3219 Berkeley Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90026

parent of a 7th grader here. The curriculum for the 6th/7th GAT program is a mixed bag. Here are our grades for the 4 core classes:ELA: A. class and teacher were solid, well taught, good mix of topics (debate, critical thinking), independent reading, and literature and analyzed by the entire class. The students did not learn any advanced vocabulary however =(.History: A-/B+. Standard course on world cultures, teacher stuck to the textbook. Some puzzling assignments, such as a 'key terms' where the students had to provide images for ~20+ terms pertaining to a certain historical period or culture. Kids just used Gemini and Grok to make pictures for terms like 'patriarchal' and 'heriditary'. Yeah, pretty dumb.Math: B. Teacher moves fast, tests designed to test how quickly you can solve, not necessarily whether the student learned the key concepts.Science/Health: D. Teacher clocked out years ago and is mailing it in. No labs for chemistry or biology, just 3rd grade-level busywork crafting projects, liek the 'food truck' project, where the students were asked to build a paper food truck from scratch, using a 33point grading critera, including functionality on the interior cabinets, whether or not the truck has side mirrors. Ugh-- just soo bad. No educational value.Zoopalooza class: F. Another poorly designed, laughable busywork class, consisting of teams of 4 students assigned to do summer camp-level crafting (a diorama, a stuffed animal) of a random animal they are assigned at the beginning of the year. My kiddo's team never found time to meet, they almost failed the class but yeah it's so ridiculously dumb.Field Trips: F. Yeah they went to the zoo.Campus: Uninspired public school campus, feels straight out of 1979.Other fun parts: grades for tests and assignments are not posted regularly to Schoology, so you' be checking every day for weeks, nothing changes, then all of a suddent 23 different grades are posted, and your kid is getting a C becuase the teacher gave a 0/20 for an assignment that was due the day your kid was travelling or at a dentist appointment. Good luck fixing it!

My son began 9th grade at John Marshall last year, initially, things went well, but then he was bullied, and the school knew but didn't inform us. This year, he's still being bullied by the same family, and the school hasn't acted. The staff is overwhelmed, and my son's education is suffering. He's struggling because he has to worry about self-protection and can't focus in an unhealthy social environment. Recently, a student's mother even had to intervene in the courtyard.

Bullies. The school is full of bullies. And, I'm not talking about the students. The OFFICE STAFF is absolutely horrendous. Principal Nichole Sakellarion literally got in my face once. I thought she was going to hit me.When I look back at this behavoir I'm very upset and honestly hurt by how some of the school staff have been treating students. It does not feel like a safe or supportive environment. Instead, it feels like certain staff members are rude, dismissive, and at times seem to enjoy putting students and parents down. School should be a place where kids feel encouraged and respected, but that has not been our experience.What bothered me the most was an incident involving the school nurse. She was on speaker phone in the office talking about my child’s disability, and I could clearly hear staff in the background laughing. That was incredibly upsetting and completely unacceptable. My child’s personal and medical information should be handled with care and privacy, not discussed openly where others can hear and make a joke out of it.No child or family deserves to feel singled out or humiliated, especially by the adults who are supposed to support them. Behavior like this can have a lasting impact on a child’s confidence and emotional well-being. It also breaks trust between families and the school.I really hope the school takes this seriously and makes changes. Staff should be held accountable and reminded that every student deserves respect, privacy, and kindness.