Garden Gate Elementary School

The school has deteriorated in the past 6 years. Poor administration coupled with floating population. School boundary should be redrawn and one of the apartments feeding into this school should be assigned to another school.

parents be aware of the 10/10 scores at this school. We sent our two children to GG following the good scores, and learnt that the high scores at this school are mostly a result of parents either teaching their children at home or sending them to weekend programs. There are some very dedicated teachers and some very irresponsible ones. Our younger child's teacher didn't show up to class for almost half of the year. As a result, the classroom had a different sub every day who did not follow curriculum or teach the students. The classroom was a day care with the subs. The teacher did not have a homework folder system when she does show up. As a result, we receive crumbled papers in my kindergarten son's backpack everyday, with no idea what the curriculum was. Another parent in the same class decided to teach her daughter in the evenings as she had regressed at kinder from preschool. When we suggested a folder system, the teacher's response was " I am too busy to prepare folders, maybe you can come in every morning and volunteer to do it". The PTA at this school are run by parents who are dedicated but unfortunately not vocal to protect student interests. The parent volunteers end up helping to compensate the incompetent teachers. When talking with other parent volunteers, they all expressed anger and dis-satisfaction but none is willing to speak up in fear of school/teacher retribution. Again, these are Asian parents who are concerned, want to help through volunteering but not willing to speak up. When we decided to bring up the concerns with the principle, to our surprise, the principle copied the teacher directly in her reply, indicating that she has confidence in the teacher. This was after we followed the process of raising concerns with the reacher several times with no effect and having to escalate to the principle. The principle's handling method shows weak leadership, as it seems she is not able to work effectively with her staff. We lost condidence at the school and moved to a different school district. The new school is fantastic with a very approachable principle. By the way, parents are not allowed to talk to the GG principle without email appointment first. At our new school, the principle is easily accessible and greets students every morning which we never saw at GG. Do not waste your $$ to live by GG

Not at all happy. Very poor PTA and no new volunteers are willing to work!

We moved our kid from Private School to Cupertino School after hearing so many good things about all the schools here. However our experience had been worse if not pathetic.The school infrastructure is worse. They don't have enough space of young kid's to sit and eat. Not enough staff to watch over in recess or help teachers in class. For everything the principal and management has one answer " No Money". One time, for no reason, management decided to not give auditorium access to kids mid year party and they had to perform outside auditorium with kids and parents sitting on the ground. We are now very used to hear warnings like "we would not have computer/arts/PE etc, if we dont get volunteers". Really, the school can't hire. School and PTA is always asking for more and more donations. I wonder where all the money is going. Cupertino is supposedly a rich school district. Oh I know where probably in buying Mac books for teachers who don't even know how to effectively use them.School teachers just push the work on kids and parents. Have not seen any teacher in 3 years who is motivating kids to excel. Most of the kids are from educated and affluent families who can afford to hire help or send kids to extras classes but not all. We are moving our kids from this school back to private. So much for great cupertino school. Will not recommend any one to send their kids to Garden Gate.