This school is so buns. Everyone here acts, looks, talks, and treats others the same, meanwhile if…read moreyou're slightly alternative, you're seen as different. This school made my best friend (keeping her anonymous for safety reasons) depressed, suicidal even. Everyone is loud and annoying and whoever says that this school is inclusive is probably stuck 15 years into the past. At least I made new friends here. (P.S. im not saying what grade I am in nor if I am still in the school)

The PE teachers are all pedos and they are strict for no reason but overall had some amazing…read morememories and great teachers at this school.

Its an ok school, lot of stuff i shouldnt talk about but you can kinda figure it out already. Band…read moreis very much underfunded, choir is cool, you can either have an awesome teacher or.. meh.. idc ts pmo anyways join band

kids smoking pot in the bathrooms, drugs run rampant on this campus. If your kid is average the…read moreclasses are ridiculously dull if they are intelligent its good. It's not the easiest place to go to school. Burbank hires teachers for a lower wage than los angeles unified and you get what you get. some teachers are really good and some have mental issues but what can you do. The Burbank Unified school district is not doing well financially. and the superintendent does nothing. he acts like he cares but he doesnt follow through.

St. John Paul II STEM Academy at Bellarmine-Jefferson. If any of you have children starting high…read moreschool next year, I highly recommend looking into St. John Paul II STEM Academy in Burbank. A brand new Catholic high school devoted to STEM with amazing faculty for our children to learn from. This is a great opportunity to have your children engage and become excited with their education. This will be a WHOLE NEW LEARNING EXPERIENCE, prepping our kids for the future. We are so excited our son is now part of the founding class of St. John Paul II STEM Academy. Once he learned about it and met with the faculty, he decided this was the only school he wanted to attend. It does not get any better than that. I urge you to check it out. You will be amazed at what they have in store for the students. Truly innovative and exciting, with faculty as eager as we are to have the learning process begin. We can not wait till August!

From the owner: Putting the soul in STEM... St. John Paul II STEM Academy is a new Catholic high school, located in…read morethe heart of Burbank. Guided by a vision to provide the best of Catholic education with cutting edge technology and teaching practices, our mission is to form forward-thinking innovators, ready for the real world and committed to serving the common good. Through our immersive STEM environment, our Engineering and Digital Media Arts pathways, unique schedule and co-ed/co-institutional model, we offer a different and deeper educational experience.

I wanted to express my sincere appreciation for all the love and kindness that was showered upon my…read moreson while there at Monterey. He was able to soak up the better parts of life because of your crew - teachers and all! What a wonderful and admirable environment you've created. So, kudos to you and your VP. Unfortunately, I never had a reason to talk to some of the others because your councilors always have the brightest tone, smiles, and the kindness just seeps through the pores for they always had the answers or knew where to get 'em. Extremely helpful is the worst anyone could conjure up about your staff. So, keep on keeping on! Monterey is a road worth the travel. Most sincerely and always in your debt! PS: I know your school must, or should, get a lot of compliments but I hope you share this with your staff cause they're amazing and should be celebrated as often as always!

Had the worst experience at this school. If you wish to thrive academically, go beyond average, and…read morestrive for competitive colleges, never go here. They only care about making everyone "average" instead of supporting students who want to push themselves and pursue higher levels of learning. If your goal is to go straight to community college, it's a great choice. Otherwise, they're going to make your journey unnecessarily difficult. -- p.s. the counselors never support you

The school often lacks clear organization in sons and communication. Assignments and expectations…read moreare not always explained properly, which creates confusion and makes learning harder for students. This is something that definitely needs improvement. Never go to this school.

A wonderful public school where students truly receive a strong education and are expected to be…read morefully committed to their studies. It's great that it includes both middle and high school with a relatively small number of students, so everyone knows each other. There is no bullying, and there is a real sense of safety and responsibility. The teaching staff is excellent, and parents are actively involved in the life of the school and support its events and activities. I truly hope that Mr. Rosenthal remains the principal and that the school continues to thrive.

