Posted by Just wondering, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Mar 9, 2012 at 9:26 am

If this school is so great, then why don't they have waiting lists that are long?

There are charter schools that are so popular (like the prep school in Redwood City) that they have to accept students through a lottery system due to lack of space for all who want to enroll.

Why are you advertising the Sunol school? Do they need to get more students? Why is such a great school in need of more students?

Posted by Jack, a resident of the Downtown neighborhood, on Mar 10, 2012 at 11:06 pm

I've always heard great things about Sunol Glen... And the answer to your question just might be that it's in Sunol...

Posted by mary, a resident of the Charter Oaks neighborhood, on Mar 11, 2012 at 10:27 am

Sorry, but many sunol kids transfer into pleasanton schools to avoid this one. Check the API scores.

Posted by Just wondering, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Mar 11, 2012 at 11:51 am

I checked the scored on greatschools.net, they are not bad.

I am guessing that the reason for the low enrollment is that it only has 250 students (according to greatschools.net), and it is a k-8 school. I know someone whose kid went to a similar school (but private) and then in high school had a very hard time adjusting because this kid was not used to the bigger and more independent school environment.

I am not sure if a school with only 250 students that goes from k to 8th grade can offer a good deal for middle schoolers. Maybe the little ones in k-3 do well but beyond that, I am not sure. In a smaller school, what typically happens is that middle school is like elementary school, only labeled 6, 7 or 8 grade (ie, students do not go to different classes for Math, Science, etc, but instead stay together for their different clases, and they have one main teacher). I wonder if Sunol is this way too?

Our middle schools in PUSD have different teachers for the various subjects, so kids move to different rooms (and different sets of students) for each class (Math, etc). They also offer different electives because they have enough students to fill every class for the various electives. A small school cannot offer such variety of electives because with the small pool of students, it would be financially impossible.

Well, there is a reason someone is trying to promote the school. Usually good charter schools do not need such advertsing and if anything, they have really long waiting lists and students have to be turned away due to too many applicants.

So the fact that a Sunol's grandparent finds the need to advertise the school just makes me wonder why. I was hoping to get the answer from the person who started this forum, but I think I can guess why after reading about it.