Terra Nova High School

Our 3 children have gone to Terra Nova and I have to say that you can get a very good education here. The AP teachers are fabulous. My son's Spanish teacher was dedicated and excellent. Another Spanish teacher was bad, but he is retiring, thank goodness. TN has an impressive array of sports, and there's a sport for everyone, from competitive badminton to water polo to football (which helps pay for the rest of them)! TN also has a competitive Mock Trial team, a consistently award-winning Band, and a Robotics Team which just won First Place in Design, Internationally. Yes, #1 in the world. So, students can choose to party if they want to--there's going to be that choice at any school--or they can get involved with the challenging opportunities that Terra Nova provides. It's really up to them.
—Submitted by a parent

The system for monitoring my student;s grades is great. Thank you for getting it up and running. Also, all six teachers have been great at communication with me.
—Submitted by a parent

Still can't access my son's grades. This makes supervising one's child extremely difficult and frustrating. They also allowed my son to play sports when he had below a 2.0 gpa. Of course, they said this could never happen but it did. Also, communication with the teachers is difficult because of the junk mail filters they have. So, if you want to know anything about your child's education/progress, you're going to have to get the information from your child themself.
—Submitted by a parent

This school is horrible. I went to Terra Nova my freshman year and then I transferred out at the end. Terra Nova is the number one party school in the Bay Area, I feel. Terra Nova's students practically have parties every night, kids show up to class high, drunk, etc. Aside from that, the school's curriculum is desgined for kids that do not wish to excel in life. Terra Nova offers basic education, and nothing more. There are smart students at Terra Nova, sure, but the school itself focuses more on sports than they do academics. So, if you care more about your child's ability to throw a football than their education, then this is just the school for you. I transferred out because I simply was partying too hard, and not getting enough work done. I attend Ocean now, and there is a vast improvement. I am now a senior with a 3.7 GPA, I am motivated about school and life after high school. Even though Oceana pushes me to my limits academically, I am glad they do. Terra Nova is a horrible school that as an ex-student, I really know what it's all about.

They manage to help their students at every angle to succeed!
—Submitted by a parent

Responsive to student needs, still offers after-school programs, despite budget issues without compromising other programs, very good sports teams, distiguished GreatSchools high rating, and more....

I love the small town feel at a fairly large school, the semse of community and the strong support of the athletic programs
—Submitted by a parent

My son is really enjoying high school at Terra Nova. He is active socially and is doing well in his classes. He has also taken advantage of the sports programs available and there are lots of them to choose from. It's a great scholl.
—Submitted by a parent

TN is a great school with lots of wonderful, caring, dedicated staff/faculty and even more enthusiastic, involved students!
—Submitted by a parent

Great administration, great location, my 3 kids, nephew and friends love it.....super colors and mascot - traditional school.
—Submitted by a parent

They have something to keep every child challenged!
—Submitted by a parent

Many dedicated professionals who put students first.
—Submitted by a parent

A truly dedicated staff who work their magic on a shoe string budget! I enjoyed my 4 years there, and all my kids have too! GO TIGERS!
—Submitted by a parent

At Terra Nova, the students, teachers, parents, and Pacifica community all care about TN and do their best, and more!
—Submitted by a parent

Two of my kids made National Merit Semifinalists out of Terra Nova.
—Submitted by a parent

Terra Nora is mediocre academically, but has few safety problems because it's in a small, lmiddle-class town. It underperforms academically despite having few low-income or bilingual students relative to elsewhere. Math was the best-taught subject since it's 'objective.' So-called AP English classes are terrible. Students read very little literature and almost no classics. Almost all 'literature' is popular works of the last fifty years (best-sellers). For 4 years AP classes assigned nothing before 1900 except Shakespeare, 2 Dickens novels and 'The Scarlet Letter.' No classic poetry was read. Nothing is presented in chronological order. The teachers could easily offer chronologically-organized American and English literature reading Chaucer, Milton, Romantic poets, Austen, etc. or in American literature Twain, Dickinson, Whitman, Faulkner, etc. since it costs no more to read classics than bestsellers but teachers are afraid to challenge students. Also, assigned papers were absurdly short (typically 3-5 pages!)
—Submitted by a parent

I am currently a Senior at TN and I have nothing but great things to say about this school. The teachers here have helped me without hesistation whenever I was confused, and they really do care about their students. The sports at TN are great (especially the football program) and it only makes the school spirit vibe even better. Coming from a very small middle school of about 200 kids, TN seemed huge to me as an incoming freshman, but I got used to it after about the first week. I have made so many friends here and I feel like this school has prepared me for UC Berkeley (which I will be attending in the fall of 2010) and the real world.
—Submitted by a student

I graduated from TN a few years back. The school curriculum wasn't too challenging (my average GPA after 4 years was a 3.8) and there were only a handful of good teachers. I think most of teachers there don't really care if the student learns or not as long as they get their paycheck. Only a handful of them would care if the student learned anything, Mrs. Tom and Mr. Ellison to name a couple. I don t think TN prepares students well enough to succeed at the top tier schools like UC Berkeley or UCLA, but do a decent job at preparing students for lower tier schools like UC Davis or UC Irvine and the CSU s. The school is also very sports oriented which is nice, but really lacks diversity, which is a shame.

The school is alright i went there for three years caused my troulble but i woulds ay that some of the teachers have a lack of respect for students and some councelors are rediculous.
—Submitted by a student

My Daughter is a freshman at Terra Nova. I really like the school and what it is doing for her academically. She is in a special program and the two teachers involve really work with the students. I have another daughter coming in the fall and I really look forward to her going there.
—Submitted by a parent