Current families at MacFarland: How’s it going?

[Anonymous]

Know this is not a popular school on these boards but would love to hear from parents that send their kids there what the pros and cons are and how they’re handling the dual tracks (not coming from a bilingual feeder).

[Anonymous]

We live close by and are sending our second child now. (First went all the way through and is now in high school.) The dual language aspect is a couple of classes. Those classes are great, but many students are not in them and everyone is still social together. It's not like two separate schools. The main separation is really by grade - the grade bands stick together and separated from each other pretty strongly. The school has a strong community and the principal in my opinion really pours his heart into the school. Our older kid really liked the math teachers and social studies classes and really only had one teacher they couldn't stand (she was gone the next year).

I also think that the music teacher is really ambitious and it will turn out well if they can keep the progress going.

One thing I wasn't so hyped about was sports - it seemed pretty thin outside of a few core things (soccer and basketball).

There are a ton of clubs now, our only issue is now trying to interest our child in DOING THEM. Everything from Debate to ... crochet or something, I think.

The weirdest thing to me in the gap between the first kid going to high school and our younger coming is the demographic change. I don't know about for you but it is a notable change to me to go from 2-3 white kids in a grade to like 20 in a grade in a few years.