BASIS Independent Fremont

I have had three children attend Our Lady of Guadalupe School (aka :OLG)--one is now in high school, and two are still there. If I had to describe OLG in only one phrase, I would say the it is a special place. In fact, "a special place" is how other current and former students, parents of students, faculty and former faculty have most commonly referred tp the school as well when we've discussed it. The school is small but has energy and a sense of community far beyond its size. It is amazing how much it offers for a small school, including a Chess Club, Choir, school band (and Music and Art classes as part of the curriculum for all students), and a wide variety of extracurricular sports through the CYO. There is even support for students with learning disabilities (although if your child's special needs are more severe, of course, you will need the services of a public school). One nice traditional OLG has is "Faith Families" in which students from different grades meet monthly in small groups so that older students are encouraged to care about younger ones. By the way, another wonderful thing about OLG is that it returned to fill-the, in-person learning a full year before Fremont Unified schools did so! That saved our family's sanity not to mention our children's educational progress. You do not need to be Catholic to atteOLG also offers reasonably-priced before- and after-school care, and even if you pay the full cost of tuition, it is a bargain compared to any other private school, religious or not, in the area. However, if you are worried about the cost, OLG also offers good sibling discounts if you have more than one child enrolled and also offers scholarships and financial aid.I am saddened that the previous principal, who was there for several years, contributed in a major way to the decline of enrollment of the school, which it is still recovering from. She was simply a deeply unpleasant, unkind person, and she turned off a lot of parents. (We loved the teachers and other aspects of the school so much that we kept our children enrolled despite her.) However, the good news is that the current principal is excellent--she has also been a teacher at the school for several years and has her own children enrolled there, so she truly cares about and is passionate about the school and its students. I strongly encourage anyone looking for a safe, caring alternative to public school to check out OLG.

I would highly recommend KHA. The teachers here are very caring and patient. I have sent my daughter here for the past 2.5 years and I saw her grow up into a confident young girl.They have nice holiday events and everything is integrated into the Brightwheel app so its easy to communicate with teachers via the app as well as keep track of your students status throughout the day. Also pictures are shared thru the app as well. Checking in and checking out your student also can be done thru the app.

Heed the warnings from previous reviews that mention bullying! I don't usually write reviews but want to warn other parents before the damage is done. We went to POP for many years and heard and witnessed many incidents of bullying (including physical harm to students by other students , students being called racial slurs and older kids intimating younger students by blocking the halls and pushing them out of the way) but nothing was ever done and worse yet, they have instituted ZERO policies to ensure safety at the school despite multiple complaints. Additionally, during the pandemic when home schooling was in place, we noticed that several of the Teachers routinely bullied one child and shamed him in front of the others on a daily basis. We knew this because we heard it over Zoom. We told the parents and they shared with the school and nothing done! There should be a Zero tolerance for bullying and this should be addressed Day 1 with a clear WRITTEN POLICY and immediately addressed at back to school night (especially since the school includes middle school where bullying is at it's worse) and there should be clear guidelines enforced from ALL school administrators but here, Staff just looks away and worse yet, is complicit in the bullying. We stayed bc fortunately for us it didn't impact our child directly until it did! We found out that our child was being actively bullied by older kids and peers for months and we were never notified by anyone at the school. When we directly confronted Teachers and the Principal they did absolutely nothing and in fact, scapegoated our child to be shunned by the school community. Yes, bullying is a sad reality at all schools but if you can't trust that the school is going to communicate with you if problems do arise, provide a safe place in which your child can thrive socially/ academically without physical/ emotional harm and partner with you to give your child the support/ compassion/ caring they deserve if they are bullied then it's definitely worth your child's self esteem and overall well being.