MUSE Global School

1666 Las Virgenes Canyon Road

Calabasas, CA 91302

83 Reviews

School District
Grade

PK-12
Type

private

Find Homes for Sale in this School Zone

Reviews

Submitted by parent on February 09, 2024

Muse has been a great fit for our family. The passion-based learning allows kids to study topics they’re interested in, in addition to the standard academic subjects, and because it’s a small school, all the staff and teachers get to know the students. There is homework in the upper grades, but not too much, and the classes seem sufficiently rigorous. The specialists are wonderful, from art, performing arts, and world languages to outdoor education and seed to table, where students learn to garden and cook. The campus is beautiful, and students hike the surrounding trails as part of the outdoor education class. The school takes its focus on sustainability seriously, serving delicious plant-based meals and reducing waste whenever possible. For older kids, there are optional camping and backpacking trips. And, most important to us, the school has a kind and supportive community, with students who are taught to encourage each other, particularly at the end-of-semester passion presentations. We feel lucky to have found this school.
Submitted by parent on January 23, 2024

My child is happy and thriving at Muse in ways I never could have imagined prior to her attending this school.Muse is WASC accredited - ECE through 12th grade. Approximately 125 kids. My daughter is learning alongside neurotypical students. She has been embraced by the upper and the lower schools. She has social opportunities at school assemblies, sports, swimming, archery, field trips, movie nights, plays. She enjoys a full range of community activities such as picnics, fundraisers and holiday gatherings. She participates in school spirit week, pajama day, costume contests, and other types of school sponsored activities and events that occur throughout the academic year. She attended the Winter Dance this year and had the time of her life! She has many friends and has attended social activities outside of school like birthday parties, a bar mitzvah, a Taylor Swift-themed party and general hangouts at friends' houses. Last Fall she attended the overnight camping trip to Leo Carrillo with her fellow students. My daughter started a film club that meets on Fridays and currently boasts 17 children in attendance. We live in Santa Monica so it is a bit of a commute for us. The drive to Muse takes 35 minutes via PCH in both directions with a view of the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Monica Mountains. Currently, my daughter's one-to-one aide picks her up from our home and transports her to and from school each day.Muse is located on 22 acres of forested land with a playground, climbing wall, pool, gardens and hiking trails. My daughter feels calm when she has access to tranquil outdoor spaces. When I visit the school, I am flooded with a sense of calm as well.Muse runs a sustainable kitchen with a fulltime gourmet chef. Chef Robin trains the students to prepare meals from scratch. My daughter loves her cooking classes. She has prepared gnocchi, pasta, pizza, soup, pesto sauce, tomato sauce and ice cream. She participates in seed-to-table where the children are taught to grow and harvest their own food to use in their cooking lessons.The campus is accessed by a locked and monitored gate during school hours with a guard on duty at all times. Unscheduled visitors are not permitted. All guests are monitored by video and a call box, along with a member of the safety & facilities team present for drop-off and pick-up each day. Muse also has surveillance cameras located throughout the property. In today's world, this gives me peace of mind.
Submitted by parent on October 03, 2023

MUSE Global was an amazing experience for our daughter. After a tough couple of years due to Covid, we were looking for a private school alternative and are so grateful we found MUSE. Every single person we encountered there, administration, teacher and staff, are like family. They nurtured and cared for our daughter and, above all, ensured she was learning at her highest and best potential. I highly, highly recommend MUSE Global!
Submitted by parent on February 08, 2023

I can’t say enough good things about this school. I truly wish it had been around when I was a kid. The teachers and staff feel like one big happy family, and they constantly go above and beyond for the children attending. My kids have such a sense of wonder and excitement each day. The magic of childhood doesn’t get lost here. They play, they explore, and they learn about the world through their passions. We are so grateful a school like Muse exists.
Submitted by parent on September 11, 2019

I am really saddened by some of the reviews I've seen written here. I have been a parent at Muse since 2015, and my kids cry during the summer and ask me every day if summer break is over. And we do not have boring summers.... I write this review almost having left the school because I wanted a more "academic" experience for my daughter, and was concerned about some of the other issues below regarding parent and family turnover. My daughter wouldn't have it. At six, she has the emotional capacity to go line by line down the reasons why she thinks the school is the right fit for her, and the families who have stayed are all phenomenal. I want to encourage you not to read the experiences of a select few disgruntled parents.... MUSE IS AMAZING. They'll teach your kids skills that MATTER, like kindness, effective communication, exploring your passions, feeling confident and resourceful. I think all the academic stuff comes naturally when your core self esteem is healthy, and I've seen my daughter simply blossom at this school. Thank you Muse!
Submitted by parent on August 21, 2019

I agree with most of the reviews on here . I spent several years at this school , watching family after family leave. What should have been a red flag soon was the teacher and staff turn over . There have even been several cases (yes more than one ) of teachers leaving mid year. How can children feel safe when they can’t even have stability in their classrooms. This school has gone through so many teachers that they have begun to hire teachers that are knowingly not a great fit. I also agree with the previous comments about bullying. I personally have seen it between students and in the community in general. Yes , the campus is beautiful and it’s wonderful they serve healthy food . Those things are not more important than safety , stability, happiness and actual learning !
Submitted by parent on June 14, 2019

