Capuchino High School

Capuchino is a great school! The school offers an IB program, AVID, clubs, sports, music, and theater. The students have many opportunities and work out of beautiful campus. My daughter recently graduated and my son currently attends.My daughter now attends a UC and my son has goals to get there. High school is what you make of it. Capuchino provides the environment and opportunities. From my experience Capuchino produces well rounded students that are not afraid to be themselves.

My daughter has just completed her freshman year here and she loves it. I won't say we couldn't be happier, since there's always room from improvement, but we've been very happy so far. Our daughter is a straight A student and in the GATE program, and there are plenty of opportunities for more academic students.Her favorite subject is music, and she's had a blast this year. The teacher is new for 2016-17 and is a talented and inspirational leader who has revived a dying course.Capuchino is an IB school, and the IB is a very academically rigorous program that is accepted by most colleges as equivalent or better than AP. This brings me to a complaint I have about sites like this one and the US News Best High Schools list. They base their "college-readiness" scores only on AP courses, and Cap has only one AP course. However, most students do at least one IB course, and this site shows that 57% of Cap students "... meet UC/CSU entrance requirements", which is second only to Mills in the SMUHSD high schools. It doesn't mean that Cap is the "second best" high school but it's unfairly impacted by these methods. This reinforces a local perception that it is a "bad" school. It's not.Overall, we've had a very positive experience.What could be done better? I think science and math is very good for the higher achieving students, but seems to be lacking for the non-academic students. Test scores are comparatively low, but I don't have any concerns about our own daughter.There should be additional IB course, specifically Music and Physics.The school in the area of the district with the highest concentration of low-income families, and this is reflected in the difficulties the school boosters have in raising additional funds. It gets the same amount of funding as the other high schools, but /they/ can raise money in a heart beat - for instance, the science department needs $8000 for new equipment, which is /not/ being funded by the district, but is unable to raise that much.There is a local attitude that Cap is a "bad" school, based on some outdated perceptions. However, tts reputation is higher outside the district than within it. Perhaps this is unfair, but the administration sometimes gives the impression it makes decisions that are designed only to make their jobs easier. Some decisions have been reversed only after complaints from parents.

Great school, campus is beautiful, teachers are young and enthusiastic including the principal, awesome step to college program (AVID), ib baccalaureate courses, readily available tutoring, friendly, open, accepting atmosphere,good ethnic mix, absolutely love it, very happy to have my kid here

Some of the teachers are really devoted, but others are very critical and hostile. There is a definitely a lack of cohesiveness and school spirit among both the staff and students as well. It is obvious as well that lower academic and behavior standards are accepted at Capuchino than the other schools in the district. In the end, most of Capuchino's problems (and negative reputation) can be attributed to the poor quality of leadership in the administration.