It breaks my heart to say that we were forced to withdraw our son from the 6th grade at Heritage three weeks ago. I am honestly still in disbelief over some of the things that occurred leading up to our final decision to pull him out.
Our family strongly supports and values Christian education. We feel that for us, this is a priority in raising our children (we have 4). Even if it involves a financial sacrifice, we are willing to do what we can to give our children a scholastic experience that mirrors the values and ideals that we are working to instill at home. While our son never had any complaints about his teachers or the classes during his time at Heritage, his experience was far from what we would expect from a Christian School which prides itself on its spiritual impact on the student body.
During the time that our son was at Heritage, he was bullied, harassed, and intimidated by other students. He was mocked for not wearing the right shoes (Converse instead of Vans), not having a better phone, had his pants pulled down by multiple students on the football field during PE, had his lunch bag completely torn up by another student, and by far the worst; was exposed to pornography on a SCHOOL COMPUTER during an elective class.
Honestly, throughout each of these experiences, we tried to be open minded and trust that the administration had things under control and were doing what they could to minimize these behaviors and to issue consequences where they were needed. Over time it became clear that not only did the school not really have a handle on things, but that they simply did not care to do enough in order to prevent further mishaps or a sense of security within students, like our son, that were being made to feel unsafe.
My child is by no means small, nor does he classify as being a bookworm. He is very tall, and by most accounts pretty handsome. Generally, he is not one to cower or seem meek by any stretch, but as things progressed at school, we saw that not only did he feel insecure, he was legitimately intimidated. When his lunch bag was obliterated by another student (all side panels torn and the padding was coming out, the zipper was ripped off, etc.), my son asked me to go with him to report the incident because he hadn't done it himself and didn't feel comfortable. This was not the case at the beginning of the school year when he was "pantsed." He had gone from being willing to confront the issue at hand, to being afraid. NO CHILD should fear going to school. That day after meeting with the Dean and reporting the incident, my son BEGGED me not to send him to class. As a parent, I was devastated.
After being informed that the student who destroyed our son's property would not be reprimanded in any way, we immediately withdrew our son from Heritage. He had no idea the day we showed up at school to pull him out, and when we arrived and told him what was going on, his only request was to say goodbye to his teachers.
We are grateful for the faculty that did show our son care and respect, especially his History and homeroom teacher, Mr. Tooley, who he absolutely adored or his Math and Science teachers, Miss McCray and Ms. Delvaux. It is so tragic to us that a school with such a strong reputation and prestige for its programming and resources has seemingly chosen quantity over quality when it comes to how they address issues with their students. It saddens me to think that the main concern at Heritage has less to do with glorifying God or fostering its students to be strong Godly leaders, and far more to do with their bottom line.
We had much higher hopes for Heritage, not only for our oldest son, but for our next 3 children coming behind him, and now, we have sadly lost our faith in this school. read more