Wow...This school is very different than other schools. Imagine, parents, school administrators,…read moreand teachers all sharing a common goal on providing the best educational plan for the children. The kids are accepted into elite colleges and UC schools.

Our kids have been attending for 7 years now. The oldest is in the Burbank campus and the youngest…read morewill be there in a few years. While no place is perfect, we've found the school to be an amazing and beautifully cultivating educational experience for our kids. We've absolutely loved more than 95% of the teachers and while administration has changed a few times since we've been there, they've all treated us and our children with respect and warmth and have continued to push forward the founding principles and mission of the school. It's not easy to get in and we consider ourselves very lucky. The community there is fantastic and we're finding parents we absolutely adore from the other campuses now that our kids have collected in Burbank. The board is a very hard-working group of volunteers, many of them parents, some for 15+ years at the school. They put in an incredible amount of time and effort to uphold the school's mission and while that sometimes involves making tough decisions that not everybody agrees with, I feel that their hearts and intentions are in the right place. The school is very unique in the academic programs that they offer. In fact, there are only 4 or 5 others in the entire country that match it. The school offers an IB and an FB tract and the program focuses on growing kids from K through 12 towards an incredible university acceptance rates. In 2015, The Washington Post listed LILA as the nation's 12th most challenging private high school. Tuition is going up and some parents are understandably upset by it, but the school also involved a group of parents (CFOs, CPAs, etc.) for a formal budget review against a strategic plan and the budget was approved, so it wasn't approved in a vacuum. There was a 3-year projection of tuition increases but also lots of caveats to that as well as plans on how to reduce it. The school is growing and does have growing needs, but it's the same spirit and culture as when we started and if you're considering it, I highly recommend you visit the school and see for yourself. We love it there and couldn't recommend it more highly!

As far as I'm concerned, this is the best school bar none in Los Angeles. Bilingual immersion…read more(French-English, with Spanish as a required subject and other languages as electives), and top notch academics, a caring and extremely well-qualified faculty, nurturing yet no-nonsense staff who truly care about the kids in their care, and at the end of the day, incredible results. Students graduate from this school with either an IB (International Baccalaureate) or a French Bac, both very high-level diplomas that give the students 1-2 years worth of credits in university. The school's grads have an incredible 100% pass rate as well as 100% acceptance rate into top universities WORLD-wide - Oxford, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, McGill, just to name a few. This is the only school in LA where the students get to choose between the IB DIPLOMA or the FB diploma program. Don't let other schools fool you into thinking they are offering the equivalent in IB - they may offer various IB subject classes but the diploma is another thing entirely and university admissions counselors know this. The IB Organization in Geneva has strict diploma requirements on Higher and Standard level subjects covering both the Arts and the Sciences, a Theory of Knowledge class, an extended thesis essay and 150 hours of community service hours. At this school, ALL students take the IB or the French equivalent, the bac, not just a select few top students. The academics here are not for the faint-hearted! The secondary school moved last year from cramped quarters to this lovely campus in this equestrian neighborhood and the new facilities have pushed the school to a new level. All classrooms sport interactive SMART boards as well as white boards so that students can literally write on the walls! The faculty are highly qualified - either under the French Ministry of Education or the IB organization - the majority have high level degrees and/or teaching credentials. The administration is energetic, creative, efficient, and definitely have a clear vision for continuing forward. THIS is what a school should be.

