Gaspar De Portola Middle School

Toxic and catty staff of teachers. Not a healthy place to work!

A great school with very nice teachers and staff would highly recommend it.

My child was in the highly gifted magnet program in Portola. There are very good teachers and there are teachers who demand respect without considering the child's condition. The school will not give my kid an IEP unless he fails all of his classes. Even though my child has shown behavior difficulties. The administration has told me , "our kids don't fail. We will not let that happen." So, instead giving support , they changed his grade. We have an on IEP now. High school did fail him. LAUSD wouldn't give IEP even when Mr kid was diagnosed level two autism. Student must to fail first. How would any kid feel about that? No kid wants to fail. This is punishments before support. Zero preventative measures. Portola, to your English teacher who punished my child do work outside while the Santa Ana wind was blowing all his papers away, get some training in compassion and understanding. The kid was autistic, you didn't need to show authority to mask your fear of not knowing. To the other English teacher who praised the honesty in my child and gave an extra day for the work, thank you. For the rest of that year, my kid made sure English homework was completed everyday. To the history teacher who made the rules clear and upheld to the same rules all year for every student, we appreciate your kindness. Often my kid told me what a relief it is to have an extra text book in class so the backpack is lighter. To the math teacher who dismissed his questions in zoom class and gave out confusing instructions during tests, please find consistency. Telling kids tests is over, so kids click the submit button. Then tell them they have 10 more minutes. Did you know how many of them were upset because they followed your instruction and failed the test? And you did nothing to mend your mistake. To the other math teacher who gave out many examples so all your students will understand, we miss you. To another math teacher who supposed to know how to teach autistic kids, you have failed mine. Just few more math examples, why did you deny that request? To the science teacher who felt disrespected, please understand that being on the spectrum means the kid thinks different from you. The answers were different from yours does not mean they were wrong, and you didn't need to argue back and forth. To the other science teacher who pulled him out from hating science to love science, you are a miracle worker. To the multimedia teacher, thank you, he loved everything in your class.

Physical exercise in this school is really poor and most kids skip classes. It could be a bad influence for other students. This school has been going down-hill and most of the good teachers have been retiring. Mostly, this school has high academics, but bad teachers are flooding the school. Kids don't behave and teachers don't care about their students anymore. Kids are not under control and have several reports of assault and weapons in this school. This school isn't as safe as it looks. While they try their hardest to improve this school, nothing is under control. This school aims for equality, but is a little bit sexist towards both females and males. Females get more time to complete assignments, also in P.E, Females get more time to finish their laps around the track. For example, Males have to finish in 10 minutes and 30 seconds to get an "A." While Females have to finish in 13 minutes to get an "A." Now, this may sound like it is a small problem, but P.E is a massive part of your grade and it is poorly made. From the parents perspective, this school seems great, but kids go through tons of issues.

My son is in Portola Highly Gifted Magnet program. There was no a day when he did not want to go to school.