Burbank Unified School District, Burbank | Fees, Rankings, Address, Admission, Vacancies, Reviews & More

I have been involved with the Burbank School District as a parent for over 15 years now. We have a 7th Grader and 9th Grader plus two graduates. It has been mostly a wonderful experience. Burbank offers opportunities for Students that aren’t available elsewhere. My children have had mostly very good teachers – some you just won’t connect with, but you don;t have to like them for them to do a good job. One teacher everyone warned us about ended up being the perfect teacher for my child, other parents disliked her strictness – but with that came organization and set rules kids could learn – she offered structure where it was needed most- in second grade. It was exactly the environment my daughter needed. As with most things, it’s up to you to make the best of it, but that’s easy in a district with so many wonderful teachers and staff.

And get involved.

It’s not always easy to find the right way to get involved, especially if you work all day, but there are opportunities to help out at PTA or Booster Events in the evenings or weekends – they are always looking for people to help – they may not always know what to do with you right away (sometimes it’s harder to show someone how to do something than it is to do it yourself) but be patient, eventually you will know what you need to do and then everyone will be very grateful. . The more you are involved, the more comfortable you and your child will feel at the schools and the better the experience will be for both of you. It’s much more rewarding to be part of the team than it is to fight the system.

Washington elementary school in Burbank has problems. Laura Vinyard is the principal (5/20/24) who has shoved my grandson in the shoulder to use as an example. My grandson was sick one day, and when he came back to school, there was a paper in his desk that had the N word written on it that was never addressed to students or parents about racism. There have been numerous things happening at that school that have never been addressed. All the kids, including my grandson, have had arguments, etc, but there has been a lot of retaliation against him, and I do believe it’s because he is black. They say it’s a diverse school, but as you can see minority is 62%, and that is made up of Armenian. I do think some of the staff is small-minded and needs better training. Black students do not have the same advantage as others. I have seen this for myself. There are so many things I could say, but it could turn into a book. He did get to play in a baseball game today, meaning at the end they let him hit the ball he went to first base, and the game was over. These are grown teachers doing this. This has been a sad experience at this school. Some of the staff members, both of the Chavez, have been good, and Balboa and Lincoln are pretty good. Mr Knapik is friendly and listened, but I don’t know if he was appeasing the situation or not. So, if your child is not in the minority group and is black, think twice about the school.