Many family friends have kids going to this district and a few family members do too and all I've…read moreheard is negative. Fights, drugs, etc. I went schools in this district a while back and they were awful. Sad to hear they haven't improved.

This district is solely based on appearances over function. Having worked for this district and…read morebeing told i needed to change a students grades from failing to passing and having the unfortunate luck for both my children to go to these schools as well. The teachers utilyze less instruction and more forced computer interface to establish their own status quo. This last lockdown implement during the solar eclipse also shows how little this district instills true observational learning capabilities for its younger students. If you have an out from this district take it. If you have children that wish to learn , truly learn then avoid this district and its fluffy policies that change at whim.

I absolutely love this school and the staff there. My daughter has flourished since starting here…read moreand the spanish immersion program is a huge plus! I would highly recommend this school to anyone for their K-4th grader.

My daughter absolutely loves it here. She's so excited to go to school every morning. She really…read morelikes her teacher and enjoys the before and after school care. Some of my favorite things about this school is the fact that breakfast and lunch are FREE! Yes FREE! and healthy. Their before and after care is so affordable. And all of the staff are really friendly. The building its self could use some TLC but it looks like they are currently working on making some improvements.

My husband and I are incredibly grateful for CMS, where our daughter has attended for the past…read moreyear. As this was our first time searching for a school, we researched and toured nearly 10 preschools in our area (mainly Montessori, but also some more traditional ones). As a stay-at-home mom, I was also apprehensive about starting our daughter at 2 1/2 years old and even considered waiting longer. If it weren't for CMS, we probably would have waited, because I truly believe no other school offered the environment that was most important to us--especially with her starting so young. The Montessori approach is clearly implemented in every aspect of CMS, both academically and socially. For us--and for our daughter's personality--the nurturing and respectful environment were the most important values in our search. Most of the teachers have been at CMS for over a decade, which was not the case at any of the other schools we toured. I love that our daughter can build a relationship with her teachers over the years, rather than changing to a new teacher every year. I believe this consistency provides a strong foundation for her academic and emotional development. The first thing I always tell people when they ask about CMS is this: At all the other schools, yes, I connected with the director or whoever was giving the tour on some level--but I'd only get maybe five minutes or less of face time with a teacher, and I always left feeling unimpressed with their classroom presence and curriculum. I'm truly impressed with the CMS curriculum and culture. On other school tours, I received more papers and booklets, but honestly, I felt a disconnect between what was written and what I saw. As a family, we follow Montessori values, and I began to research Montessori education on my own. From our first conversations with the Lead Teacher, Miss Jocelyn, I could see those values clearly reflected at CMS. After attending for over a year, I'm even more astounded by the depth and thoughtfulness of the lessons offered for early childhood development. As someone who struggled with math in school, I wish I'd had the opportunity to learn numbers the way CMS teaches them. On your tour, please ask to see the math beads and the related lessons--they are a perfect example of how CMS teaches the concept with real understanding, not rote memorization. The lessons are intentional, and the freedom my daughter has in choosing her work has developed her concentration and self-discipline. I have so much trust in this school--it's not the kind of place where your child comes home with 10+ generic worksheets a day. To get an overview of CMS's culture, I highly recommend reading The Family Virtues Guide: Simple Ways to Bring Out the Best in Our Children and Ourselves. CMS focuses on one virtue per week, based on this humanity program (such as respect, empathy, patience, etc.). To me, this is a clear example of how CMS goes beyond academics and truly teaches life skills and character development. When observing the classroom, you can clearly see how these virtue lessons provide a foundation of calmness that, in turn, allows each child to develop their concentration to achieve their highest potential and practical life skills at an incredible level. We are truly grateful for the foundation CMS is providing for our daughter!

Community Montessori has been a great experience, Zia started there when she was 2, she has grown…read moreso much being in a constant learning environment that consisted of different aged children. The staff at Montessori are invested in and care deeply about the kids and parents. Thank you Montessori!!

I love this school I enrolled my son in kindergarden and he has told me wonderful things about the…read moreschool and the faculty, hes now a freshman in highschool and still talks about his friends and classes from kindergarden through 6th grade, the only problem I have is the 3rd grade teacher Mrs.Stewart who was very unfair to my son other than that it was a great school.

We had moved over to a new area within the same school district, the Paradise Valley School…read moreDistrict. I was confident that the school would be up to the standards of the other schools in this district. Boy, was I wrong. At the time our boy was in the third grade and we had always had teachers tell us how nice, how kind, sweet he is and he had plenty of friends at our old school at Desert Shadows. From the first day of coming to Desert Cove he was treated in a disparaging manner by both the teacher and the children. Yes, you read that right, the teacher. He came to us and told us she has treating him poorly and being mean to him. We went to the school and confronted the teacher, who confessed to us that she had gone on vacation and came back and had three new students in her class and that is why she was treating him differently!?! What, did I hear this right? What kind of teacher takes out her frustration on her students because she had more kids to teach than she had planned? Well we thought we had come to a crossroads where he would continue and we would give her another chance. Things didn't change. He was bullied by the kids and the teacher kept up with her poor treatment even though we had multiple trips speaking with her. It really was an extremely negative experience and he attended only one year and we decided to drive back to our old school even though it was far away. Kate Stewart was the name of this teacher and shame on you for being so rough on a little guy, who wanted nothing but to come to a school to learn, be part of the group, treated with kindness and value, and he got the exact opposite. Highly disappointed with this school and it's staff. I'm sure we are not the only ones. If it's happening to one it's happening to others. A bird doesn't change its feathers.

