Ponderosa school is awesome! The teachers are really great!! They care about the students and make…read morelearning fun and engaging)))

My kids go here and they are hands on awesome staff ms. Erskin is a kind thoughtful principal how…read moreshe pays attention to all the kids gives me comfort knowing my kids are under her care and her staff thank you for all that you do ponderosa

We feel incredibly lucky to have Ms. Chakraverty as our son's (4th grade teacher). She creates such…read morea warm and welcoming classroom where every child feels seen, understood, and encouraged. What stands out most is how attentive she is to the little details , she truly takes the time to understand each student and bring out their strengths. Since being in her class, my son has improved tremendously, not only academically but also socially and emotionally. His confidence, participation, and love for learning have all grown so much. Ms. Chakraverty has a special ability to motivate her students and get the very best out of them while making learning enjoyable and meaningful. Thank you for your dedication, patience, and care Ms Chakraverty!

My daughter came here for summer school. She really enjoyed school and she adjusted really well to…read moremy surprise. I didn't get photos daily, but I really did like what I was seeing when she did attend Stratford. The teachers communicated with me whenever possible.

This is a bad school I love it but at the same time it is really bad and there is a lot of fight…read more and the principal is so rude and not nice to the kids

This school is absolutely horrible. Kids are nice but ALWAYSS talk bad behind your back, disgusting…read morebathrooms because clearly no one learns how to flush, and there is drama EVERYDAY. Clearly, every time there is a fight, no counselor OR teacher doesn't seem to care. The time I saw a fight video, it lasted for 3 minutes before an actual staff member came to break it up. The principal is so rude and the assistant principal is very problematic, they say they care for students but they really are controlling. I would also like to add that no one CARES about your mental health--meaning if you put in a request to see your counselor it would take you WEEKS to meet with them. I know that they're busy and they have other things to do but it doesn't make sense how it takes them weeks to meet with you. The clubs are decent, but they aren't as fun. The only clubs I think upcoming middle schoolers would enjoy are drama, cooking/baking, and super smash club. The teachers that host those clubs are nice, funny, and care for students. Meanwhile, the elective teachers are so rude. Take leadership for an example, i applied last year and I worked absolutely so hard on the packet that they give you that makes you write a whole ESSAY. Second, the interview isn't even professional. The eighth graders are so mean and the second you say you're response they look at each other in THAT way and just write down on their paper. Not to mention their tone, absolutely not--so if you ever think of applying to leadership, I prefer not to. The teacher is unfair and chooses the WRONG people, meaning that the people they choose are petty and are self-absorbed. The leadership students are mean, disrespectful, inconsiderate, and only care about themselves. Also, squad the elective is so not worth it. This elective is basically a free period and doesn't let students to learn anything. This elective is supposed to help people with your problems or conflicts when really it's just a bunch of selfish students put together for a free period. And plus, the people they also choose are SO MEAN and when you talk about you're problems they snicker and don't even comfort you. The campus and bathrooms are disgusting, chaotic, and absolute mess, and feels unsafe meaning no one really enforces rules. So, if you care about your child and their mental health, or move to the city, do NOT consider this school as you're first choice because its an absolute disaster. I would prefer going to Westborough middle school because it may be very ghetto, but at least the teachers actually care.

Experience could be better... I graduated 10 years ago, so a lot of things have changed…read more From the get-go, no one wanted to be friends with me, which made me dread school. In kindergarten, I wanted to play with the building blocks, so I would hang out with the boys, but they would never include me and single me out, so I decided to hang out with the girls, and they would also make fun of me and would not want me to hang out with them because I was different. The PE instructor was mean to me as well and singled me out for a lot of things during first and second grade. On top of that, I was a victim of bullying, and a lot of people thought I was incompetent and worthless, even though I did nothing wrong. For the most part, the teachers were nice, and I know that some of you all had complaints about this one fourth-grade teacher (ifkyk), but in all honesty, a majority of your complaints are due to you enabling your kids too much. Yes, I do get that they were harsh at times, and they even singled me out for being disorganized, but it was a life lesson for me. I also witnessed them being harsh towards a student, but they were doing their work on a table that had a chair on it, and they were kneeling on the ground, resulting in their inability to concentrate properly, so in that case, they had a right to be harsh. Some of their biggest flaws were singling out students who were ahead or behind, which I was not a fan of. I remember one of my classmates transferred schools because they got singled out for being the "bad" student, which was messed up since if you were worried about their progress, it would be better to talk to the student's parents about it rather than humiliating them in front of the class. That being said, in most cases, they had a right to scold students since the students would be rather mean to the teacher (I witnessed this throughout my whole K-12 education), and they were the most stern about it, which led to parents and students not liking them. I have a feeling that maybe her reputation wouldn't have been so bad if parents didn't constantly enable their kids I also noticed that the school should do a better job with substitute teachers. During my fifth grade year, my teacher was on maternity leave, so we needed a sub and this led to the class getting out of control and my parents were having complaints about the students not learning and the children behaving badly (bullying, passing mean notes, talking over the teacher, having no regards for the rules, etc) and again, this could have been a result in parents enabling their kids too much. I was more grounded, and this led to me being bullied and singled out, so when graduation came, I felt empty towards everyone. There was this one yard member who would always come to my classroom and yell at everyone for no reason, which got on my nerves and was rather unpleasant to deal with at 8:30 am. I was also not a fan of the fact that some of my classmates were boy crazy in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade since I just wanted to live life. In all honesty, my experience could have been better, but the end of my fifth-grade year made my experience pretty bad, along with cliquey classmates and bullies.

