My youngest daughter went here from 6-8 grades. It was a wonderful experience that she owes so much…read moreto. The administration is wonderful and it really put her on the path to success. Her classmates and she are off to college this year and this reunion brings them all together one last time before matriculation. They're all wearing T-shirts and other paraphernalia from their new schools. Timber Pizza is catering the event and it's a really nice family environment Weather is beautiful.

Wow, with a caboose outside one's door I'd want to go to school. You've got the Duncan Library…read moreacross the alley and a fun park on the side.

My child went here. There are some happy memories, and some decidedly very unhappy ones. I have…read moreto give more than one star, because some of the teachers here are dedicated to their jobs, and they are good teachers and decent human beings. I pity them, because they are in the company of some others who are cynical, burned out, going through the motions, and heavy handed in dealing with the children. If you're not happy teaching, choose another profession, and don't inflict yourself on innocent little ones. My child used to love going to the school until entering the class of one teacher, who turned going to school into an ordeal for many of the students. If this is the crystallization of what a teacher achieves -- making children hate school -- then they are a failure and they need to look for a different line of work. This school needs to move such teachers out the door -- and in our experience, it doesn't. The school held lots of meetings with parents about policy changes. Whenever they went about changing the dress code, the attendance schedule, etc., they'd go through the motions of seeking input from the parents. In retrospect, in my perception, whatever decisions this school's administrator(s) had come to were inevitably actualized, making the meetings a mere pretense, a hoop the school had to jump through so it could check off the box that it had held such meetings. I had better things to do with my time than attend "input meetings" that I don't believe ever really respected or wanted my input. The school leans hard Left, getting the littles ones initiated in the "Diversity Agenda," the "Social Justice Agenda," equity training, etc. If there are different facets for some of these issues, you'd never know it from the messaging posted on the hallways, fencing and bulletin boards. This propagandizing, presented as "The Truth," sits comfortably in the perches provided by Alexandria and similarly "progressive" cities across the country. Some of the instruction provided was "Good Touch, Bad Touch" training, which was promptly actualized when my child -- who resembles nothing so much as a Teletubby -- tugged on another child's clothing. This resulted in accusations, hysteria, denunciations, outrage, phone calls, meetings, and lots of similarly horrifying tumult. When this ordeal first began, I came running, to find my child had been ejected into a hallway and was sitting there alone, sobbing, devastated, thoroughly traumatized. Aside from the teacher, who certainly handled this situation idiotically, the school office staff, which had known my child even as a toddler, did little to nothing to intervene and stop what was happening. In the midst of it all, seven words kept coming into my mind: "This is some kind of political theater." It did not matter that we all knew we were witnessing and participating in foolishness; despite the school's advertised maxims about altruism and fairness, the machinery grinding up my innocent child had to be allowed to run its course. I was thoroughly appalled. And I was further appalled that there was no shame in them for doing this. Such things happen in a lifetime, and you deal with them as best you're able, and then move on. But you don't forget. The other actors in such events forget them, but you don't. And neither does your child.

My review is for the SummerTimes summer camp program held at the Fontaine campus. My 9 year old…read moredaughter attended a 1 week Filmworx camp that instructed her on basic principles of movie-making, where she spent the week creating movies using iMovie and Final Cut Pro software. The school was 1 week long but my daughter really enjoyed the time spent and picked up quite a few techniques that she continues to use at home. This school is really situated in a neighborhood with tight streets so I can't imagine this being an ideal situation for residents, especially during the busy school year. The campus is very nice and the facilities served the purpose, but it was really the instructor that made all the difference in this class.

The academic programs are both smart and useful. The teachers are kind and caring and don't put…read morestress on students to earn the best grades, but the caring shoulder automatically brings the students' grades up. A far cry from Westminster School in Annandale where my daughter started school in kindergarten a couple years ago. Discipline was rule one two and three I found it to be a little much. St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School hands down is the place to be!