We have been at the school for 3 years. My kids are learning and growing intellectually.
Submitted by parent on March 16, 2019

First of all beware of the fake positive reviews. Every time there is a negative one posted it's followed by stellar review. We are a small community at Muse, and even people that are okay with the school, are certainly not that enthusiastic to leave a 5 star review. Anyway, I wasn’t going to write a review but after finding out that another great family was forced to leave the school yesterday I couldn’t just walk away and not say anything. This is the fourth family this year that is forced to leave the school. The sad part is that it’s never about the kids. I know because we are all good friends. It’s about the parents who speak up or try to enforce positive change in the school. This last family has two amazing sweet boys who did great in school and with the community. The mom was very involved with school activities and the father is a MUSE school board member. They always tried to help the school improve but like many before that dared to challenge the Head of School ,Jeff King, they were eventually pushed out. The school doesn’t want change. They want parents to drop off their kids, pay tuitions and ask no questions. SO MANY families are leaving this year, more than 30 and everyone is scared to speak up for the fear that their kids will get a negative recommendation from MUSE and won’t be able to get into another school. We are already have our acceptance confirmed so I am not afraid to speak up anymore for what’s right. Our child enjoys the school, but hates being told to communicate in ‘channels’ all the time. They spend so much time practicing this made up communication model and forget to teach real academics. Many of our friends that applied to other schools next year were told by the new school their kids were so behind and would need to repeat the year. So you see it’s a catch 22, the parents of older students want to leave but find it hard to get accepted in other private school. They end up signing up for another year at MUSE and the kids fall even more behind academically. I feel terrible for what they do psychologically to the kids. When the school decides it's time to push you out, it's so sudden and strategic that the kids never have the chance to say goodbye to their friends. And for little kids that is a big deal. Shouldn’t schools put kids wellbeing first? Not at MUSE. This is why we are leaving.
Submitted by parent on March 13, 2019

Our child has grown emotionally and educationally since being at Muse. His Math, spelling, even handwriting and grammar have vastly improved to the point where his grandmother, and several family friends commented how much improved his thank you notes where from the years previous ones after his most recent birthday. Also, we love the passion projects system. I love how our child gets to delve deep in to projects but more than that have the peactice of working on and presenting them. Also seeing what the other students work on and present is a wealth of knowledge. We were a bit weary about the whole vegan thing as we weren’t 100% vegan going in but that too has been a blessing in disguise. Healthy meals what more could you ask for? And it has changed the way we eat as a family. See you next year Muse!
Submitted by parent on January 05, 2019

I wish I had listen to my friends when they tried to warn me about MUSE. The positive reviews are most likely from new parents or from close friends of the Administration (if not the Administration itself. Notice how the last 7 positive reviews were all posted on the same day, December 18, really??). I was curious to see what other families had to say about the school so I spent some time this morning going through all of the past reviews. I cannot help agreeing with parents that felt like they were sold utopia but soon found out that it was no more than a great sales pitch; worse they didn’t feel they had a say in it. On the plus side, the campus it’s beautiful. The food it’s plant based but surprisingly nutritional and some teachers are very caring. Unfortunately these positives aspects are not enough to compensate for the negatives.MUSE has many issues such as bullying, poor academics and lack of healthy leadership or community. Unlike most schools however, MUSE’s leadership and faculty lacks the knowledge or experience necessary to deal with these issues effectively. Their main goal seems to be the extraction of money from families and they are quick to cut programs when their fundraising goals are not reached each year. On top of that some families have been forced to leave when they asked too many questions or demanded positive change. Some kids were also demanded to be psychologically assessed not because there was anything wrong with them but because the teachers lacked basic skills to support them. Their answer to everything is their PRocess Communication Model as well as the self-help book written by the head of school himself (which he is always so keen to sell you). No need to say these tools are not only inappropriate but highly ineffective. I honestly believe that people (staff included) are not happy but end up staying for lack of better option but as soon as the opportunity presents itself they run (they turnover rate says it all).
Submitted by parent on January 03, 2019

I wish I had taken the time to read all of the negative reviews written in the past 5 years. There seem to be a theme: no real curriculum, kids are behind, they don’t teach kids to respect one other, they refuse to acknowledge all the bullying that takes place and they certainly don’t deliver on their many promises. Parents don’t really have a say and if you dare to object with how things are run, Jeff King, who remains the Head of School despite all the negative reviews and complaints, will try his best to make you leave and find another school. It’s really unfortunate as Muse school has all the components of what would make a great school, a school that is environmentally friendly and focuses on passion based education. The sales pitch is good and it gets people in the door. I never wanted to believe people that cited the only problem with this school is Jeff King. A person who comes across great initially but really is interested in “sizing” your net worth in order to see the potential of your donation. I always thought it was strange how keen they were in asking and encouraging new parents to take the PCM personality test and then come to find out that they actually distribute results of the test amongst the teachers and staff. The admin and your child’s teacher will then speak to you in your respective “channel” to always make sure the conversation is positive or as they put it: “making sure your needs are met”. Initially, it's great because you always feel like you are being “heard” and your suggestions are being taken seriously, but then I realized that the goal is to sweet-talk you out of distress. I make that claim because after a while parents just start getting upset because none of their concerns are addressed, despite having meetings over meeting with the administration. It is really a strange school that is truly run by people with no formal education on education itself. But then again the Head of school is married to one of the co-founders. The co-founders are 2 sisters and one of the sisters husband is the source of capital. No change will come about in the interest of the school, due to the conflict of interest.
Submitted by parent on December 18, 2018

