Oak Valley Middle School

"It's a average middle school. They give you a lot of homework and they will lower your grade if you are absent. Physical Education has terrible grading requirements like running the mile in less than 7-8 minutes and do 30 push-ups. I think it should be based on your effort and how hard you try , not how fast you can run. The teachers are amazing in this school. They are very nice and will help you in your difficulties. The Lunch there is kind of Meh considering your eating the same thing every day almost. One thing I hate about this school is the schedule is very off for people who have P.E last so they need to suffer in the sometimes hot weather. This School doesn't give a lot of holidays but it's grateful to see that the teacher don't give homework during the holidays . Shout out to Mrs Smagac and Mr Lemaster and all the great teachers who are good at teaching in this school. 6.5/10 only because of how nice the teachers are."

"Fantastic school. Principal Currigan is outstanding. He is professional, approachable, supportive, and attentive to both parents and students. Excellent communication and support from Teachers, who sincerely care about their students. Online access to homework, grades, assignments, academic support materials, and Teachers is wonderful. Last year was my daughter's first experience in public school. My worries about her being just another fish drowning in the ocean were quickly dissipated. Her Teachers took time to listen to her, answer her questions, and make themselves available for her. I feel that Teachers truly care about their students, and do have their best interest at heart. I am deeply grateful for OVMS Teachers and Principal Currigan."

"Overall, it was a pretty good school, but I felt that some of the ways the school was run was not up to par. For example, one teacher (that I will not name) was fired for no given reason, and when 100+ students petitioned for him to not be fired, it was completely ignored by the principal."

"I think that the school is okay but what I really do not like is that they seperate everyone from their best friends and everyone they want to hang out with into different lunches for no apparent reason. I really think they should just have one lunch where everyone can be to together and have fun instead of being seperated. You know the Oak Valley logo, "Students are at the heart of Oak Valley and meeting their needs is our first priority." Well they are not meeting my priorities. I waled into the office and asked them I was wondering if I could change my lunch to lunch B, they started laughing which shows a sign that they really don't care and they are not interested in helping you. They didn't help me all they told me was that it was not possible even though it is. This is not help and it shows they were not meeting what i wanted and were really disrespectful. I'm not going to be happy this year because I'm not going to have anyone to hang out with on the first day of 7th grade."

"How should I start.... Okay. First off, I gave this school 3/5 stars because it wasn't a bad school. It just wasn't the best, hence the reason I didn't give it 5/5 stars. I'm going to start with the pros of attending this school. OVMS runs on a block schedule, which means you only have 4 classes a day. So on one day, you would have set #1 of classes, and then the next day, you would have set #2 of classes. This leaves you with less homework stress, since it'll be due every two days. Another thing about OVMS that's pretty rad is how nice (in terms of appearance) it is. It's a rather new school, and it's rather clean looking, compared to other schools in the area, although the design does sort of remind people of a prison at first XD. Now, for what you parents are concerned about...the quality of the teaching. The classes, in general, are not too hard. Some topics may be a bit confusing at first, but the teachers are usually very helpful. I had one of the most notorious math teachers (basically the teacher was known for pushing kids to the limit). The class was pretty difficult, but the teacher was glad to offer any help during lunch. I would sometimes stop by the classroom during lunch and work on math with a few of my buddies. The teachers at OVMS are (mostly) exceptional teachers, and you should not worry about your child not learning stuff because of bad teachers. Also, if your child feels as if the classes are too easy, they can always take the GATE test and if they pass that, they'll be admitted into more advanced classes. Also, the principal is really friendly, a lot of my smart friends who took algebra 3-4 in 8th grade developed a good relationship with him. Now, moving on to the cons...DUN DUN DUN!!! The block schedules also have their downsides. The classes become a bit too long for some kids to focus well. Also, Del Norte High School DOES NOT RUN BY BLOCK PERIODS which means that your child will have to adjust from getting two days to do homework, to one day. Another thing that bugged me, quite frankly, was the horrible music. You don't understand how bad the system is. (now you may be wondering why this concerns me so much...I'll get to that soon...bear with me!) Basically, the "cool kids" run the music because they're in ASB (which students with "real" electives like art, Spanish, and band cannot join). The policy (theoretically) works this way- you can request a song, and then if it doesn't have anything inappropriate in it, supposedly it should go through the system. However, since ASB controls the music, they only played the music they liked. Also, some of the songs had hidden meanings about sex and other inappropriate stuff for a school to be playing, which is ironic, given that the system should theoretically, not allow those songs to be played. I wouldn't be so angered by this if our song suggestions ACTUALLY were taken into consideration. Sure, this seems like a small deal, but it reflects on how badly put together the school system can be at certain times. Once again, the kids that aren't popular (the majority) don't have a voice, and the minority, AKA the popular crowd, basically RUNS the school. This is basically the reason I gave this school 3/5 stars. Overall, this school is above average, especially educationally wise, but the typical middle school social structure is very real, and existent... Source: Me (graduated OVMS in 2015)"