Commonwealth Academy promotes itself as a school that has expertise in ADHD and executive…read morefunctioning. Our experience there this last year with our son (12) was the opposite, and the staff was extremely unwilling to work with us on his needs. It gets worse. In the end, a false report of child abuse and neglect was filed against us, we believe and have strong evidence to back it up by senior school staff in retaliation for disputes we had with them. In my opinion, the place is not safe for your kids or you. We enrolled mid-year, when our local school was having issues meeting his needs. He has a learning profile that includes ADHD, language processing difficulties, and executive function difficulties. When we interviewed the school, which is billed as particularly suited for a child of his profile, we were very excited about the approach and attention to executive function, and the admissions head similarly felt it would be a great fit for our son. For a school that supposedly focuses on executive function skills, they offered him almost nothing in the way of support there, and made it very difficult for him (and us) to figure out what his assignments even were. There was no consistent place where or how assignments were listed; some were online, some were via emails, and some were given in class. This is a nightmare for someone with executive function difficulties, and only set him up for failure. The school was also slow to implement an assisted listening device, provided by us, that has greatly helped our son in his previous school. We had discussed using the device with CA prior to enrollment and they had agreed in principle. It took them over three months to actually begin using it. One of us is a licensed counselor and former teacher with years of professional expertise and success in helping children with learning profiles similar to our son's. With this expertise, we tried very hard to work with the school on how best to serve our son, and offered specific interventions to help him access the curriculum and get through the day. The school presented considerable resistance and foot-dragging and at one point, the head of the middle school told us that we were no longer welcome to email them. They were not only not interested in the resources we offered, they at times seemed offended by it. Another dispute centered around repeated and inappropriate suggestions from certain staff that we should get medical diagnoses and/or therapy for our son. For our son's privacy, I am not going to discuss the nature of these requests, but we have in fact involved his health care providers in addressing his in-school challenges, and we provided evidence of this in the form of doctor's notes to the staff on multiple occasions. After about the third time these requests were made, we complained to the head of school, who responded very supportively and agreed the staff had been inappropriate. It was two days after this that the false report to DC CFSA was made. The report included the allegation that we "refused" to take our son to the doctor, and other disturbing allegations that were simply made up out of whole cloth. After 35 days the report was ruled Unfounded by DC CFSA, which means a report they consider untrue. Based on the timing and the content of the allegations in the report as communicated to us by the social workers, we believe it's almost a certainly that it was made by one of three people there, two of whom are still there and are fairly senior in the school's administration. We removed him from the school the day the report was filed and home schooled him for the remainder of the year. The school was uncooperative in providing assignments and materials during this time, and was uncooperative in our investigation of who filed the false report. They have also not provided materials needed for applications to other schools, obstructing our efforts to find a new placement for him. Parents considering Commonwealth Academy should be aware that (1) it is not what it claims to be in terms of support for ADHD and executive function, and (2) it apparently employs people who are willing to weaponize Child and Family Services against parents by filing false and malicious reports accusing them of child abuse and neglect.

Our family's ILS journey began ten years ago when we moved from a military assignment in Germany to…read morenew jobs in the Pentagon. We looked for a school in which our two young sons would be immersed in a Christian and academically challenging environment. Our comprehensive search landed us at ILS. Since then, both of our sons have graduated from ILS and their sister is halfway through her time. The ILS community has truly been a blessing for our family. We have found that ILS is more than just a school--it is a place where parents and faculty come together to build a rich environment for our children. In addition to a solid academic foundation, our children learned to show genuine love and respect to those around them, an outcome that in many ways is more important than academic success. We attribute much of our children's maturity and academic excellence to their time at ILS. If you are considering a classical Christian education, we recommend ILS. We believe it has been an investment in our children's future that will pay dividends in their own families and communities. Chris and Jen Mulder

I really wanted to make mention of the wonderful work these folks do for the kiddos. When we had…read moremoved our family of 6 to the area, we had no support or guidance as we did not know anyone, however, a colleague at my new job recommended Immanuel Lutheran to us. I am so glad we listened, you will not find more equipped, compassionate shapers of the mind. Want to thank you all.