St. Lucy's Priory High School - Glendora, California

Anna M

This review is especially for those parents that are considering enrolling their daughters at St. Lucy's. The school presents itself as a high caliber academic prep school, but in reality there is very little quality teaching or learning going on. The administration doesn't want to hear it and pretends that everything is working fine. I will give you an example of what I mean.

My daughter's Honors English teacher hardly did any work all year. She did not personally grade one assignment nor prepare her own exams. The quizzes were graded by the girls in class and, as in all of my daughter's other classes at St. Lucy's, the tests were multiple choice and graded by a Scantron machine. The content in these multiple choice exams, including the final, was a joke - basically, how well do you remember story trivia and Irrelevant questions such as: "In Chapter 18 what color was So and So's dress?," "What was the first word of the chapter?," and "Did the character do such and such in Chapter 7 or 8?" (BTW, these examples are not exaggerations.) Sometimes the quizzes were taken from the internet or were made up on the spot: the teacher would randomly flip through the pages in the text, find a quote, and ask, "Who said this?" My daughter and many of her classmates were frustrated and anxious as they read and re-read the books, could tell you all about the plots, themes, character development, and so on, but kept getting low grades because they didn't remember trivial factoids that were completely irrelevant in the story. What ever happened to literary analysis?

Be aware that in the beginning some of the teachers will charm your socks off to give you a good impression. The English teacher, for example, is vivacious and funny and you'll think, "Wow!" But as the year wore on we found her to be most indolent, giving excuses and playing the pity card: "I'm so busy with my three kids and my hectic life that I didn't have time to write a proper exam." She relies on her personality to win over the students, parents and administration. She didn't respond to parent emails, and wasn't accessible to students other than her cross country athletes. She would arrive to class right at the bell, and leave the moment the ending bell rang, making it difficult, if not impossible, for students to get extra help from her.

This is an example of the mediocre teaching my daughter experienced in just one of her classes at St. Lucy's. In the other classes, some teachers were slightly better, and sadly, some were far worse. This is not the story that they will tell you at their prospective student meetings, but it's the experience your daughters will have if you choose to pay the $9,000 plus for the privilege. Had we known this ahead of time, we most certainly would have made a different decision about where to send our daughter and our money.

Esther Cai

Great school, great teachers! Do not listen to these bad reviews. Usually the ones that write bad reviews are those parents who aren't happy that their sweet baby girl can handle the classes so they blame others for their daughter's shortcomings. I don't know one girl who's not been more than prepared for the college rigor. Maybe these people who gave the school a bad review need to do a better job parenting and pushing their daughter to excel. If you think a college professor is going to hold you baby girl hand, you are not living in the real world.

Angie Viencek

I do not have enough words to describe how grateful I am to have my daughter at St. Lucy's Priory High School. This wonderful institution is shaping my daughter into a confident, independent, strong, young woman. In the past two years I have seen tremendous growth in her. In fact, my daughter is currently taking the AP European History course. Her teacher, Mrs. Clark is amazing, and has transformed her to an analytical thinker and writer. Regarding teachers and staff, they put students first! St. Lucy's won't pass students along. On the contrary, students have to earn their places in Honors or AP courses. By doing this, the school provides a necessary edge young woman need in our competitive society. As a public school educator I see the differences between my students, and what St. Lucy's offers. This school provides many opportunities, not available in other schools. Many alumni have shared with me, how well prepared they were for college due to their experiences at St. Lucy's. No school is perfect, but this school sure comes close. Angela D. Viencek, Ph.D.

Elizabeth Gorgol

St. Lucy’s offers a sub-par education, teachers that are rigid, lazy and incompetent (excluding Staples, Hartranft, Herrera). There’s an administrative barrier that makes it difficult to have access to teachers; several of them plainly refused to answer emails. Twenty eight half days where the students got out at 12:30 or earlier. Our daughter regularly was up until 12:00 doing meaningless busy work. She was in Honors English and didn't write one essay all year! There were nothing but scantron exams in all of her classes. In several of her classes she was asked to read several chapters of a book, and then have all of that information reduced to a 3 question, multiple choice or true/false assessment where, if you get one answer wrong, you earn a D. This is not college preparatory. In college you need to write and to think critically. St. Lucy's focuses on massive amounts of rote memorization, not thoughtful thinking.