This school was revolutionary when it opened. It saw its…read moreheyday in the 30's thru the 70's, but by the mid 80's had declined sharply in quality and commitment to Catholic values. My mother graduated from here in 1976, and when I had to change schools my freshman year of highschool, to Bell-Jeff I went. She thought (so mistaken) that the school was still a haven for great educators, and above-par extracurricular activities. Yeah, right. My freshman year, the only electives offered were sports, or one art class. We didnt even have a theater program (Bell-Jeff was known for its spectacularly well done musicals in the 60's and 70's) until I managed to scrape together some interest and funding my sophomore year. (Thank you Mr. Kane) This school is concerend with nothing more than making a dollar. They will admit anyone with a decent bankroll, juice the hell out of the less wealthy families, and make the money disappear into new floors for the gym and other sports related bullshit. I graduated from here in 2001 and my god, thank goodness I can write a coherent paragraph. The academic staff is a joke, many are not even qualified to be teaching the classes they are assigned. For example, a former blockbuster employee with no degree was my 11th grade ADVANCED PLACEMENT english lit. teacher. I realize that I'm totally bashing my alma mater, and I have to be honest and say that yes, there were some amazing memories, and some truly outstanding staff members, and I dont wish to minimize the impact they had on me, but they alone are not enough to make it a great school. Some still remain like Mr. James Clerihan, the vice principal. Brother Phillip, who is the guidance counselor and Senior AP English teacher and Mr. Boysen, the religion teacher. The school still holds the religious retreat called Kairos, for the senior class, and that experience alone is what made me reconsider my original two stars. But please, if you value rock solid education, save your children the heartache of college rejection later on in life and send them to Providence or St. Francis or any other Catholic school.

All four years being at this school i couldn't really relate to what Elise or Kathleen were saying…read more i believe school is what YOU make it. I love it here. You don't go to school to know whos doing what or whos going to be boyfriend and girlfriend next. mind your own business and people will mind theirs. Its quite funny that you mention Mr. Perez..he is definitely one of the sweetest teachers there. i understand we all have our opinions but i strongly feel you named the wrong teacher. If you are truly into Biology and feel that it is "biting you in the ass" now because mr. Perez wasn't tough enough on you, then you should have taken the book home and studied on your own and maybe then you would not have anyone to blame. I was doing fine in my physiology class with Mr. Perez. He's great. i understood the ins and outs of physiology. if i wasn't doing as great as i should have been doing mr. Perez would speak to me and offer help when i needed it. His door was always open. If he really wasn't doing his job i wouldn't have typed all this up..but i think its only fair that he gets the credit he deserves. He's awesome. Mr. Bergen and Mr. Boysen have been there for about 10 years so obviously they are doing their job just fine. Thy have to be the funnest teachers but when it gets down to studies they are super on top of the whole class on knowing E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G about each chapter. If they weren't there to challenge me i wouldn't be doing so great. I've never had mr. kane so i'm in no position to say anything about him. but overall i love the teachers and haha.. favoritism? NO NO NO its called respecting the teachers to get respect back. but when we have those students that think they are always right and always disrespect the teachers then obviously the teachers are going to see the students respecting them a lot better in their eyes. that's all i have to say (:

Pros: good teaching and assignments, i have a fun time mostly at school when im with ppl i know…read moreCons: lots of bullying, some teachers don't do their work, food lunch is.., SÍ SE PUEDE

My kids have been in the Burbank district since kindergarten. While my son was in 8th grade here at…read moreDolores, he got his permit revoked 5 weeks before the school year ended. Burbank has a gang running through their schools who they protect, I came to the principal because about 8 Highschool gang members came to jump my son who was an 8th grader after school. The school never protected my son, when I came to the principal to discuss this matter, he claimed he knew who the gang is, in fact his friend coaches his daughters baseball team ( coach is from Elmwood). He said I'd made it worse for my son by coming to him. He said he'd do his best to look out for him after school. A few days later the district called and stated they are revoking his permit for getting in trouble and throwing trash every where at school which was completely made up. The principal even confirmed it never happened. The district lady also stated my son is doing drugs in the bathroom. Lying !!!! I was in disbelief, she said based on history of finding kids in the bathroom they are usually doing drugs. It says in the notes that he was kissing a girl in the bathroom, which led to this whole gang coming after him cause of said girl. She did the same to another kid who's always been in the district. The mom is still pursing a case against the district. Stay away from Burbank in general, especially middle and high school.