The reviews for this campus will be based on multiple points of view. There will be several review…read moreupdates and I hope to give every interested party a more clear picture of what to expect.
Student's Perspective - Culture:
After being an educator for over 10 years, I have yet to meet a student who genuinely loves school. Many students love different aspects of school, but for a student to choose school over any other activity, the school would have to be extremely amazing or extremely laissez-faire.
There is no doubt in my mind that if you send your child to this school, they will be successful if they follow the regimen to the letter. However, school for students can start as early as 7:00 am, if parents drop off their child early but no later than 7:40. As soon as they get into their advisory class (1st PD), the early arrival kids will begin working on a journal topic of sorts while they wait for the rest of the class to arrive. 3 days out of the week, advisory is used to have meetings around school culture with students, turning every student into a law abiding citizen, for the most part, and drastically reducing anxiety for everyone of them. Students rarely experience bullying, inequality, or unfairness from anybody at this school. They are heavily monitored and the expectation is for them to be quiet in the classroom, the hallways, and in other general settings while meetings are taking place. Where as for other public schools this might be just an expectation, the teachers and leadership team do a large amount of training to ensure that the expectation is enforced. If you've never been at this school while in session, it's impressive alone just seeing everyone move from class to class.
One of the few things that students do get anxiety about, though, is the way the restroom is handled for them. They are only allowed to go during the first ten minutes of every class period. If they miss that time block to ask for permission, they aren't allowed to go. There is a system in place in case of emergencies, but too often I've requested someone to come relieve one of my students to go to the restroom after the reserved block and I don't get a response, so the child sits there holding it in. It has gotten better, but it's disheartening to see. The idea behind this is, child safety, protection of school property, and equity of a learning experience for all. Let me know what other aspects of this school you are interested in hearing about. I will try to remain as impartial as I possibly can.