Museum

My experience at the school was very good. It is a small school, and I had always gone to very large schools before hand and the school just made me feel very welcomed and helped me catch up on a lot of work.

My child has a severe intellectual and physical disability and the efforts the school has made to include her and make us feel cared for has been wonderful. We had been 2 years at Del Mar Union School District and it was the most horrific experience of abuse and intimidation. The Museum School did not have much experience with the level of need my child has but they were very honest about it and open to learn and grow alongside her. Last year we had a new director Sandy and she did not do a good job. But we have a new director now Norma Sandoval and she seems to be a great leader and will keep improving the school.

Wonderful school, teachers, staff, and specialty education.

My child only went to the Museum school from the fall of 2021 to winter break. Even with the short time at the school I feel I need to write a review. The main issue with the school is how the director handled a bullying issue with my child. There are other limitations of the school; lack of academic rigor and not enough psychical play however I will not focus on those issues.My child is gender non confirming. My child doesn’t want to call attention to this, my child just wants to be a kid. Other children at the school picked on my child in the bathroom . My child told me and I emailed the school. I kept my child home while this was being addressed. The director emailed me back to inform me my child would have unexcused absence and my child should be at school. I was upset with the director pressuring me to bring my child to a school without a resolution or a plan to deal with the problem. In hindsight that should have been a red flag. The director “handled” the bullying issue in the bathroom and I thought it was taken care of and would not happen again. However, my child had 2 more bad experiences after that. This time the problem involved staff at the school.In both incidents the staff member told my child they did not belong in the bathroom. My child was devastated, my child said teachers “should” know better. In my option: the director should have notified all staff about my child after the bulling incident. However that did not happen So two additional, unnecessary incidents happened with staff. First, teacher called out my child for the “wrong” bathroom where everyone could hear and the teacher made a spectacle out of my child in front of all my child's peers. The director once again reassured me it was handle and all staff was notice. However, not all staff was notified. A week or so after the first teacher made a spectacle out of my child a different staff member did it again.In my opinion the director handled her staff poorly, allowing the same thing to happen three times. Also, neither of the staff members approached my family or my child about the transgression. I understand this issue will not affect most families choice for this school but for the families like mine please note this was an awful experience for my child and I don’t want this to happen to another child.

I love Museum School. It's a small, tightly-knit school community with incredible teachers and families. Mr. Phil is a brilliant educator and knows how to direct his staff to effectively educate the students. I love that it is a K-8 school. It benefits the younger kids to have the older kids around, and the older kids stay grounded with the younger grades present. It's a progressive, project-based school that focuses on social-emotional growth, yet still has very high academic ratings which is a hard mix to find in San Diego. I love Museum school. It's perfect for our family, and I feel very lucky my child got into this school.