South Bay Junior Academy, Torrance | Fees, Rankings, Address, Admission, Vacancies, Reviews & More

It’s hard to believe that a gem of a school could go down so quickly. When my two daughters started at SBCS we loved the school. The teachers were amazing, the principal had an open door policy and the Christian values were a priority.  However,  when my oldest daughter moved into middle school the quality of education stopped. I thought it may have been due to COVID but many families were experiencing the same issues.   Issues that parents had addressed to teachers and leadership prior to covid and nothing was resolved or improved. When expressing our issues the excuse given has been “we can’t afford to hire the teachers needed”. These are serious issues. Not having enough teachers and the teachers we do have, don’t have the credentials to teach the subjects they’re in charge of. Middle school curriculum and standard educational practices such as PE, Algebra, Etc are not provided at SBCS. (Again the excuse is we don’t have the funds to hire the teachers needed)
In this upcoming school year of 2022-2023 the school will need to replace 4 teachers that are leaving this year, 2 teachers that were never replaced from 2020 and 1 principal. The board of directors and the schools governing conference have made it clear, In their words, “The system works” and parents do not have a voice.
This is not the first time.   This happened in 2018.   Parents were promised another middle school teacher, upgraded curriculum and updated grading systems. However those promises have slowly been forgotten. No changes were made. This school could be great once again but it will take the board of directors and the schools governing conference to get out of the way to let the principal do what they were hired to do. We the parents need to have a partnership with leadership to receive answers and transparency. My family, along with many others will not be returning to SBCS next year 2022-2023.

This school is a huge red flag!! My child went here from Elementary to middle school. There wasn’t no signs of the Inexcusable behavior The staff had towards me and other parents, until middle school last past few years. My child didn’t get the correct curriculum is red flag number one. The middle school teachers is no where near capable of teaching what our children should be learning for their grade level. Your kids will be behind , due to lack of teaching an preparation for test etc… Communication with parents letting them know weak areas will also be unknown until it to late to fix. The only communication the teachers where having with the students an i have prof that some of the convos where inappropriate and not school related. If you knew what i know you would get sick to your stomachs!!! That school needs new teachers and better supervision! Red flag number two was the school not following up an telling us parents of inappropriate conversations the teachers had with students when asked. During the school year , the lack of adult supervision was questioned along with the lack of curriculum that wasn’t really getting taught , i had teachers saying one thing and doing another basically lying and failing kids leaving them Academically behind for high school because of the lies they where telling us . This school took my trust an my money an more importantly it took a piece of my kids life and education that we can never get back. Please email me an i can tell you more of all the shady things going on at the school ! please help me share the word and don’t send your kid here Trust me! They try to manipulate your kid against you, so they can get away with having private inappropriate conversations with your kids! I want this school shut down like yesterday!! Hopefully this review will help others understand how this school operates.

During the two years I was there, I didn’t have a good experience. The school property is great, and so are specific staff members, but the rest have given me a reason to never look back, and be relieved to be away from this school. The first year I was there I did not felt welcomed, due to racial comments and jokes of poverty upon were I grew up. I was tormented by an older student the entire school year. This gave me a hatred to be in the school, thus I projected my actions and feelings very negative. Until eighth grade, I made a friend, then I felt a little more safer, even though, we were mostly the target, of being left out of things, or as one student said,” We forgot that you even were here”. Even in the simplest things, we were usually trying to be involved, but never felt like we could. Overall, I am grateful that this living hell is over, to the point of passing by that school makes my stomach sick. Mom’s please watch out, the school may act friendly, but you have to dig deeper into everything that happens to your child. Even if it bothers them. God bless! –
-Sincerely, A.F.