Bayside S.T.E.M. Academy

Bayside STEM is a top school on many levels: 1) The faculty - dedicated, qualified, passionate teachers, 2) the leadership - John Cosmos, the new principal is fantastic and we are super fortunate to have him. Ask any parent that had him in the earlier days of Borel - they will tell you how amazing he is. 3) The classes: the #1 skill sought in an employee in Silicon Valley is "creativity". The STEM / STEAM program at Bayside is based on Stanford University's D-School DESIGN THINKING approach. This approach is applied to EVERY subject/class, whether it is social studies, or science, GATE or non-GATE, all kids are taught the design thinking process in their classes. Next, the electives: from BioTechnology, Marine Biology, Robotics/Programming, Graphic Design to Dance, the electives offer an unparalleled opportunity for the students. Unavailable anywhere else in the district. Getting back to the faculty - the professors that teach these classes are highly experienced in their field, often retired corporate high-tech employees, or marine-biologists that worked years and years in that field, now sharing their experience and passion with the students. Amazing, really! These STEM electives are offered to all students, GATE and non-GATE. The same professors often teach GATE and non-GATE. 4) the students: A highly-diversified group of students. I love the diversity my daughter is exposed to that she would not have in a private school. Ask any Bayside student how they like their school - and I am pretty sure the response you will get is I LOVE IT. 5) the Parents/PTA: astonishing and highly involved 6) the GATE program. I've attended a series of GATE-parent seminars, and there were parents from San Francisco to Sunnyvale attending. All of them were very concerned for their gifted children that there is NO support in ANY public schools, not even Palo Alto, their only option is private education, and even then, not all private schools understand giftedness. It is astonishing that we, the San-Mateo-Foster-City school district is the ONLY one on the peninsula that even HAS a GATE program! Here our children can flourish, both academically, emotionally, and socially fit in. It's a beautiful thing, really. If your child is GATE-identified, please know how extremely fortunate you are to have access to GATE education! Don't even hesitate to enroll!

excellent teachers and excellent group of students. My son has been very please with his experience at this school.

Note how many stellar reviews are from parents and students who are GATE.This school is very stratified. The main reason its rating has gone up is because of GATE. Take GATE out of this and the school is not even in its academics even if the community feel for the school has gotten better. There's quite a noticeable gap between neighborhood student achievement here and those neighborhood students in Borel or Bowditch. SMFC inserted these specialized programs to limited effect on the actual, local neighborhood. I would be more sold on this school's turnaround if there weren't separate parent meetings for separate programs (GATE/Mandarin). It's a separate but not equal school. This is my kid's home school. They are in private because they aren't GATE, they aren't Mandarin immersion. They would be given perhaps adequate education at best because they are not specialized kids, just normal. Why, if it's such a great school according to many of these reviews, is it impossible to transfer to the remaining three middle schools? Neither one of my kids had the "choice" to transfer to a school that better suited their needs because the transfer waitlists for Borel, Bowditch and Abbott are locked up tight. Perhaps SMFC should give priority transfer to Bayside neighborhood kids who want to transfer INTO the schools the GATE and Mandarin immersion student population left. They won't though because those schools are top notch across the board for their entire student population, and the specialized programs had to be created to ease the overcrowding somehow!

This is my daughters first year at Bayside and she couldn't be happier. The teachers are very involved with their students and really encourage their independance and help students take ownership of their learning. We're hoping the S.T.E.M. program can develop and carry through High School. We're looking forward to 7th and 8th grade!