4+ decades of excellence! You can't beat that!! Choosing an elementary school for my son was a stressful time for me. I felt as though his future success weighed on our decision of where to send him to kindergarten. Ridiculous, right? But that's the culture we live in today - helicopter parents drinking the Charter School Kool-Aid. I toured ALL the schools, talked to ALL the parents, and (a unique prospective) spoke with my pediatric patients and their parents. I went back and forth. Public? Private? Charter? Ultimately he was offered spots at Benchmark, BASIS central Phoenix & Archway Cicero (Great Hearts) and we chose to open enroll him at Cherokee. The choice came based on a gut instinct I felt when I toured their Kinder classrooms and sat face to face with their incredible principal, Mr. Chantler. Cherokee felt like home and the children looked happy. The campus is exquisite, safe, and serene. Acres upon acres of grassy fields, playgrounds, and gardens. The school is and has always been a school, not a converted FBI building or Motorolla plant with a 'playground' resembling a prison yard. Their 5th grade test scores are equivalent if not better than many charter schools. I listened to my gut & after one too many stories of disillusioned charter school families, I refused to succumb to the parental peer pressure and I could not be happier with our decision. More importantly, my son is happy and he is thriving! His student to teacher ratio was 10:1. He is reading and writing and loves school! He has made wonderful friends and we've felt embraced by an incredible school community of families. SUSD is well funded and the mighty Cherokee APT (raising nearly 200K in the 2015-16 school year) ensures there is a full time aide in each classroom (vs. 28-30 kids crammed in a Great Hearts class sharing 2 aides amongst 3 classrooms), reading specialists, computers, smart boards, basically anything our children need to succeed. One positive of the charter fad - it gave my son the opportunity to have a place at a school in a neighborhood we otherwise would not have been able to afford! read more