Mount Carmel School

At first glance, Thacher presents itself as an amazing school—an idyllic campus, a tight-knit community, and a mission grounded in values like Honor, Fairness, Kindness, and Truth. It’s easy to believe in the story they tell. But once you look closer, that image begins to fall apart. Those values are often nothing more than words on a banner. Students are held to a strict code of conduct and expected to uphold the highest moral standards, while the administration routinely fails to lead by example. The hypocrisy is impossible to ignore.Since the release of the MTO report, instead of taking responsibility and committing to meaningful change, the school’s leadership has become increasingly focused on controlling the narrative. The administration is far more concerned with optics, reputation, and damage control than with building a safe, transparent, and supportive environment for students. Disciplinary decisions are not only harsh, but inconsistent and opaque—leaving students confused, demoralized, and often unfairly punished for minor or subjective infractions.The head of school, in particular, has proven to be a weak and ineffective leader. Lacking courage, vision, and moral clarity, they have failed to take a stand when it mattered most. Rather than protect students or stand up to entrenched power structures, they have chosen the path of least resistance—silence, inaction, and superficial gestures. Thacher needs a leader with strength, integrity, and the backbone to make hard, necessary changes. That’s not what the current leadership offers.The truth is, Thacher feels more like an institution obsessed with control and appearances than one grounded in compassion or justice. The values it claims to embody have become performative, and the cost of that is being paid by the students.Teenagers deserve a school where leadership practices what it preaches, where care is real, and where safety and fairness are more than buzzwords. Until those in charge find the courage to live up to their own mission, Thacher will remain a deeply unsafe and disheartening place for the very people it claims to nurture.

I hope this review will force the Board of Trustees to seriously question the school's current leadership. It needs to change; the sooner, the better. Until then, spare yourself and your child the endless frustration and misery of trying to communicate with people who simply do not respond. It's unfathomable to think about spending this kind of money only to be ghosted by a school's top administrators. Yet, since enrolling in early May, that is what has happened to our family.As a local Ojai resident, the many scathing reviews in recent years puzzled me having heard rave reviews from local friends and parents when our family first moved here in 2016. Besant seemed to have so many positive aspects, and my child was drawn to these strengths. We applied and were accepted, hoping the scathing reviews were wrong. The reviews were not wrong. We were. In choosing Besant Hill. Since I enrolled my child in early May, I have been trying for three months to have one simple 30-minute conversation with the Director of Academics about course selection. I called. I emailed. I reached out to other administrators for help. When, and if, I would receive a response, it would lack any substance often offering to set up a time to talk, only to be ghosted upon any attempt to follow up. This deeply unprofessional administration showed our family in these three months since enrolling that they cannot competently do their jobs so there's no way that I can send my child there in good conscience. We waited beyond a reasonable amount of time to hear back from them with answers to our basic questions. I have withdrawn my child from Besant Hill and enrolled them somewhere else. I received more answers to questions in four days of applying to my child's new school than I've gotten in three months from Besant Hill since paying tuition. I am confident that the new school community we just joined is thriving and the administrators and faculty there will be able to meet my child's needs. This is what private school families are seeking and deserve.