My teen is in their second year at Griffin and we feel so grateful for this school. The staff is…read moreamazing and have been so supportive. I feel they genuinely care about my child and they are very responsive. It is also really wonderful to have a place where kids are encouraged to be themselves. The education is also top notch - challenging, but not overloading kids with homework and busywork. Class sizes are very small and teachers get to know each child.

You know how sometimes you think it would be fun to try a new hobby but then decide it's equally…read morefun and less trouble to have drinks with friends instead? Art+Wine night provides a solution to this dilemma. Show up with your favorite wine and whatever art skills you do (or don't) possess and Natalya will provide all the supplies and knowledge you need to paint something worthy of displaying in your home. The website shows the project that will be taught on each date so you can pick and choose which nights you want to sign up for. The classes are small which allows Natalya to give everyone individualized instruction. I've been to four Art+Wine nights and I see SO much improvement since my first painting! I had never used oil paint and after taking a 2 session oil class I left with a legit fruit bowl painting. Artists of all skill levels come to Art+Wine night and everyone learns something new or improves their technique. It's a great way to spend a Friday night and accomplish something while drinking!

My son thrives on the love and personal attention he's received since he started attending PK2 more…read morethan two years ago. Being the parents of an only child, my husband and I were unfamiliar with how little idiosyncrasies in his behavior were of some concern on a larger scale. We just thought his younger age was the reason. At the end of the spring semester, both his PK2 teacher and school director, Amber, brought it to our attention with the utmost respect and love. Upon returning for his PK3 year, his new teacher and Amber addressed it again with the same respect and care saying that he may benefit from further evaluation from his pediatrician. Speaking from personal experience, this was THE BIGGEST BLESSING we could have received for our child. We saw his pedi, followed up with more professionals, and he has improved drastically in less than a year and a half. We want what's best for our son, and it is so apparently clear the loving staff at this school sincerely wants what's best for him and every child there. I find the teachers very approachable, Amber is always around for a conversation with little ones and parents and her door remains open all day (unless she's in a very rare personal conference, like the ones we had about our son's social development), and they have been the best at improvising given the Covid19 quarantine. They are sending daily pre-recorded lessons from his teachers for my kiddo (can't get enough of his music class or storytime!), and they gave us the option to withdraw while still holding our place for semesters for which we've already registered. A rumored claim I'd like to clarify from a reliable authority on the issue is that teachers were given the option to stay home during the outbreak while maintaining employee status and their health insurance. Given all the options some workers face at this time, staying home unpaid, while keeping health insurance, is better than being unemployed. It reassures me that the administration's loyalty to the teaching staff is of utmost importance for the social and emotional wellbeing in the young students who rely upon that stability. I recommend this school to everyone with room in their hearts for God's message. The preschool alone lays such a balanced foundation of faith, love, and service to others. They have been a cornerstone in our son's social, emotional, physical, and faith-based development.

We were considering Redeemer for our 2 children and thought the school seemed like it had a strong…read morecommunity and curriculum. My wife was raised Lutheran and was looking for a church in Austin to become part of and to teach our kids about her religion (we are an interfaith family, I am Jewish). We did a tour with Beth Knippa and sent our oldest for a shadow day after submitting an application. My child had an OK experience but said "other kids couldn't follow directions" (we were also told by faculty on pick up that my child followed directions and participated better than current students). We later got an e-mail from Beth asking how it went which I responded to positively and a short follow up later saying Redeemer "was not the proper learning environment for them". After the feedback we'd received so far this was surprising so we e-mailed Beth to ask if she could provide more context on their decision. She adamantly refused to provide any additional information (after my child had spent the entire day there and my wife did a follow up meet and greet with my younger child). Overall, it seems like interfaith families are out for the school - of course they couldn't cite that specifically (even if you're actively looking for a church community and 1/2 raised in the faith). Typically I wouldn't post an online review but both my wife and I were appalled by the lack of transparency in their decision which leads us to believe a lack of openness in the community to families from different backgrounds. We're still considering churches/a school that are the best fit for our kids and in hindsight are relieved that Redeemer made their true colors known early. It's certainly not the welcoming Christian community we'd hoped for.

Very friendly staff. Good seats. I am seeing H.M.S Pinnacle. It's a quaint theater.It was cool that…read morethey had a pre Talk. I learned a lot about this show from director and actresses. It is relevant to today. The director directed it 80 times. It's interesting.

Actually the most ass school ever bro They took our hour…read morelong lunch for a useless fucking advisory period and they used to have this lady that would look over stall doors to catch kids vaping as an assistant principal. Half of the teachers hate their job and no one knows why they're still here bc teachers get paid nothing... don't send your kids here

Yummy school food Mean kids…read moreWeird teachers Good memes Wendy near Is this long enough huh yelp?

Terrible school, fails to prepare students for life after high school. While some may say that they…read moremoved to Hyde Park to avoid vaping and smoking, Hyde Park has a huge vaping problem and the staff continues to look the other way.

