<p>Long time CC user here coming back as a parent! I used to use CC when I was back in h.s. over a decade ago and slowly stopped as I got busier with college, etc. Unfortunately I can’t access my old account which probably had ~5k posts (linked to an email that is no longer valid) so I’ve created a new one.</p>
<p>A bit of background, I am now 29 and have recently relocated to the bay area (peninsula). I now have a 4 year old and my wife and I are starting to look for elementary schools. </p>
<p>While we live in a great school district, arguably one of the better ones in the country, we both grew up attending catholic schools and are looking to give our son a similar experience as we highly value the religious component, discipline and values that these schools provide.</p>
<p>We are ideally looking for pk-8 catholic schools that have strong STEM curriculums and great placement into the top catholic h.s. (e.g. Bellarmine).</p>
<p>At the moment the top ones we’ve identified are all in Menlo/Atherton area (close to home) - Sacred Heart, Nativity School and St. Raymond. </p>
<p>While a long shot, I wanted to see if any Bay Area parent is familiar with these schools and could provide a perspective on your experience and thoughts on these schools. Additionally if there are other schools you suggest we look at (located between San Mateo and sunnyvale) would love to hear from you.</p>
<p>Unfortunately I can’t help you with Catholic grade schools on the Peninsula as my experience has been with publics. If your target is Bellarmine, have you talked to them to find out what their top feeder schools are? It’s a pretty good commute from Menlo to Bellarmine although it can be done; a friend’s son took CalTrain there from Belmont for 4 years.</p>
<p>In my area Saint Francis is the Catholic high school that local kids aspire to. Saint Francis gives preference to Catholic students but not necessarily to students who come from a Catholic middle school. It’s common for 8th graders from public schools to apply for admission there. I’m just mentioning this in case you want to look for a STEM magnet school on the Peninsula, or consider Bullis Charter School in Los Altos. Among the Bellarmine grads I know, a small sample size to be sure, all attended public elementary and middle schools.</p>
<p>I don’t live in the peninsula so I am not familiar with those schools you mentioned. I know that St. Anthony’s in the Willow Glen area of San Jose send a lot of students to Bellarmine. As Vballmom mentioned in the post above, Bellarmine takes students from all sorts of schools as long as the students possess strong academics, score high on the admission test and have good recommendations.</p>
<p>I don’t have direct experience with any of these but I know many kids who’ve attended Sacred Heart and Saint Raymond’s. They are both highly regarded and definitely feeders into a number of strong high schools. Because they are located in any area of very strong public schools I think most parents see the Catholic option as more a philosophical choice than an academic one. Some families feel the Catholic values are an important piece of their child’s education.<br>
Bellarmine is a long way from Menlo Park. Generally these kids would go on to Sacred Heart Prep or the Menlo School which is practically next door. Also, Woodside Priory out in Portola Valley is another thought, although very different from Bellarmine. I know less about Saint Francis but certainly more Peninsula kids go there than to Bellarmine.</p>
<p>My s#1 is in the Bay area, but unfortunately cannot help with Catholic schools. I am just posting to say WOWZA!! We’ve followed kids graduating and marrying, etc, but now we have a second generation cc’er?!??! I repeat, WOWZA!! Congrats!!</p>
<p>I raised my children on the peninsula and there are quite a few really good public schools known for science and math, and a few private schools, but I haven’t heard the same of Catholic schools other than Bellarmine. </p>
<p>In the Los Altos area I’ve heard academically Saint Simon’s is stronger than St. Nick, but I’m not sure about their stem programs in the upper grades.</p>
<p>There were several boys from my daughters public junior high that went to Bellarmine. I’d also suggest calling Bellarmine and asking where their feeder schools are.</p>
<p>All my cousins’ children went to private or catholic schools on Peninsula. But there are success stories and not so successful stories. I have friends’ daughter who have made to UCSF dental school and she went to Hillsdale, a public school. I cannot sway your desire, but just want to say that catholic or non-catholic, the difference is in the individual.</p>
<p>As cbreeze and a few others have pointed out, it’s more a philosophical decision for us to send our son to a Catholic school. We are definitely not narrow minded so hopefully my post didn’t come across that way. While our son could arguably get the same great level of education at a local public school or at a non-denominational private school (like Harker or Menlo or Crystal Springs Uplands), we like that fact that the Catholic schools help reinforce some of the values that we are trying to instill in our son at home. Not to say that public schools don’t instill values in children but they are limited by their public charter in nature and the values may not fully align with ours. </p>
<p>While I called out Bellarmine as an example, Sacred Heart Prep and St. Francis are other schools that we’d be thrilled if he attended for h.s. It seems like all of the schools that we are looking at (St. Ray, Nativity, Sacred Heart) have strong placements into all of the top Catholic h.s. what’s most difficult to assess of private elementary schools is their level of education. What I am looking for from parents on CC is both 1) advice on how best to approach this information gap (we will be visiting a these schools and hopefully can get more info from meeting with the leadership/principal) and 2) if by chance anyone had any specific knowledge of Catholic elementary schools in the area (not necessarily the 3 i called) as it would help open up a few more options for us to look at. </p>
<p>Again I really appreciate all of your suggestions and am happy to be coming back to CC as I think it’s a great community with parents that value education. I look forward to continuing to get advice from all of you as I navigate parenthood :).</p>
<p>Catholic schools also do standardized testing. You can ask to see their schoolwide scores to help determine how strong they are academically, and compare. Another resource is greatschools.net, which has information and reviews.</p>
<p>As for the STEM focus, the peninsula is rife with after school and summer programs that are great for enhancing what the schools teach. St. Simon’s of Los Altos has a webpage of links to these kinds of programs that would coordinate with their curriculum.</p>
<p>In terms of seeing the standardized test scores from the parochial schools-you won’t get that. Won’t happen. Current parents don’t even get that. </p>
<p>Realistically, the chances of admission to SFHS, Bellarmine, Mitty, etc are all quite good as long as you have at least a B average coming from the local parochial schools. The schools also care how long you’ve been attending-they’ll ask on the application. </p>
<p>My oldest had a 3.3 and was accepted at Mitty and Bellarmine. My next one had acceptances from SFHS and Notre Dame and my youngest from Mitty and SFHS.</p>
<p>Are you only interested in Peninsula schools? Or are you interested in coming more towards Sunnyvale and San Jose?</p>
<p>I am a college student at Sonoma State and I’ve had to work with some of the students at Sacred Heart before. They have a wonderful music program and all the students were very polite and handled themselves very well. I know a music program isn’t everything, but I image if they spend so much time and money producing a quality music program, everything else would be just as top notch.</p>
<p>welcome back to CC!
As a long time peninsula and MP resident, you really cant go wrong if your child goes to any of the 3 fine MP catholic schools you mentioned. I will say that it will save you time/ hassle/ grief if your child is accepted at Sacred Heart , since it is the only 1 of the 3 that also has a HS. Competition for ALL private HS’s on the peninsula is extremely intense, and will only get worse as time goes on, so if you can avoid that 8-9-years from now, your life here will be much happier.</p>
<p>Realistically and statistically, Menlo School, Crystal Springs, and Castilleja are the best of the best of all of these schools. All 3 of these have small class sizes but most students all attend top-tier schools, and they send the greatest number of students to these schools, even though there’s not many students. HOWEVER, it’s MUCH easier to get into sacred heart, bellarmine, etc., if that’s what you want. </p>