It is the best K -8 school in the valley, and I am pleased that my kids are the products of Valley…read moreAcademy! The teachers are great and very attentive. They provide a nurturing environment for the kids. The curriculum is strong, and they are pretty much rounded with other extracurricular activities, too, unlike other schools, which do not entertain that. My only complaint is I wish they had a high school. When my son moved to high school, even though he had completed the basic levels of certain subjects in Valley Academy, he couldn't take the advanced level because the new high school didn't recognize the levels at Valley Academy since they don't have a high school. That's a huge bummer

I am in second grade my teacher is Mrs.Carpenter.She's very nice.Their is annoying boys in my…read moreclassroom. The others are tattletales.Valley Academy is a good school.Literally every day I come home from school l have something to tell my parents that I learned.Once my friend had trouble breathing and we went to the nurse. She was very helpful and she sent my friend home.

Note: I wrote this in the past and am posting it now) ---- I am a past student that attended…read moreGateway academy for one year , and god! I would not recommend you go here if you or your child is gifted or at least grade level. You ask for harder work, and are dismissed by teachers that wish they could actually teach you more, but as per the dictators policy (Mrs. Robin) they can't give me actual challenges. I have had 2 tests maybe, and I'm more than halfway through the year. To add to this, these tests were the easiest tests I've ever taken in my life! Do not send your child here! Also, here's a list that I took at the begining of the year (when I still had hopes of leaving) which doesn't include a lot of the new stuff. Here's a summary of the information because the school would probably kick me out (not that I would mind) Version to my parents My classes this year aren't challenging me or giving me the resources I need to learn. In math, we're a month behind because the online curriculum still isn't fixed, and we're stuck reviewing topics I mastered in sixth grade. Science work is so easy and drawn-out that deadlines mean nothing, and tests are recycled to the point where grades don't reflect real understanding. Language class is almost entirely Duolingo, which doesn't teach grammar or real communication skills, and even "enrichment" work takes weeks for something I could finish in days. History is just fill-in-the-blank notes and shallow projects instead of meaningful, in-depth learning like I had before. I'm not being pushed to grow, and staying here is holding me back academically. Version for administration In math, we are already a month behind because the Savaas curriculum still isn't fixed, despite my teacher contacting Mr. Anthony 1-2 weeks ago. My teacher wasn't given proper resources and had to reuse slides from a previous school, so the pace is slow. We've spent over a week reviewing order of operations and negative numbers, which I mastered in sixth grade. In science, deadlines are stretched far beyond what's needed--two weeks to take notes that should take 2-3 days, and tests are meaningless because, after taking them, we just redo the same questions for credit. Even when I ask for harder work, I'm told I still have to do the same easy assignments, which wastes time. Language class is almost entirely Duolingo, which doesn't teach grammar or sentence structure, and enrichment work is stretched over three weeks for tasks I could finish in days. History is mostly fill-in-the-blank notes and shallow projects, like spending a week on domestication with no deeper exploration, compared to last year when I created in-depth presentations on world history topics. I'm not being challenged, my time is being wasted, and staying here will hold me back academically.

Gateway Academy is a WONDERFUL school!! We feel SO LUCKY to have found this school! Our son is on…read morethe Autism Spectrum and Gateway Academy is the PERFECT fit! Our son is safe and free to be himself in the most nurturing environment. He is HAPPY heading into school everyday and as parents that is all we have hoped for! The entire staff and all of the teachers are simply AMAZING! We can't recommend this school enough!! A+++++++++ =)

I highly do not recommend Montessori Center School under the new ownership of Ms. Li and her…read morehusband, John. Positive reviews are from years ago before Ms. Li and her husband John bought the school. If you notice all parents sharing having a similar experiences. And please read Ms. Li's responses, pointing the finger back at the parents. The gaslighting and lack of accountability by Ms. Li and her husband are not acceptable. There's a reason they always have openings. We had ongoing issues, and every time my wife or I tried to bring something up, it felt like we were met with defensiveness instead of a real conversation. We often left those discussions feeling dismissed and blamed rather than heard. There was no genuine engagement with parents. We were asked what we could contribute to the "community," but we never experienced any real sense of one. Communication felt controlled and one-sided. After we set boundaries around comments we felt were inappropriate, our child was removed from the program without notice. As far as we know, our child had done nothing wrong. It was abrupt, upsetting, and incredibly disruptive for our family. This was not the supportive, respectful Montessori environment we were expecting.

A common theme you will notice is "suddenly removed". They have 0 accountability and the solution…read moreis to always kick kids out with no notice, no conversation, no effort to have due process. This is not for extreme behavior, it's for developmentally appropriate struggles.