Santa Maria High Schools (San Diego, Bakersfield: transporting, attorney, new home)

[greatbasinguide]

Opinions of Santa Maria High Schools? Yes, I know that Santa Maria has become "Bakersfield on the Pacific" but it looks like we will relocate to the area and we have one kid left to finish high school.

My father graduated from Santa Maria High School in 1937, but the town has changed a bit.

I am curious as to opinions on the schools. Santa Maria High is 55% free and reduced lunch, which doesn't bode well for a bright college bound kid.

[Cali-girl]

Hello:

We just moved from there (SM/Orcutt).

You do not want to send your child to:

Santa Maria High School (old HS with lots of "anchor kids" - the education there is a joke. Most students are the kids of farmworkers who were raised with little to no English skills. High rate of expulsions/suspensions due to violence.)

Pioneer Valley HS (new high school, however most of their students are bused in from Guadalupe and Santa Maria gang-infested neighborhoods. PVHS has the highest rate of expulsions due to fights and violence of the 3 high schools.)

Ernest Righetti High School (On the border of Orcutt and Santa Maria on Bradley. The best of the 3 HS. The lowest rate of expulsions/suspensions. Across the street is a private Catholic School called St. Joseph's High School. If you can, that would be the one to go to because its safer.)

Best schools are in Arroyo Grande and San Luis Obispo (that are close to SM) Consider Santa Ynez/Buelton too. Stay out of Lompoc due to criminal gangs.

Sorry. The price of illegal entry is very high.

~Cali-girl

School test scores can be found on the website for the California Dept of Educ. Enter API (Academic Performance Index) in the search box there.

[BeeBall]

Originally Posted by Cali-girl

Santa Maria High School (old HS with lots of "anchor kids" - the education there is a joke. Most students are the kids of farmworkers who were raised with little to no English skills. High rate of expulsions/suspensions due to violence.)

Seconded.

Not only is the attendance there incredibly crowded, but the level of intelligence and worthyness there is despicable. Many of the low-life younger folks around town hail from that school. I expressly recommend against sending your child to attend there.

Righetti and Saint Joseph's are intensly crowded during the last fifteen minutes prior to the first bell. Early drop-offs (if you transport your child to the said school by motor vehicle) are recommended—the interestections there (Foster and Bradley Rd) are not ideal for the rapid ingress and egress of students.

Edit: To add to the congestion and fustration the schools are right across the intersection from each other, compounding in the traffic issue. Scores of nervous teenagers awaiting passage across the street (Bradley's speed limit is 45mph) could entice some precarious situations.
Edit: Upper Orcutt area (right near the schools mentioned) are fair neighborhoods.

[greatbasinguide]

Thanks for the input, Santa Maria high is out, as is PV. Righetti and St. Joe, are possibilities. We will live on a family ranch out of town, and have no real problem transporting to Arroyo Grande, using a family ranch address in Arroyo.

There is a proposed charter school, Mark Twain Academy, we are looking at it.

You can't blame Santa Maria's problems on illegal immigration. You can blame it on America's desire for inexpensive vegetables. One can't even whine about that, the land was Mexico before it was the United States,, kinda like the Normans whining about all the Anglo Saxons.

[Cali-girl]

Originally Posted by greatbasinguide

Thanks for the input, Santa Maria high is out, as is PV. Righetti and St. Joe, are possibilities. We will live on a family ranch out of town, and have no real problem transporting to Arroyo Grande, using a family ranch address in Arroyo.

There is a proposed charter school, Mark Twain Academy, we are looking at it.

You can't blame Santa Maria's problems on illegal immigration. You can blame it on America's desire for inexpensive vegetables. One can't even whine about that, the land was Mexico before it was the United States,, kinda like the Normans whining about all the Anglo Saxons.

Hello!

Wise, very wise, imo to take your child to AGHS. Not sure about the charter school. (We used to live off Foster Rd. and what the other poster mentioned about traffic is so true.) If you drive to AG, try to get on the 101 before 7 a.m. as traffic is fast & busy all the way to SLO after 7 a.m.

Polite rebuttal: Before the arrival of the Spanish, this area was Chumash territory, not Mexican. The Chumash have a casino on tribal lands in Santa Ynez. If you go to that area (near Lake Cachuma, which is Santa Barbara's water supply) you will see members of the Chumash tribe. They do not look Mexican (they have different features like wide facial bone structure and different skin color). Mexicans are the descendants of the Aztecs with some inbreeding by the Spanish. Azteca lands ended at what now is roughly the US -Mexican border today. Chumash tribal land extended from Northern SB County to San Diego County. The Spanish estimated that the tribe numbered 100,000+ citizens. (Education thanks to UC Santa Barbara; History of California and the West.) I have spoken to a member of the Chumash tribe about this subject and I can promise you that the Chumash are against Mexican claims to Chumash lands.

~Cali-girl

[greatbasinguide]

My daughter wants to go to AGHS, not sure why, except that was my High School. The Charter school is part of Bill Gates foundation, one of my least favorite persons, but perhaps they will do a good job.

The Spanish estimate was well off the number. California Indian populations were typically less than 3 persons per square mile. The Chumash did a curious thing. After the Spanish arrived the Chumash thought it was the end of the world and stopped reproducing, within a generation the tribe was extinct, makes me wonder where the current crop of Chumash came from.

The Chumash were also the only Amerindians who built plank canoes and could navigate outside of visible land.

I was on the Cuesta College Concert committee years ago when Neil Young showed up to do a fundraiser for the Chumash, he brought along some "Chumash". Guess some Chumash hill billies stayed up in the canyons and did not get the message to stop boffing.

I find it humorous that our "spiritual" natives provide America with gambling, smoke shops, open pit coal mines, hazardous waste dumps.
Aztecs lived in the Valley of Mexico and comprised a small minority of the millions of Mexican indians.

Basically, your note reaffirmed that the Norte Americano's have no more claim to the land than the Mexicans

Culture on the land change over time. The British today are not the same people as a thousand years ago, the Spanish today are not the Spanish of 1500 years ago etc. Interesting spot of research for you, research the number of Arabic words in Spanish and why.

[eekwine]

ag high has a great rep, one of my family members graduated from there & went to an ivy league school

[greatbasinguide]

It looks now, like it will be Saint Joes, the charter school is having facilities problem.
Eekwine, Ed Lowry graduated in 1969 from AG, went to Yale and Yale Law, he has been an attorney for the state in some capacity.

I took a class at Harvard.. a class...

[eekwine]

i should have been more specific with the graduation date which was late 1990's

>Eekwine, Ed Lowry graduated in 1969 from AG, went to Yale and Yale Law, he has been an attorney for the state in some capacity.<

[greatbasinguide]

No Problemo, I understand one of my younger brother's classmates was Principal there for a number of years.. Mike Sears, I think.

AGHS does a pretty good job. I think the commute from our new home in Betteravia will be a bit too much, so Saint Joseph's looks like it.