transfer our son to Pacific Academy sooner. We love this school, and its faculty and staff, and we are so grateful that our son has been able to attend Pacific Academy!

One of the best K-8 schools around. I've had kids attending for 15+ years and they all love the…read moreplace. Teachers, administration and staff are always helpful and interested in a very caring way about how the children are doing. Parents are a huge help always volunteering and trying to make the school better through the PTA or the School Foundation which is different from the district set foundation. This all helps keep the kusic, art, technology and nursing in tact compare to other schools.

Our experience has been differentiated. As with many things in life, the exterior - the facade…read morelooks wonderful. The structure is new, clean, and the school receives so many donations that it can offer many extras such as chrome books and computers in every section of the school. But you do need to be aware of the layer underneath the facade. I am not saying that Vista Verde is a bad school, but I am saying that you need to be aware of the type of parents that are at the school and the atmosphere. Many of the children tend to be rather spoiled. I am not sure if that is the reason why certain staff - including the current Assistant Principal - feel compelled to have zero tolerance for normal age appropriate child behavior, such as rough playing etc. Zero tolerance means that routinely, almost on a daily basis, you will find children - mind you young children ages 6, 7, and 8, sitting in the front office, being punished for normal play which the administration considers inappropriate. (because they are scared of parents? I do not know). Not only are they missing recess, but receive a paper to fill out with many points to write about what good playground behavior would be. Further, sometimes methods of shame are used by giving the child a clipboard to run around during recess and write many - in one case 24! - sentences of what constitutes good playground behavior. These seem methods used many decades ago and they humiliate a child. When asked the recess supervisor said that they want to "scare them just a little bit from early on" so that they don't play rough when they get to middle school. We translate that as meaning that they systematically break a child's spirit and ensure that the child follows their rules like a robot - with zero tolerance as stated by one teacher. I am not sure if this atmosphere has started with the new Assistant Principal and Principal or if this practice has always taken place with many parents simply not knowing what is going on. That being said, I am aware of some parents who have noticed or experienced the above mentioned and are leaving the school - we are also leaving. I suppose the moral we will be taking with us is that not everything that seems glistening is truly as shiny as it looks.

I come here for after-hours open-play pickleball…read more Likes: + After hours, the scene is quiet and peaceful. + Numerous pball courts. + Plenty of parking. + Other visitors come here for quiet, peaceful dog walks and private exercise. Non-likes: - The pickleball courts are terrible quality. Confusing kitchen lines, unsecure nets, nets set at incorrect heights, no boundaries to prevent ball-on interferences, if you lose the ball, you have to run all the way to the grass to get it.

Terrible school do not recommend. My son witnesses a lot of inappropriate behavior. He got his…read morephone taken away when he putting it away. Overall i am extremely dissatisfied.

Great school! Best teachers! Fabulous administrative staff. Excellent location. Happy grandson!read more

We are very thankful we pulled our children away from this Pseudo Jewish School, it caters to…read morenon-Jewish people who are not interested in Judaism, only focuses on admissions to hyper competitive colleges. If a TVT student gets behind, he or she loses Judaic Studies to keep up with hyper competitive children. Administrators do not take Jewish children as priority, in fact, more than half students there are not Jewish, it is a misrepresentation to call this a Jewish school, celebrating other culture's holiday months long opposed to one day, check out their auditorium wall in February and on. The over offered non-Kosher food selections. Needless to say more, beware!

Director Jennifer Ahn and teachers at Jen's learning center teach children with love…read more And they are sooooo kind! My son has been studying here for almost two years. During Pandemic, He had online classes, and I was very satisfied with the new workbooks. I already recommended this center to my friends p.s. Thank you Hannah ! Joon enjoys studying with you very much.

My kids have been attending this learning center for the past 2 years and my wife and I love it…read more The center recently went through rebranding and enhanced their curriculum. It is definitely more advanced but my kids are loving the new challenge. I really appreciate all your help for my kids. Thank you!

Higher education!…read more That's what we have here. My kids have never been in a public school. When we moved to this area, this school was a huge part of the decision. The campus is beautiful (Brand new gym) -NBA players coaching teams Smart white boards in classrooms! Small class sizes (1st grade has 18 students; 2nd grade has 11 kids) Overall, we are happy with the school

My husband and I enrolled our daughter here for TK half-day with Mrs. Garrett, Kindergarten with…read moreMrs. Ynez and Mrs. Lin, and she started 1st Grade with Mrs. Menacho before we moved and had to change schools because of distance. We absolutely loved all 3 teachers SO much and we had no doubt that each of them loved Jesus and our daughter! Also, Mrs. Joanne McMains at the front desk is absolutely wonderful, love her! We were sad to leave Newport Christian!

Most of the negative reviews reflect the chaos of school politics. It doesn't really reflect the…read moreteachers' hard work and students' lives in the past year. I don't really write Yelp reviews often, but I feel I need to share my point of view for my son's first year at this school. I don't want to see teachers' hard work and devotion to be erased by all these negative reviews. This new school does not have a lot of resources like Irvine Unified School District. The facilities at the campus are out of date and the campus is leased from IUSD. The faculty has been trying hard to maintain the school facilities, but it is very challenging. - 2 of 5 star I have been volunteering at my son's classes in the past two semesters, and both English and Mandarin teachers from the 2nd Grade are very passionate about teaching and helping our children. I have heard a similar compliment for all other teachers at different grades. The school only has one PE teacher, who is working hard and carrying a lot of responsibilities for all the kids at school- 4 of 5 star The communication channels between teachers and parents are very clear. Teachers will quickly respond and answer questions or concerns from the parents. - 5 of 5 star Before enrolling at IIA last year, my son has no knowledge about Chinese handwriting. As now, at the end of his 2nd semester, he can do both reading and writing more than 117 Chinese characters. For reference, attached are words he has learned so far. - 5 of 5 star Some parents have questions about the on-site after-school program. From my observation in the past two semesters, my son was able to complete his homework at school, attending enrichment class for music and art, and playing with his friends after school. My son always asked me to pick him up last so that he can spend more time at school. - 4 of 5 star To sum up, my wife and I feel very fortunate that our son has this opportunity to learn both English and Mandarin at the same time without sacrificing our weekend attending Chinese school. Everyday when we dropped our son to school, he always rolls his backpack with lightening speed and runs to the teacher. We can tell our son really enjoys his first year at IIA. This is a tuition free charter school, not a 5 star Private school. This school requires a lot of parents to involve and help. This is a new school starting with a bumpy start. We all hope one day the school board and parents can come to an agreement one day so the teachers/students in between will not be sacrificed.

Mastering the language is the best key to start learn a culture of country…read more We are so touched that the school and teachers have done so much to make our children happy every day.

Peaceful to come with myself and at times friends working out there. Place is nice even on the…read moretrack clean. Views are beautiful coming here.

I'm not happy with this school. My daughter went here during her Highschool years. They have the…read moreworst and uncaring teachers. I had to fight with them when my daughter was sick to get credit for her work. They think that treating kids like pest is good for them. The only redeeming person here was the counselor. If you have kids here, demand that they are treated well. Teachers will try to intimidate with their superiority complex. Check each of their rating b4 enrolling to their class.