1833 Parkwood Dr
San Mateo, CA 94403

my experience, this school supports students' mental health and emotional well-being

I have had 4 children go through Ralston. Past two years has been the worst I have seen this school. Discipline does not exist and all the really good teachers have left. Isn't that a red flag for the district office? Why have so many teachers left? It is a like a mass exodus. The current principal is a total disaster and truly out of touch with her teachers and the students. I don't attend PTA and no longer give the school a nickel. So happy my child last child will be done there this year. Spanish and math program are terrible and I have had to hire a tutor. Science is not better, so sad Mrs. Ohara left, she was amazing.

Having attended Carlmont High School myself I find many of this school's teachers to have the wrong approach to learning. Nearly all classes are based around memorizing and busywork, close to zero focus is placed on developing useful life skills other than in math and science classes. I personally felt my talents to be completely wasted at this school and have even heard teachers gossip about students to other teachers which cannot possibly be acceptable. Test scores and ratings for this school are high because the students here come from wealthy and successful households, I personally found myself to have learned more from my parents than from the teachers at this school. Key evidence pointing at this is that those students who come from underserved communities or have parents with low incomes tend to perform poorly, whereas the wealthy students with good home environments perform well. Secondly, this school didn't educate me at all about the benefits of the community college system, only placing it as "that's where you go if you can't go anywhere else" which is a completely wrong approach if you actually understand - most reading this will likely disagree, aka you don't understand how the transfer system works.Counselors at this school would take over two weeks to respond to inquiries which I find completely unacceptable, and even though the office staff cares about the students the thought of replacing teachers who don't do their job properly appears to never cross their mind. I know many here, primarily parents, idolize this school and find it to be the best ever, I personally graduated early from this school and have had exposure to different systems, even hearing from past Carlmont teachers and other adults who truly vocalized critical viewpoints. If you are a student and want to do well, or a parent of a student here, don't waste your time on AP classes, the college board is a for-profit organization and MANY flaws have been found about this system. (A correlation between lengths of essays and higher scores even if they were poorly written has been found - plus many schools don't even accept these anymore). Instead, start taking concurrent enrollment classes at community college as soon as you are mentally ready and developed far enough, I can guarantee you won't regret it. Even if continuing to a private 4-year institution starting in freshman year of college - you'll want college counselors, not Carlmont's.