Squaw Valley Academy Bay Area

didnt keep up with any of their promises, children misbehave often, make immature remarks and insulting jokes. Taking my child out of here asap. Nothing like the Squaw Valley in Tahoe, they clearly lowered their expectations

This school is a complete disapointment, With empty promises and lazy staff, not to mention disrespectful students, some dont even follow the dress code, and the Principal is bias to his students, there were some very unprofessional circumstances regarding some conflict with the children, I am beyond discusted with the prefoarmance

This school is poorly managed, financially unstable, disorganized, and academically weak. The poor management is due to the principal's leadership being vision-less, opaque, top-down, disorganized, and not looking for faculty/staff input. Quite the contrary, the principal only wants faculty/staff to rubber stamp his gut feelings, and he fires/bullies/censors those faculty/staff/students who have independent thinking. The student newspaper was regularly censored when the students questioned school policies. The principal is so paranoid of bad press that he doesn't post his own or any teacher/staff biography on the school website. There are many students with learning differences, behaviorial problems, ESL learners that the students are below average grade level, but some teachers still assign almost every student an A grade because those teachers want to be popular among the students. On the one hand, students are discouraged from taking on legitimate academic challenges; on the other hand, students are rarely punished for cheating or for plagiarism. The principal is dishonest, disorganized, and arbitrary in his own discussion and enforcement of the rules: he hires and excuses his cronies when they break rules; but he lies about and fabricates causes for firing teachers/staff who question his decisions. The school has regular money problems: teachers take out their own trash; the school cannot afford textbooks or computers for students; bills to utilities and to AP training services go unpaid for months; there are none of the following: library/gymnasium/theater/assembly room. Big changes to the academic schedule, to faculty hiring, to field trip announcements are all made at the last minute. The principal is entirely reactive and lacks the ability to plan even two weeks ahead, let alone to have a school-wide and academic vision (way too high falutin' for this principal). High faculty, staff, and student turnover.

The principal and administration at this school is dishonest, disorganized, academically weak, and financially unstable. The school has "misreported" information to private school websites about the number of AP courses, the number of faculty with graduate degrees, the sports facilities, the student SAT scores, the college admissions records of the school. Last year at graduation, the principal boasted about a number of college acceptances, but his list was made up of the acceptances from one girl who lied about her GPA to the UC schools, which the principal did not correct. The principal told one teacher her choice of an R-rated movie was terrific, but three months later he fired her for showing a different R-rated movie, solely because of its rating. Did he acknowledge the contradiction? Since it was a cover for his real reasons for firing her, he didn't bother to explain his contradiction. The owners will bully or retaliate against or exhibit bias towards any employee because they are emboldened to do dishonest, unprofessional, or illegal actions based on their at-will employment. The principal announces faculty meetings two hours before they are held, and he fails to respond to many faculty, student, parent emails. All of the administrators (who were the principal's cronies) encourage teachers to give easy A grades, and if a teacher is a realistic grader for weaker students that teacher is bullied or fired. There are many special needs students who cannot handle regular CCSS grade-level coursework, and they flock to this school to get watered down curriculum and inflated grades. The anti-intellectual principal has no idea what current academic research says, and he bullies teachers, students, staff who have independent points of view. He censored the student newspaper multiple times when it questioned school policies. The school has numerous financial problems that have led to teachers teaching for weeks without textbooks; students studying without promised computers; teachers taking out their own trash; no technical assistant for broken school technology; bills to utilities and AP testing services going unpaid for months. The school failed to obtain WASC accreditation last year, but the principal lied about the real reasons for the accreditation denial to his own teachers and staff. The principal has been charged by the Alameda District Attorney with failure to report child abuse of a former teacher, and the Livermore School District found he fraudulently presented the credentials of his favorite crony teachers to get them hired. The principal doesn't respect real academic and professional accomplishments because he finds lying about professional accomplishments so much easier than working hard for real accomplishments. There is significant teacher, staff, and student turnover due to all of these problems.

"On Friday, the district sent out another notice of violation to TVLC, this time citing “academic irregularities.” The notice cites how during the 2013-14, then-LVCP Principal Eric Dillie allegedly directed an employee to change the grade of a senior high school student who had not met graduation requirements due to failing classes. A former teacher also states that he noticed a failing grade he had given a student had been changed from an “F” to a “C-” without his knowledge, the notice states. Dillie, who now works at the private Squaw Valley Academy Bay Area, was charged last year with one misdemeanor charge of failing to report alleged child abuse when he worked at TVLC."