Muse School is an absolute gem! We are 'newbies' at the Jr. High level and this school could not be a better match for my son. The teachers are spectacular, encouraging and have a heart for the kids. The administrative staff, from the Head of School -Jeff to the Director of MS/HS Suzanne, could not be more caring, compassionate, attentive and aware. This really is a special school with very special people. We are so fortunate to have found this school!
Submitted by parent on December 18, 2018

My children have been at MUSE for several years now. We are extremely happy for ALL it has to offer all around. My children are happy and have learned self-confidence and independence without the pressure of fitting in. I have witnessed their personal, academic and social growth. The teachers care for the students and get to know them personally throughout the year. The campus is a total oasis that puts people in touch with themselves and nature while learning.
Submitted by parent on December 18, 2018

MUSE school has been a new and exciting experience for my 2 kids and our family. My son went to a public school with over 24 students in his kindergarten class compared to a class of 16 here at MUSE. He received boatloads of worksheets everyday ALSO homework using the iPad. The teachers at MUSE are able to teach my children academics by understanding my child's communication style and through passion-based learning. A big issue in majority of relationships is COMMUNICATION, and this school heavily focuses on being mindful of the different communication styles out there and how to reach everyone. At the last school, I just dropped my child off and picked him up. MUSE feels like a community, a family even. We appreciate all the people we have encountered at the school.
Submitted by parent on December 18, 2018

I love MUSE! I can't imagine my son going any where else! :)
Submitted by parent on December 18, 2018

My child is a student at MUSE and we could not be happier. The campus is truly one of a kind and an absolute dream for any active kid. My son's two teachers are some of the most caring, committed, creative, and loving individuals I have ever met. Each day I pick him up he excitedly tells me about his day, which includes everything from structured academics to hikes in the Santa Monica Mountains. On a weekly basis he gets to experience art, music, maker space, and a truly incredible Seed-to-Table program. One of the things I love most about MUSE is the focus on the whole child. The teachers there provide a safe and engaging environment, one which allows my child the opportunity to be challenged and grow each and every day. We are SO glad we found this wonderful school and I am counting the days until my daughter is old enough to attend!
Submitted by parent on December 18, 2018

MUSE has been such a gift for our family. My son is currently enrolled in the Early Childhood Program. His language and confidence has blossomed since starting school. He has already forged strong friendships and he is absolutely obsessed with his teachers. He is genuinely upset when he can't go to school on the weekends. The administration has been stellar at communicating and supporting our family through our first year. I love MUSE's commitment to educating the whole child and making sure their social emotional development is just as important as their academic development. MUSE is truly a hidden gem and we feel completely grateful to be part of the community.
Submitted by parent on December 18, 2018

MUSE SCHOOL has given my daughter a sense of self and pride. Her teachers easily connected with her and I have seen her grown in her academics and social skills. Thank you MUSE!
Submitted by parent on December 07, 2018

Muse vision is a great one but it's only a vision and was never implemented. What you are promised when you sign up never comes through. Management it’s the problem. I don’t believe the school will be around for much longer if they don’t change something. The head of school Jeff King, who has no educational background, enforces personality tests on staff and willing parents. He then expects them to address each other and the kids in the language associated with their specific personalities. The problem is that they stereotype kids as well labelling them from the start. In my opinion it may have worked well when dealing with his patients but works terribly in a school environment (Jeff King was a non licensed counsellor before joining Muse and he is also the husband of one of the founding sisters??). Parents concerned are never addressed. And the admission officer Caitlin Roche it’s not only incompetent and unqualified in her role but the rudest person we have encountered. Despite what they tell you, academics are a joke at muse. Kids (our included) that end up transferring to other schools are most often behind their peers. On paper Muse is a dream for every parent, the campus it’s amazing and everyone seems so friendly. In reality the school is nothing more that a scam at the expenses of the families there. Very few families make it past second or third grade though and the High School has the reputation of being the place for trouble kids that can’t get into any other school.
Submitted by parent on October 07, 2018

Jeff, the head of school is an MFT, the head of the lower school was their previous pre-school teacher and the head of the upper school was their movement teacher. None of them have had any prior experience in running a school or guiding the education of young children. The passion based learning on paper is wonderful, however, they are missing the mark and are not executing their vision.