1905 Magdalena Cir #35
Santa Clara, CA 95051

My son completed elementary school last year at Ponderosa. He was in Ponderosa since kindergarten. Our experience has been absolutely great from the beginning. Within two weeks of joining kindergarten, my son began to read which he could not in a private pre-k school. This school has great teachers who put importance on reading and teach children the ability to self-learn which is the most important thing needed when children go to middle school and high school. The school impressed upon the children the 4 Bs of being respectful, safe, responsible and kind which I felt transformed my son into building good foundational values. I recommend this school if you are looking to ensure your child gets excellent teachers, an environment where children thrive in reading and learning that is fun and practical while building strong character.

After 4 years here, I understand that it's a very good school to go to. It's (for the most part) very diverse, but many groups of friends are less diverse. However, I had a very diverse group of friends, which worked to my advantage, and I played sports, which are more diverse. Some sports are very good while others are laughably bad, it really just depends on the sport, but besides badminton, I'm pretty sure most teams have a very good and supportive team culture, especially the track team. This is one of the safest schools around, as there's only a couple of fights per year (and by fights, I mean two people maybe getting in a couple fake punches at each other). There's virtually no physical bullying. Academically, people are all over the spectrum, but it is definitely skewed towards smart kids. In general, people are motivated to do well in their classes (except for those suffering from senioritis), which is reflected in how almost all my friends, even ones who weren't the best at school, took at least 1 AP class during their time at Wilcox. People are willing to help each other if you ask for it and push each other to do well. For the most part, classes aren't too difficult and don't have too much work; if you use your time wisely, you can do sports or clubs and still have time for homework, and I got all A's when I was in high school. There are many people, especially in their senior year, who deal with burnout; while that wasn't the case with me, I know others who were taking 5 or more AP's who were struggling mentally. Counselors do warn students about the potential harm in taking too many classes, but pressure, mostly from parents, motivates many to do it anyways. I chose on my own do 6 AP's when I was a senior, and unlike others, I didn't suffer from mental health issues, which I attribute to not stressing over things. The teachers at this school are for the most part stellar, as I only had 1 teacher I really didn't like and around 10 or so that I really got a close bond with. If you ask someone a grade above you, they can usually tell you what you need to know about a teacher before you take their class. There are a lot of people who open-enrolled instead of going to Santa Clara high, and they all say the same thing: they go to Wilcox because it's "better," which is really true. People here kinda look down upon Santa Clara, just because they're worse at academics, sports, ect, but the students aren't arrogant. It's one of the best schools around.

Peterson Middle School is a very good school.