I attended this school some years ago, and it was, and still is, a joke. Will you get a better…read moreeducation here than in public schools? Maybe in regards to math. But will your child leave here better off and prepared for the life ahead of them? No chance. The school is a sheltered island that practices borderline cult-esque ideals of religion and tries to indoctrinate students with a perspective of 'how the world should be' but completely fails to prepare them for how the world actually is. For all the heavily religious people out there, consider this. Roughly half of the students I know who attended Hyde Park no longer believe in God and directly point to this school as one of the primary reasons. I've never been religious but if I was that would be a horrifying statistic to me. And for those who are not religious, this isn't because the school promotes open minded thinking but rather is so far down the evangelical black hole that it ruins religion for most. Oh and if you actually care about the education aspect (which most parents at this school do not and are primarily focused on religion), check where their graduates go to college. The majority of them go to small, relatively obscure colleges because the school is not focused on education, but primarily religion. Students who attend a private school and pay for an elite education should not be struggling to get into Texas A&M if they're just outside of the automatic admit percentile. Yikes. Glad I graduated from a different school.

Had to google this to leave my review, that's how bad it is. But glad to see there are others…read more The boys are ok. The girls are exceptional. Meanwhile in this society boys get five stars for existing, while girls get a mediocre applause for being exceptional. I'm so sick of this shit. Why do the choir ladies fawn on the boys so much? It's sick. Every director or other person who is presenting always talks about how the boys are their favorite. They literally say that. To the point that you were BOOed by the audience while praising the boys as your favorite. The audience is done - are you even listening? Can we please stop coddling the boys and finally give the girls the recognition they deserve?

Terrible! I agree with "Lauryn D". The dress code is really stupid and the new assistant principal…read morehas been dress coding people in front of the whole school in a rude way. I do not like the new assistant principal. She is really rude and strict. Also last year there was a teacher who broke a kid's personal device because he was playing in class (he shouldn't have been, but the teacher overreacted). I think the school could be way better. The last thing is on the bus, you have to sit in assigned seats. Our bus driver asked us who we wanted to sit with, then purposely didn't put us with our friends. Also, one time I had my leg in the aisle and she immediately put me all alone in the front of the bus.

Our family loves St. Francis School (SFS, a pre-K through 8th-grade private nonprofit…read moreinterdenominational school operating for 30+ years near the ACC Highland campus in north-central Austin). After a mixed but ultimately disappointing experience in 1st - 3rd grades at a crowded, overpriced, chaotic start-up foreign language immersion school, our family needed a fresh start. Our once confident and joyful learner of a child had been reduced to an overstressed student who loathed school and struggled through hours of tedious homework each night. St. Francis provided the small, truly diverse and welcoming community environment we wanted for our child, with a balance of challenging academics, ethics reinforcement, and attention to the nurturing & development of the whole child by experienced educators who really know how to differentiate instruction to many types of learners. This approach has totally turned around our child's experience of school and his learning & achievement have skyrocketed over the past 2 years. His school grades are now more in line with his always high standardized testing results, and homework no longer comes to tears! Another parent reviewer said it well when she described the diverse and "unpretentious atmosphere" at SFS. Every imaginable demographic is represented in both the student body and faculty. People are kind and friendly and welcoming, and individual differences are celebrated. Every time I'm on campus, I just feel inspired and hopeful. Because SFS keeps class size (max of 15) and total enrollment (around 400) in check and teachers love the place so much they stay for decades, the small, cohesive "neighborhood school" feel is maintained. Huge props go to the incomparable founding head of school, Barbara Porter, who has since 1985 guided SFS on its core mission of "excellence without exclusivity." SFS backs that sentiment up by supporting 25% of the student body with scholarships and charging one of the lowest private school tuition rates in the Austin area, while consistently graduating their students into the most competitive public school magnet programs and private high schools. Another wonderfully unique feature among area private schools is the SFS Learning Center, where students with special needs can receive tutoring and additional services to support their success in school. Kids with learning differences are fully integrated into SFS classrooms and are able to thrive as part of a truly diverse school community. At the same time, a large proportion of the student body would be described as "gifted & talented," demonstrating highest performance in academics, the arts, and sports. Each Friday morning, an optional hour of "chapel" is held in which the entire student body and faculty, as well as any parents & family members who wish to attend, gather together in the gym to share an uplifting community-building and/or character-building assembly or pep rally to celebrate that month's achievements. It's not actually religious (although some religious content is shared from time-to-time; the school is named for St. Francis of Assisi, after all). The 8th-grade year culminates in a transformative Spring Break trip to Italy to visit the hometown of St. Francis (among other sites), and the kids raise all of the money for the trip themselves over the course of their years at SFS. I could say much more about all the reasons we love SFS, but if you are considering private school or are just looking for a better school for your unique learner, I encourage you to take a tour and see for yourself. Curriculum and other details are available on the school website at http://www.stfrancis-school.org.

Well run institution with a great culture…read more Pro: - Long Term: with over 35 years in operation, they've had time to build a strong program that will last through economic downturns. - Culture: teachers, students and parents are fully bought-in to the schools values (see school site for details). - Student attention: lower than average student/teacher ratios plus a dedicated, free-standing tutoring building adjacent to the school. Con: - Playground: nice but not inline with the quality of the rest of the institution. - Admissions: it's a centrally located, high quality private school in a growing city, meaning demand is high Personal lessons from our school search: After spending 12 months searching for the 'best school', we realized the importance of finding the 'best school for our child'. Initially, I was too tied up in rankings to spend the time to understand what was important for our family and how that lined up with each program. In the end, we loved the goals at St. Francis of (1) excellence without exclusivity, (2) a meaningful commitment to diversity and (3) attention to the needs of every student. Covid-19 update: School is really stepping up to deliver for students in a difficult time. The teachers are really going above-and-beyond.