Nokomis Elementary School

I believe this is the best school in the district. Private, charter or otherwise.

I was a student in Oak Manor, and yes I was bullied but then the teachers stood up for me and they treated me like their daughter. Now I am an 8th grader, and I still look back to the school and remember the memories with amazing teachers who helped me a lot.

Now that my child is at a high performing school I can really see the difference. Yokayo teachers have so many discipline issues with children in their classes they can't teach as well as I'm sure they would like. The main thing my child mentions now is how nice all the other children are at the new school and how there aren't any bullies. My child loves going to school now and is doing well academically. Yokayo is in Ukiah which has a huge drug and homeless problem, so the schools aren't going to be great. The teachers are good, but just too many discipline problems with too many children. It takes up a lot of their valuable teaching time. I'm glad my child is now at a school where parents really parent, so the children are behaved and teachers can really teach. Yokayo always felt like it was on survival mode. Tough.

Kindergarten Teacher Cecilia was one of the worst teachers my daughter ever had. My daughter screamed and cried going to her class for months and she never had this problem with her prior daycare or prior preschool teachers. She didn't learn ANY Spanish in this class. The teacher failed to invite us (her parents) to the school Christmas play that my daughter was in, despite seeing me daily at drop off and pick up so my daughter was ALONE on the day of the play. The teacher gossiped to other teachers about my daughter (I heard this directly from another teacher). We HIRED A SPANISH TUTOR to teach my daughter Spanish as my daughter did not learn Spanish in Cecilia's class. I withdrew my daughter from this school at the end of the academic year and put her in private school due to this woman. My daughter flourished in the Catholic school where she felt loved and cared for, despite having trauma from her experience at Grace Hudson. A loving teacher at the Catholic school worked very hard with my daughter for months to undo the trauma my daughter experienced. The principal at this school was well aware of the situation but failed to do anything about this teacher. I received an apology from a veteran teacher at Grace Hudson (who has since retired) who said she was sorry for how my daughter was treated. When another teacher has to apologize for you, that speaks volumes.

As an Ex student I find that the morals and core academics instilled by this school far outweigh any negatives, I am not a Seventh Day Adventist, however I found it an enjoyable experience to disagree with, and debate with my SDA friends and teachers. It builds character and ideological strength to be comfortable with your ideas and who you are. There are some negatives, for example this school will never have as many resources as a public school, but again UJA teaches core academics on a much superior level.