16566 S Pacific Ave
Sunset Beach, CA 90742

I have been highly impressed with Dwyer Middle school and Huntington Beach ,CA school district. The education offered here far exceed my expectations. Dwyer offers a large variety of exposure to all types of career path opportunities. From environmental sciences, marine biology, theater, dance and the arts. With a brand new S.T.E.M building that exposes these young minds to fields in engineering and robotics. A variety of music classes that range from string instruments to guitar classes, to marching band and more. They offer exposure into politics and government if that peaks your child's interest. They create a fun and current learning environment while being committed to structure and creating self discipline in our children. Coming from living the Midwest most of my adult life and raising other children in a different state and being able to see the vast difference in the education offered through this school system. This is a public school system who is dedicated to molding bright young minds into successful future adults.

I transferred my child here from Peterson after we moved. We have not been here long. But within the first three weeks my child got punched very hard by another student. First time that's ever happened at school for us. Prior to us transferring, my child told me that Smith has a reputation for its kids being "mean" and I had no idea what that meant. So, since we've transferred - I have heard stories weekly, if not daily, of physical fighting, shoving, punching and a lot of threats of students wanting to fight other students. When I ask my child how they liked the new school the comment was, "Smith is a 'physical' school - the kids hit, shove and threaten physical violence a lot. Myself, personally, I've seen kids waiting outside the school looking to fight other kids two times (boys AND GIRLS) saying they wanted to fight off school grounds with "no rules" -something about no school rules and street rules applying. It is a thing to behold these elementary kids going so hard. The kids do seem a little rogue. My child also told me that kids at Smith do not seem to care to listen to the teachers and they don't care about their schoolwork like they do at Peterson. In our experience, Peterson was pretty orderly - I don't think there was ever one report (that I ever heard) of kids physically fighting. Sometimes not keeping your hands-to-yourself type issues, but not like this. At Peterson, the kids are encouraged to tell the teachers when something is up, and they get involved immediately. Which is great, but can also be kind of its own beast, because it really is just an atmosphere of constant tattling on one another and accusations of bullying that's not actually bullying. I felt like I was always having talks with my child over things I felt weren't really issues for parents to get involved. It was small stuff kids need to learn to sort out on their own. So, pick your poison. The teachers at Smith, I am really happy with, they have been great and the curriculum as well. The PTA communicate well and put together some great events. I think the teachers are overwhelmed by kids that just being unruly (my child can be included in that at times). I am happy with the curriculum. Despite all of what I'm writing, my child seems to like Smith better than Peterson. I don't know how to explain it, it's like they're learning to navigate conflict ???? I can't say I understand it. These are just my first impressions, maybe I'll update this at the end of the year.

My daughter graduated from this school. She loved every moment she spent at HBHS. We are from the low income family. We don’t live in downtown, but we never felt excluded or disconnected. APA, sports, academics- all positive experience! I wasn’t impressed with few teachers, they were still good teachers, just not a good fit for our kid.