I'm not going to say that I hated this school BECAUSE I DIDN'T. However, I have had a considerable…read moreamount of negative experiences at Tobias. These experiences were mainly pertaining to the staff of the school. To start, the P.E. teacher, Ms. Brown. She was very rude and it's very clear that she had favorites. She would yell at many students she deemed not athletic enough. It was incredibly humiliating for various students. I just feel like she could have dealt with this in a better way, due to comments she has made towards me specifically, I've started dealing with low self-esteem and insecurity. Another teacher that MANY of my friends and former classmates have reported having very unpleasant experiences with is Mrs. Harsono. I don't really need to use many words to describe how she acted towards me and many other students. She acted incredibly brutal with certain students, going as far as showing their work and criticizing every little thing about it without permission. Something that I noticed is that she would "pick on" students who had trouble participating and were behind when she could've put in the effort to help those students by simply being less harsh. Honestly, my fear of failure goes to her, the same with all my anxieties. I was so stressed AS A NINE YEAR OLD because of her. Although I had some bad experiences, there was also some good! Most of my positive memories come from third and fifth grade. I had made lots of good friends and made many memories during those times. During these years I had great and understanding teachers. All in all, this school was okay. I wouldn't say that it was great but it wasn't horrible either!

Found this school in the summer of 2023 for my granddaughter. My first impression was really great…read moreseeing the summer school program teachers and aides were very welcoming. Enrolled her to 1st grade and I can say that it was the best decision we made for her. She was always happy and excited not only to see her friends and teachers but the learning experience she has with this school. I can understand the frustration of some parents about the recent changes that the school experienced, however I am also confident that these changes will bring better outcome too. The school earned an accreditation despite the changes and that speaks a lot. On a personal note, I would choose this set up than public elementary school where ratio is somewhere between 20-25:1 (student:teacher) vs 2:1 at HCA. If I am looking for quality education and experience for my granddaughter, I am still going for HCA.

Never seen a school environment where the parents and teachers giving 200% involvement on the sake…read moreof our future leaders. Everyone knows each other children. A very save environment. A small community has its potential. At least I see it from my niece. Due to low enrollment, 1 teacher teaches 2 grade students. Being in the kindergarten last year, she was exposed listening or learning the 1st grade work. Now, she is in 1st grade. It's just the 2nd week of the school year, she did 1st grade homework all on her own.

My family and I have finally found a place to worship!! This Church is an amazing Christian…read moreexperience based on the teachings of the Holy Bible. Everyone is so kind and welcoming. So glad to be a part of this!

Definitely one of my favorite churches. I feel like I was sorta raised in this church. They've…read morealways been welcoming to me and there's so memories here. They put on the best plays. The drive in church service was pretty cool too. I love the message here. They definitely stick to the real word of God.

My son's Kinder year was terrible. His teacher was so disorganized they even brought in another…read moreteacher to assist, which also didnt help as she was just disorganized as the first one. His current 2nd grade has also been bad. His teacher left in October, kept pushing her return just to not come back at all. His class has been covered with substitute teachers. I signed him up for an afterschool program only for them to tell me they had no room, however the afterschool program made sure to charge me the registration fee and weekly fee.

John Muir is a wonderful school. The principal, Dr. Frances Dunleavy, is warm and caring...I've…read morenever seen a school principal as involved as she is. Every morning she is out greeting the kids (ALL she knows by name) and parents. She will stop and take the time to speak with anyone who has a suggestion or concern. AND she goes to all school functions. Besides that, she is a fun person with a great personality. The parents are very friendly...you always feel welcome there. I honestly wasn't expecting the other parents to be so involved and so nice to be around. This makes you want to go to all functions because you know you will have a blast. I can't speak for all teachers...but the kids I know all seem happy with their teachers. MY sons kindegarten teacher is top notch in my book! Mrs. Claussen has a wonderful way of being warm and loving with the kids and at the same time, is no pushover and the kids respect her for that. She has a great sense of humor and a wonderful teaching style. There's my 2 cents (more like 80 cents!) If you are deciding whether to have your child attend John Muir, please call Dr. Dunleavy and schedule a tour, you will not be disappointed.