Encounter Bay
Alameda, CA 94502

This is a great school for some but can be an incredibly toxic environment for others. Great opportunities, with access to field trips, technology, and well qualified kind teachers. I had access to technology from as young as 2nd great that has set me up well so far. The school is small and has very specific traditions that it sticks to. I noticed a lack of principal interference with student complaints and needs. Some of the more tenured teachers seem to be beyond reproach and can treat students as they please. The rules are restrictive, arbitrary, and constantly changing. Every year lunch monitors told us not to do more and more during recess. Some of these monitors were volunteers who were just lovely but others would refuse to get balls that went over fences, and prevented you from doing so. Or asked specific students they disliked to take abandoned trash all the way across the campus rather than asking students near the bins, they would play games with tired and hungry students, waiting to release them to lunch just because they could. Equally some volunteers devoted time to organize fun recess events purely out of the kindness of their hearts. Principals were completely out of touch with the middle school which was nearly ignored. I definitely don't recommend this school after 5th grade. Bay Farm is completely what you make it, if your unlucky enough to be stuck with bad teachers and staff you will have a terrible experience with no administration interference, it varies from year to year.

My daughter is a freshman in the school and we are thrilled with her experience. Great teachers and welcoming students.

The teachers and some of the staff are awful. One of the P.E. teachers had recently called multiple African-American students the "hard r." Some of the teachers pick obvious favorites and only give them good grades, while leaving the rest to suffer. Me and many of the students who I know that have attended Lincoln have had at least multiple teachers they absolutely despised. The principal and vice principals all use guilty by association, even if you just so happened to spare the slightest glance at ANY incident. They also pressure students to get in trouble when they have done no wrong doing by threating them with messages to parents or harsher punishment than the actual perpetrators. There were multiple previous classes I have attended there that left me with no new understanding of the subject that was being taught, and actually worsened my understanding of it. The students are also awful as they have no respect for anyone except for themselves. The staff I actually liked and were extremely nice to the students are some of the hall monitors and the custodial staff. I've had maybe around four teachers I actually liked while the rest were bad to utterly awful/