Valencia High School

I wish I could give this school 0 stars! It’s so easy for kids to get lost in the system here. My sons counselor has not contacted me one time this year to go over his progress and failing grades.

I go there and I love it. The only problem they have there is drugs but other than that it’s a great school. Most of the teachers are really cool and do what they can to help the students.

school sucks district sucks everything sucks
the principle has a doctorate in zoology… wtf is he in a school for
98% of the teachers are old bats that are rude, mean, hate life/​kids, cant teach jack, and just no fun
the counselors all suck and treat even us seniors like 12 year olds
all coaches are crazy; football is the worst its just highschool calm down freaks
only good teachers:
culinary arts: seifried
business/​marketing: stenzel
sign language: madden
english: moller, margrave

Considering this is the only High School I’ve attended, it’s not as though I can give it 2 stars on the grounds that others are «better.» But it’s still a fair rating considering just how much better the next 4 years of college were by comparison.
First off, the administration. Perhaps it was just a function of an excessively large student body, but one barely had any time to work with them. Beyond that they always came across as rigidly rule-​based and really complacent towards all but two things: Graduation rates, and their state standardized test API index. For anyone with aspirations above and beyond going to Community College, realizing those aspirations is much more of a lonely uphill battle than it would be if this school had its act together.
Secondly, the students. Vapid and provincial, cliquish and combative. There is a lot of talent here, and it tends to go to waste, mainly because the student body is focused on the here and now, and not on what they need to do in preparation for what will be the rest of their lives. Many of the students (and I use that term VERY loosely) are in a big hurry to grow up and dabble in all sorts of things like beer, sex, and drugs. Waiting until the onset of independent adulthood is rarely an option, perhaps because so many alums will be living with mommy and daddy well into the foreseeable future.
Finally, the teachers. I actually really enjoyed them, even if their curriculum was lacking in quality. You can expect to spend a lot of time on homework here. What’s worse, you can also expect to see and hear an awful lot of kids NOT doing it. In the Honors/​AP track, you will have tons upon tons to do. It’s great for cultivating a healthy work ethic, but what really needs to be emphasized is that high-​quality work be completed. By this I don’t mean that the grading system was too lax, only that standards couldn’t be realistically set as high as they should have been without reducing the workload… which I guess was just a sacred cow here.
Overall, if you are ready to make High School the best four years of your life, you’ll love VHS. If you are looking to make the best of your life after these four years… good luck and don’t let this place wear you down.

I suppose in the grand scale of things, high school exists as a minor footnote in comparison to what else life has to offer. What makes these four years so influential are the «firsts» — to be exact, the firsts in a long line of «one if a lifetime» events which happen all the way up til your clock stops ticking.
Obviously, I’m not talking about when you were just a fifth year pup and you met (insert then-​obsession) for the first time, but Proms, the Senior «Prank,» parties not greedily watched over by parentals, suddenly having facial hair.
Indeed, High School was fun, and the fact that it was Valencia made the memory golden. I met teachers who believed in me, encouraged me, and a principal who ignored my request to switch classes for fear of failing (which I did). There were fights, race wars, and the ever-​unforgettable drama. The students were stuck up, rich, down to earth, or part of families who made modest earnings. It sounds like every other high school, but Valencia was unique; If I hadn’t moved, I might have rolled with the gangs, my speech may have never changed from ghetto to surfer. I might have met people who could have been better or worse, but I did move and I’m better because of it.
Whenever I think back, sometimes I wonder if I would relive those memories if I had the chance for want of simpler times. I realise I could have talked about the campus’ design, or the quality of education and all that normally comes along in a review, but the best rating of a place isn’t based off what is offered, but how it has people feeling after they’ve come and gone.