One star. We're leaving after four years of unresolved safety, supervision, academic, and privacy issues. I kept hoping things would improve. It didn't. It got worse. What broke us this year was the school's awful handling of a four-month illness.
Between October and the end of January, my daughter was mostly out. In that entire span, not a single teacher, the principal, or the vice principal reached out. Not once. The only outreach came from one front office staff member. For a school that markets itself on "values," that was clarifying.
Academic support was worse than the silence. On paper, support was offered. In reality: no teacher conferences, no meaningful communication. The first response to my requests was a round of finger-pointing between teacher and administration about who was supposed to send what. After I escalated, the school produced a poorly-prompted ChatGPT "support plan," delivered paper-only and take-it-or-leave-it, with no timeline, no coverage detail, no accountability. Months in, the principal finally said they "can't help" because what I asked for sounds like "independent study." We lost months of instructional time. This time had to be paid for via experienced private tutors just to catch up, not to mention stress for the child.
The school also has a broader communications problem. Ask for paper, they point you to SchoolSpeak. Ask for digital, they insist on sending paper. One thing always works seamlessly: the electronic deductions from your bank account and the steady stream of solicitations for money and teacher gifts.
This year also brought unresolved bullying ("pretend tasers" used on classmates), dangerous objects in the classroom, regular yelling at students, and a testing incident where another child could see and comment on my daughter's score. In small classrooms, supervision should be easy. Instead, the pattern is the same every time: staff deny anything happened, then dustup.
Earlier years brought their own version, including a first-grade teacher who refused my daughter a bathroom break during a test, with predictable outcomes for a young child, and then claimed she didn't know what happened. The school apologized and made excuses, this teacher to this day pretends she doesn't see me. Yet the principal likes to quote "code of conduct" that seems to be applied too selectively.
Administration has its own privacy problem: personal matters get aired publicly, right there in the front office, rather loudly, no matter kids or other parents, with tactless questioning on top, like, "I thought your father died on Monday, not Tuesday...", or my favorite, "let me call your daughter X, because I like it". My daughter has a name, that's what her family prefers!
Accountability is the worst part. Push back, and you find out the "investigations" wouldn't pass scrutiny anywhere. Example: interviewing two children simultaneously, with the conclusion baked into the question. Raise a concern and the response is lip service at best, tone-policing and retaliation at worst. Most parents don't push back, and I understand why. Escalating doesn't help. Leadership is unresponsive and unhelpful at every level, all the way up to the Archdiocese.
There are good teachers here. The second-grade teacher, theater, PE, and some extended care staff are genuine bright spots. The problem is structural and sits with leadership.
None of this is what we wanted. Leaving means real disruption for our family and the loss of friendships our daughter built over four years. We hoped it wouldn't come to this.
We're quitting, like other fed-up families before us. read more