36 Exploration
Irvine, CA 92618

I attend Jeffrey Trail Middle School currently from 24-25 and 25-26 and it was honestly a underwhelming experience. Some of the staff (teachers, teacher assistants, principal and vice principals, front office, etc) were okay but certain teachers often showed bias or didn’t show the same treatment towards all students. There was also frequent racism from students and bullying or harassment wasn’t uncommon, and the school is pretty blind about it unless seen directly on camera or a staff member witnessed it. The students also didn’t seem excited to learn because we mostly learned the same topic frequently in class. In my experience, I only had fun because of me creating memories with friends, but it was overall not a great experience.

Our family was disappointed with how my child’s 3rd grade class has been managed this year. From the first day of the school year, the class was assigned a long-term substitute due to the teacher’s maternity leave. We requested placement in a classroom with a permanent teacher to ensure stability, but this was denied by both the principal and the district. Unfortunately, within just the first month of school, the substitute teacher was replaced with another substitute. This means the children have had to experience multiple teacher changes, causing emotional disruption and inconsistency in their learning environment. When the principal came to the class to announce the change in substitute teachers, she explained it to the children as “the importance of change and being flexible.” While these are valuable life skills, expecting 8-9-year-old children to process frequent teacher changes as a positive lesson is not realistic. At this age, students need stability, routine, and a consistent teacher they can build trust with not constant disruption in the classroom environment. We are sharing this experience, so other families are aware of how Portola Springs Elementary and the district handle classroom placement and teacher coverage. While the school has a good reputation, our family’s experience has shown that the well-being and stability of the students are not always prioritized. We hope the district will take accountability and improve how they handle situations like this in the future.

Personally I think I've had the best experience in this school out of all the other schools I've attended here in California, as well as back in my home country. It might not be fair to compare schools in Glendale and the post-soviet elementary schools from my childhood to a neat and well funded school in Irvine, but I truly didn't have that many negative experiences here (by my own standards). Frankly though, if you were to ask some of my friends and peers, they might give you a very different answer, but that's their story to tell and not mine.