5836 McKellar Dr
San Jose, CA 95129

This rating and review is based on multiple years in this school. A comparison to other schools in neighborhood school districts.Where does it shine well:a) It is a relatively safe school, in terms of general safety of the childrenb) Most of the neighborhood families engage actively and enable the kids a lot!c) It has a lot of smart kids, who are well supported at home wrt a continuum of education.Issues:a) The learning experience is well below expectation. There are few resources for children other than a continuum of usage of tech. Make no mistake I work in the tech. sector and love it. Having said that, education needs to be holistic such that the child understand the environment around them both intellectually and socially.b) The school works well for kids who are already very smart, and can do most of their work themselves. An e.g., for kids who have language barriers it is a tall order.c) The previous principal Mr.Steve Kaufman was proactive and easily accessible to all. The current principal is mostly interested in keeping the job, and makes hardly any improvements or does anything beyond the bare min. needed. fwiw: You will hardly ever see her outside of her office. d) There is a massive dearth of fundamental science and understanding. It is not taught to any level.e) Some teachers in this school should really have no place there. There is no way to change the teacher (as is in some schools can't blame them). Given that as an educator the teacher is pivotal to a child's success it is sad. f) This comment is related to school, which post COVID-19 sends notifications that the child should not have more than 7 days of absent. Hypocritically, sends another note that if they have fever to keep them at home. Dr.'s recommend that the kids stay home and have OTC medication, i.e., no direct visit. I say this because the school further adds restrictions addressed from the principal without any thought. Conclusion: As much as this school is near and dear to me. It needs to improve its overall functionality to work upwards, not depend solely on smart kids and an above average IQ neighborhood. Keep in mind all of this might be moot, given that CUSD has so far closed (as general public school) up to 3 elementary schools in the area and might close more schools due to lack of enrollment.

I am a current 8th grader! My experience in Miller Middle School was 5 stars. Here is why! In Miller Middle School, you would experience a lot of safety around the school until school ends. This is because we don't allow bullying as if it were a zero-tolerance policy. However, some people could use technology to bully others. In SEL, many people believe that it is boring because it is about a changing story. However, I think it can be used in daily life. Family engagement over child learning is not effective anymore, due to the child being indpendent or asking the teacher. My teachers are great and good at organizing lessons to make me and my classmates successful. They make me learn more and also motivate me to keep going. Although people complain about their teachers, I have no problem with some of my teachers (except one or two). However Miller Middle School enriched my motivation, learning, and school support. Our classmates treat our special needs educated kids as our own, because we are RRC.

At Lynbrook High School, the most stressful conversations don't happen in classrooms. They happen in hallways, at lunch tables, and in group chats — and they usually sound something like: "I have three AP tests in one week, I haven't slept, and I don't know how I'm going to survive."On the surface, it reads as venting. But underneath, it's something more complicated.Complaining about AP workload has become its own kind of social currency. When a student lists everything on their plate — the five AP classes, the late nights — it functions as an unspoken résumé. A way of saying: I am busy enough, serious enough. For the people listening, the message lands differently. If you can't match that list, you might quietly wonder whether you measure up at all.This points to something deeper in Lynbrook's culture: academic performance isn't just a measure of what you know, but of who you are. GPA, test scores, and course rigor have become the metrics by which students evaluate each other's character. A 4.0 signals discipline and worth. Anything less risks being read as a lack of both.The result is pressure that goes beyond wanting to do well. Students feel compelled to maintain a persona — the student who is on top of everything, who belongs here. Falling short doesn't just feel like an academic setback. It feels like social exile.The scoreboard is invisible, but everyone knows it's there. And those without a flag to plant are left figuring out how to stand in a room where everyone else seems to be winning a competition they never agreed to enter.For many, the response isn't to opt out — it's to perform. To take more AP classes than feels manageable. To frame exhaustion as dedication. Because at Lynbrook, the worst thing isn't failing a test. It's being seen as someone who wasn't even trying hard enough to fail one.There's a quieter cost that gets less attention: the slow erosion of identity that happens when students spend years measuring their worth against a grade. When the question stops being am I learning? and becomes am I enough?