Maria Carrillo High School

Great advanced classes, oka teachers. Beware this school has a HEAVY homework load. Often skipped fun events to do loads of AP class homework.

friendly campus,high academic ,responsible teachers! my son love his school. he made friends here.

My 3 oldest children all graduated from Maria Carrillo and are now in college; one of those children has some learning difficulties. All 3 say that they felt they were extremely well prepared for college classes and have done very well. My youngest is currently at Carrillo, and is having very little trouble keeping up with his AP and honors classes; in fact, he says that his one academic class this year is boring because it moves too slowly. This is an outstanding high school for kids who want to be extremely well prepared for college - too many of my children's friends who went to other high schools struggled in college or dropped back to the local JC because they could not handle 4 year university work. All 4 of my children were and are involved in extracurricular activities: sports, clubs, theater, music, etc. There is a wide variety to choose from at Carrillo, and the coaches and faculty advisors are supportive, encouraging, and passionate about what they do. Carrillo is not perfect: I do not like the strong emphasis on English literature to the detriment of teaching proper writing, grammar, etc, and I am not happy that some teachers force their methods of studying and note taking on students when I believe each student needs to develop (and use) a method that works best for them. I would like there to be a greater variety of elective classes and some computer science classes. I will also say that all 4 of my children attended a small, rigorous private school prior to going into Carrillo in 9th grade, and I believe this school prepared my children extremely well for the work at Carrillo. It may behoove the local jr high schools to beef up their curriculum a bit rather than ask Carrillo to lower its standards so that students are better prepared for the college prep classes in high school. Overall, I am extremely happy with Carrillo High School and am very glad I did not send my children elsewhere.

Several years leading up to my child’s freshman year at Maria Carrillo, we were warned and discouraged from attending. For many reasons but mainly because of the academic overload the teachers and school puts on the students.Despite the warnings my child decided to go.My child has gone from a happy, spirited, passionate about learning student to an anxious, sleep deprived, and I hate school student. They have school Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 3:00 pm, practice or extracurricular activities, homework for up to 5-6 hours a night, and then homework on the weekends. Even as adults we understand the importance of work-life balance for our mental and physical well beings. Why do we expect our children to endure such stress and anxiety?We were once told the school has created a culture of cheaters and I can see why. With the amount of homework they have, students have to rely on each other for answers in order to get the work completed. In addition to the ridiculous amounts of homework, some of the teachers lack the motivation to properly teach students but expect them to perform well on the tests.I think the administration and staff could benefit from reading Beyond Measure: Rescuing an Overscheduled, Overtested, Underestimated Generation and have a different approach in the years to come.High school is suppose to prepare adolescents for their careers and for college. It’s not meant to destroy our children’s well being, self-esteem, and health.