St. Joseph’s Elementary School

My kids used to attend St. Joseph Elementary. After bringing them out to public schools and starting to realize there school is NOT academic in all subjects. They are academic behind, especially math. I always thought my kids are academic advance not until I had a chance to compare them with those public school kids. All those years I paid for them to go to this school was a wasted of money and time. Now that my kids are growing up. They told me they didn’t learn much in this school. The school spent so much time teaching them the Bible. Not that much on academic.

Not a good experience.

I attended SJES myself, as well as SJND – from Kindergarten to senior year in high school – and could not have asked for a better experience. Yeah, religion was a big part of the curriculum, but it was very well-​incorporated. I can see how a non-​Catholic (or non-​Christian) might feel uneasy about that, but the lessons that were given were usually more about morality, interpersonal relationships, and social justice. There was very little «bible-​banging» or «Jesus talk.» I find SJES to offer a far higher quality of education than any other elementary school in the area, public or private, and I can safely say that I was far more prepared for the challenges of high school than most of the others in my freshman class at SJND. There is a very close-​knit community there, and any parent or child would be very lucky to attend. :)

I know it’s not cool to admit that I have procreated, but with all those kids out there– I can’t be the only one. Choosing a good school is one of the biggest decisions in a family. We toured a bunch of schools and talked to many families in the area. Our local public school was not an option, and the district is so over crowded there was little to no chance of getting him into another public school in Alameda. Sooooo this is my son’s second year at St. Joes. His teachers have been kind and fair. We love the time given to electives like Spanish, art, computer science, etc. starting in kindergarten. The families are very involved, with so many stay at home moms there are lots of volunteers. Overall the families form a tight knit community even though the working Moms (like myself) tend to be left out sometimes. Every class has a full time aide, many of whom are more qualified than the regular teachers at the local public schools. The diversity of the students in my son’s class is great. The facilities are nice, and always being updated. The community and cultural events like ballet folkloric, El ranco, and family bbq’s are great ways to keep us all connected.
So why not give it the full five stars? They do go very far towards pushing Catholicism on the students from a very young age, and sometimes I worry that too much of the academic time is spent on the very one sided religion classes and ceremonies. I wish they would cover basic topics like morality, love and trust with the younger kids and teach the basics of all the major religions to the older students, so that they can make an informed choice about their own religions. And secondly be aware that there are a lot of hidden costs. Take the tuition and add about 15% for the true cost. There are a number of fees and they constantly fund raisers going on, it would be better to raise the tuition instead so that families know what they are truly committing to. However, speaking with families in San Francisco at private schools that cost double to triple the amount in tuition, I don’t feel that we are missing anything in quality by comparison.