El Camino High School

I am totally shocked at the lack of supervision outside the classroom. There are fights on a daily basis, vaping everywhere, cell phones used in classes and drugs openly being sold. The security is a joke. If you don’t have a serious student wanting to keep focused good luck getting your child motivated.

Outstanding teachers, staff and student body. Great school!

Schools are often all about what you put into it. If you rarely pay attention to anything school related until it's time to go to a football game, you're not going to get that much out of it.On the other hand, if you go to Back To School Night, meet your kids' teachers, shake hands with the Principal, introduce yourself to your kids' counselor, etc, etc you can get a lot more out of it.At this school the new Principal is certainly making every effort to connect with parents. He even has Coffee Talks both in the morning and the evening, so parents with differing schedules can go.Everyone has a million things to do, for sure, but if you don't visit the school every chance you get, go to Coffee Talks, participate in your PTO or School Site Council, or attend the District's Parent Advisory Committee, you're certainly missing out on a lot of opportunities to make the best possible experience for your kids...!

Here's hoping that the new school year of 2014-15 will be better than the previous years. Under new leadership; Principal Alex Bennett. He does not seem to be tarnished by the "good old boy's network" that has plagued the OUSD district. Only time will tell. Unfortunately, our system is broken and unless some major changes are made in the public education system, we will continue to produce students who are not prepared for college. As long as we continue to accept that mediocrity is acceptable.......things will never get better!!!!! It's time to get rid of tenure and start holding teachers accountable. It's time to ditch the unions and start holding classified employees accountable. It's time identify the GREAT teachers and GREAT employees and mimic them. It's time to set our standards higher and hold people accountable. Once these sort of changes are made...then and only then will we start to see improvement.