Blackstone Cmn
Livermore, CA 94550

My daughter recently graduated from Smith (she went from Kindergarten all the way to 5th grade) and in hindsight, this was an excellent school. The pandemic time was tough due to virtual setup but that was a state-wide problem. All teachers we had were great and my daughter made a lot of friends despite being on the more introverted side. The atmosphere was just very positive and I appreciated that!! I would also advise others not to worry about the score of 7/10 that is noted on the website. We moved out of state and my son is now going to a school rated 10/10 and Smith was superior, both academically and socially.

This school is hoenestly really great, it takes time to find the right teacher just for you, to help you learn specifically. (We love Mr.K) The teachers on campus are realyl friendly and easy to talk too, you just need to be able to be open with them about help. But the students on campus need decipine. There is lots of things this school could be but the students need more help, but there is a mass amount of homophobia, xenophobia, genuine racism, ableism, and violence from the students. There were many tims on campus where I felt unsafe, and I couldn't open up to anybody about it. The support that my friends we're giving me couldn't be enough. I enjoy all the opertunites I get at this school, but the drawbacks make me thing that it isn't that great.

I know it is the middle of the summer when I am writing this review but I have plenty that k remember about this school. The amount of workload that I got at the end of the school year caused to me to wake up at 4:00am and call my friends by 6:00 if we needed help. For my accelerated math class, my teacher was super nice and helpful-I just didn’t learn from her. I failed a lot of my tests a lot but I always retook them. I know it wasn’t just me who was struggling because when I went to retake a test almost the entire class was full of students trying to retake a test. My science class was equally brutal and the workload was a lot in the last trimester. My core teacher was bad. She was the reason I woke up so early. My core teacher also was rude and when she was joking we could never tell if she was being honest or not. She told my class and some specific students to “shut up” on multiple occasions. Not only that, one of my friends in the pm core class said that she told them to write and entire 30+ point essay by the next day using your notes. She also expected us to write an entire paragraph in five minutes (25-30 minutes to write and entire essay). We had a sub once and we told her about how much time we had to write essays and paragraphs and she disagreed. She believed that we should have an unlimited amount of time to write and I full heartedly agree. The students were not ok. Plenty of cussing and crude remarks. There was trash everywhere and PE is hard on your grade. I was gone on an entire week and my grade dropped from a A+ to an F. Luckily it was the beginning of the trimester and I got extra credit on my laps which eventually brought my grade up. There is so much yelling. The only teacher in all my classes that had never yelled at students was my math teacher. My core teacher and science teacher specifically yelled at me a lot. In PE the other teachers would yell and it was hard on my mental health. Also when there were exchange students some kids chased them around. The students had to eat with the teachers. I seriously don’t recommend this school.