Topeka Drive Elementary School

I loved the teachers however I felt the principal played favoritism with certain parents.

Four Stars… Well, theres always room for improvement.
Our district school of course… one of the best.
In-​campus boys and girls club
Diverse and very cultural oriented, for starter… the hall ways are named in almost all the languages of world greeting. «ALOHA»
Staff are open to opinion and specially the Principal. (open door policy)
Every students and parents are getting an email every sunday, reminders and notice for the weeks activities.
It’s a charter school and also school for the blind.
Great PTA, which are organized and has awesome support system.
the negative review… well, you cant satisfy every single parent or student.
oh yea, i love movie nights. its free!!!

I am a parent of a daughter who went to Topeka from 1^st through 5^th grade and a son who has been at the school since Kindergarten and is now in 3^rd grade. After interacting with nearly EVERY teacher and staff member over the years, I also do not understand the negative review at all.
Topeka is one of the best elementary schools in the entire district, with wonderful, caring teachers and high test scores and ratings. This year, in fact, it has been granted Charter status, which is very hard to come by!
The staff gives 200%, with teachers who stay after school until quite late to do extra-​curricular projects with their students, meet with parents and create a fun learning environment for the kids. The principal is an incredible lady, who cares about each and every student and follows up with each parent on all things concerning each family. I wish I had such wonderful people at school looking out for me when I was growing up.
There are bilingual programs, many resources for special needs and visually impaired children, a fantastic GATE program, as well as an atmosphere for strong, rigorous academics balanced with many extracurricular activities such as: KidsArt, Taekwondo, Student Council, Orchestra, Mad Science, Theater, and Robotics.
In fact, the school just recently paired up with a local music studio to give FREE musical lessons to students and form bands in a 6 week program, culminating with a showcase for each band to perform in the auditorium — and it was amazing!
The best review, however can come from my kids, who have both gotten incredible private school-​like educations from a public school. The are both thriving and love to go to school, have always loved their teachers and felt a strong connection to education, which only a great school can foster.

Topeka Elementary used to be a great school. But then the school was forced to take in a bunch of Koreans into it and take money away from our general funds so they can have their own Korean program, thanks to the Korean principal who was in charge at the time. Then another Korean princiapl came in and she gave them all this power that they thought they could run OUR school the way they wanted and even got one of our best teachers Mrs. Temple kicked out. Finally our wonderful new principal Miss Dixon came in and put them in their place, and helped us finally get rid of them forever, so we only had to put up with them for a few more months. And now again they think they can push themselves on us by forcing us toput up with their kids playing their stupid drums for graduation. They will probably wear their costumes too making it look like a Korean graduation instead of ours! That is not the tradition at our school. They messed it up by coming to begin with. Now they think they can mess up our kid’s graduation! Its bad enough they have to come with our kids to the 5^th grade field trips and graduation party. Why can’t they just go away once and for all! We need our wonderful principal to save us again. Everyone should write the LAUSD board immediately and tell them no drums for graduation! Maybe they can let them graduate on their own on a different dayso we don’t have to put up with them! Thank God they’ll be gone next year so our school can return to being the best school with the best teachers and principal ever!
— A very fed up parent