Cypress Bay High School

Great school with a fun atmosphere; loads of academic opportunities in terms of AP classes and AICE classes. Extracurriculars are top notch as well, with nationally ranked academic teams and debate team. Many students attending top colleges.

Biggest issue - the school is over-crowded. They have to start lunch time at 10:00am Way too many students, hard to connect with any teachers. The school website is lacking in many ways (example: sports schedule posted was the last year schedule--it remained that way all year--lack of personnel?). There is only 1 college advisor for the 1000 seniors (I felt bad for her, she looks frazzled and stressed). There does not appear to be a dress code for teachers --you will see some of them with flip flops, shorts, t-shirts. At times, hard to tell who is a teacher and who is a volunteer or visitor. The final bell rings at 3pm, the office closes at exactly that time. The staff there will not stay 1 minute longer, make sure you call before that 3pm bell. When you do call the woman that answers, will be yelling to someone else in the background before she finally says hello to you. The front office staff needs training. The teachers say communicate with them via email, I had the experience that many did not reply to emails. Some of the teachers had poor writing skills/English 2nd language may be the reason? The voicemail boxes were full, so you couldn't leave a voicemail. The school has many great activities/clubs for the students. If your student excels and has AP classes and a high GPA, the teachers will take care of that student and help/guide them. If you have an average student, they will most likely just be left on their own to figure it out. This past year Senior Prom was on Memorial Weekend, so if your family usually travels for the Memorial wknd, there goes those plans. Graduation date is not given until much later in the year, I don't really know why. Graduation ceremony is at University of Miami (DADE COUNTY) on SUNDAY @ 3pm. It is about a 3 hour ceremony. They say there is not a location in Broward County that can accommodate the school. I'm not sure if that is true (Broward Performing Arts, Sunrise, Ft Laud Convention Center, etc--I don't know who is in charge of finding the venue). Every student is given 5 tickets. If I had to recommend a school, I would suggest looking towards Coral Springs/Boca Raton area.