La Costa Oaks

This is a gold standard school for public education. Highly engaged families (PTA is extremely active), a fantastic new principal (welcome, Principal Kay!), and staff who stay for decades and really care for kids. The academic rigor is appropriate across all grades and students leave 6th grade prepared and ready to succeed. There are some problems in EUSD with regard to low rigor and a high politicization of certain social issues; at this point (2025), OPE has maintained itself as a school that is focused on student success and stays above the nonsense. I hope it will stay that way!

This school has been a bit of a disappointment in terms of academic focus. Time is spent each week on their emotional learning class (taught by an instructor that has so many biases it’s ridiculous) but I have yet to see a single piece of math homework this entire year. Virtually nothing is being communicated to the parents in terms of what students are actually learning. My child regularly attends offsite math tutoring and despite our tutoring services reaching out to his teacher to better understand what he can be working on, there is no response. I do not believe my child is being prepared for a successful future in middle and high school. Oh but they suddenly become super communicative when it comes to fundraising. We are exploring private school for the remainder of his education.