Ventana School

My daughter has been at St. Nicholas Catholic School for the past two years. When she first started, she was very shy and had difficulty making friends. Ms. Robbin gave her wonderful guidance in building social skills, and over time she became more confident, made good friends, and now feels very happy and supported at school. The community is kind and welcoming, and both students and teachers are very friendly.Academically, the school provides a solid education without creating too much pressure. My daughter enjoys learning, and I especially appreciate that they offer different learning groups to support students at different levels. Overall, we have had a very positive experience at St. Nicholas.

LACS is one of the best schools in the Bay Area. We sent both of our girls there. The older one has dyslexia and was behind in her reading, while in public school. LACS had incredible flexibility to put her into the Learning Assistance Department (LAD) program in English, while keeping her in the regular classes for Math and the rest of the curriculum. LACS Principle, Ms. Hibbert, personally worked with her in the mornings on her reading and writing skills. Over the course of 2 years, LACS teachers were able to advance here reading and writing skills to move here over to the regular program for all subjects. It’s quite remarkable and we are eternally grateful to the school. One thing that sets LACS apart is that their teachers are highly trained and certified in Slingerland, Orton-Gillingham, or Wilson Reading Systems. Our younger daughter was extremely shy when she came to LACS K-grade. We were very worried. Ms. Taylor was able to get her to open up and become comfortable with class participation. It was a big relief to us, as parents, to see our daughter blossom at LACS over the course of several years. Teachers at LACS are very caring and supporting, all the while making sure that the students are learning and advancing their skills. Tuition is very reasonable and lower than in other private schools. As parents, we appreciate the schools’ efforts to keep the tuition low and focusing on things that matter: education and supportive environment for the children. The education philosophy is traditional, probably what you have experienced when you were kids. We really appreciated this, as we wanted our kids to value hard work, integrity, respect, drive to succeed, all the while being in a 100% supportive environment. And they have a Science teacher with a Biology PhD from UCSF and Postdoc from Stanford!I would wholeheartedly recommend this school to anyone. We went through 4 schools in the Bay Area, public, charter and private. LACS is by far the best.

We spent five years at WSP Los Altos in the early childhood years. Their early childhood program (preschool and kindergarten) are the best if a family can afford the private school fee. The teachers and staff are exceptionally trained and dedicated to students in classroom. However, we had a very depressing experience in Grade 1 which was utterly chaotic from a management and learning standpoint. Not only were the educators lacking teaching experience (not meeting the criteria to teach as per the California public school guidelines), but the entire program philosophy is not backed by science of learning but is grounded in Rudolf Steiner's views on education. Their was minimal intervention or support for the neurodivergent students in the classroom.There is no rigour to provide documented written feedback on child performance till end of Grade 1 and parent perspective on educational outcomes is disregarded. The student's notebooks were sent for parent review at the end of school year, we noticed that our child had written less than 2 dozen pages in the entire school year. Their is no standardized child progress protocol and it boils down to a happy childhood environment without concrete deliverables on language arts / maths / science / social studies. The focus on outdoor learning and arts / music as integral to child development deserves an applaud. In our view the public schools are better equipped if you are looking for standardized school protocols and accountability on performance. If you are looking for a happy childhood, WSP is a great school to begin your school journey.