Kassandra Ann Ross

There is only one word that I can think of to describe my St. Lucy's experience: hell. Ironic for a Catholic school, I know, but it is accurate. I am a hard working, intelligent student, who always comes to class prepared and determined to learn. Yet, those things that I listed above, they don't matter to the majority of teachers at St. Lucy's Priory High School. Many of the teachers only care about dumb, superficial matters, and don't even care whether the girls take the time to actually learn the material (not that most of the teachers knew the material at all themselves).

Beware, this school will reel you in with their impressive business skills and their appearance of being professional, however, that's all a disguise. Below the surface of their lovely facade, this school is filled with many nasty and mean girls, uneducated and incompetent teachers, faculty, and staff that are impossible to reach, no matter the circumstances, and classrooms that are filled with a complete lack of awareness of what an actual education is.

Whether you are reading more reviews or talking to people about the education that their daughters got at St. Lucy's, you will hear about how 'amazing' the education is. In actuality, that is a complete lie. Many of the teachers themselves are unqualified and uneducated (why work hard, or do anything at all, for that matter, if you won't be fired and there are no repercussions for you idiocy?). What these people are actually seeing is not a gain of education, it is girls being bogged down with stupid busy work thrown at them. "Well, then why do former St. Lucy's girls do so well in college?" some people might ask. Well, it's not so much that they are doing well, it's that these girls are learning from the age of fourteen how to handle over seven hours of completely pointless 'homework' every night. Who wouldn't find college easy? Managing four classes and a few hours of homework would be easy. But, this is absolutely not the right way for girls to manage their time. Within months of starting my freshmen year, I caught myself with many emotional breakdowns, I realized I had no time to have a life, and most importantly, I felt myself become DUMBER! (Also, all of the above applies to all of the freshman teachers, with the exception of Timothy Staples, Judy Hartranft, and Shannon Herrera, who were very kind people as well as good teachers).

About the incompetent teachers, you probably don't believe me. Well, these teachers know how to assign boat loads of homework with no regard to their student's health. For example, Mrs. Buckhannon (freshman English 'teacher') never did a thing all year. She would print almost everything (including tests) from the internet, she would borrow the other 'teacher's' quizzes, and assign over 70 pgs. to read between each class period. I was in her honors class, and I didn't write one essay all year. In fact, I wrote nothing at all on tests, or quizzes. The reason for this is not because I slacked off, it is because Mrs. Buckhannon refused to do ANYTHING. She even forced us to 'grade' our own tests. Of course, our 'Honors' tests were exactly the same as the non honors classes (printed off the internet). She apparently 'didn't have time' to write different tests for our class because she was 'too busy'. How can someone be 'too busy' if they do absolutely nothing? That's a question that I don't know the answer to, yet, I found myself asking in far too many classrooms. Mrs. B. was by far the worst of my teachers and the guiltiest of what is listed above, however, she is merely an example of many incompetent teachers that I had throughout the course of this horrible year.

In conclusion, my experience was an utter disappointment upon realizing that St. Lucy's is a joke, (and not the funny kind).
I hope this review helped to advise you of what the REAL St. Lucy's is like, and helps you to make an informed decision before sending your daughter to this school.

amila silva

My wife and I will be eternally grateful for the manner they helped my daughter grow socially, academically and spiritually. The principal Mrs G and the faculty are committed to the education of the students.

helen tiede

I graduated from St Lucy's in 1966. We were the 1st graduating class to do 4 yrs. There were 48 Seniors. I valued the education & the strong religious background.

Chance Stone

this is an excellent if your child is serious about her studies and she wants to get into a 4-year University they offer AP classes that will prepare them for her College if your child is not serious don't waste the money and send them there because it's very expensive a cost a lot of money it's seven thousand a year not including their books and their uniforms and all the other donations that you have to put it so it's an investment this is not for a child that does not want to learn this is for a child that wants to learn and become something in the world these are for leaders they only educate leaders here.