Our family was part of the Summit Christian Academy community from 2023-2026. We had three children…read moreenrolled, volunteered, attended events, supported the school's mission, and I even coached basketball alongside the principal. Because of that history, writing this review is something I never expected to do.
Many teachers positively impacted our children. My concerns are specifically with the administration (Mindy Thom) and board leadership.
Timeline of events:
* 4/27/26- My 7-year-old son was accused of making an inappropriate statement. There was no allegation of physical harm to another student.
* 4/28 & 4/30 - He was suspended and returned to school on 5/1.
* No adult witnessed the alleged conversation. The allegation stemmed from information passed between students regarding a conversation that allegedly occurred weeks earlier. Given the lack of adult witnesses, conflicting accounts, and the age of the children involved, I expected a thorough investigation before significant decisions were made.
* 5/7 - While delivering a forgotten lunch to one of my other children, I discovered by accident that my son was eating lunch separately from his peers. The school had not informed us this was occurring. I later learned he was also spending recess away from classmates and, at times, with much younger students.
* When I asked if I could have lunch with him, I was denied and referred to a visitor policy. Despite my efforts, I could not locate such a policy in the Family Handbook.
* 5/8 - My son's teacher emailed me regarding restrictions involving Art, Music, PE, Spanish, recess, and other activities. The email referenced an individual support plan that administration had already provided to staff.
* Throughout May - Teachers, administrators, and Board members repeatedly referenced my son's "current support plan" when discussing restrictions and participation in activities. Despite repeated requests, we were never provided a copy. We also repeatedly requested an incident report regarding the April 27 allegation and never received one.
* 5/20 - We submitted a formal Board-level complaint regarding the disciplinary process, ongoing restrictions, communication failures, lack of documentation, and lack of parental involvement.
* 5/21 - We finally received a copy of the support plan, nearly a month after the incident and one day before the final day of school activities.
Between 4/27 and 5/21, my son had been suspended, isolated during lunch, separated from peers during recess, restricted from activities, governed by a support plan, and discussed repeatedly by teachers, administrators, and Board members. Yet despite repeated requests, we had neither an incident report nor a copy of the support plan being used to justify those decisions.
When meaningful responses were not provided, we obtained an independent review of the support plan and submitted our concerns to the Board. We eventually withdrew all three of our children from Summit's summer programs because our trust in the administration had been lost.
* 6/3 - We submitted a final detailed letter outlining concerns regarding the lack of documentation, missing incident report, support plan, and disciplinary process.
* 6/6 - Rather than receiving a substantive response, we were contacted by the school's attorney and instructed that future communications would go through legal counsel.
We later discovered references to the support plan in our son's report card and educational record. We retained legal counsel and formally requested removal of those references. Although we never received a substantive response, we later confirmed through our son's new school that the support-plan reference had been removed.
By the end of this process, our concerns extended far beyond one child. We had three children enrolled at Summit. After months of unanswered questions, escalating restrictions, Board involvement, attorney involvement, and unsuccessful attempts to obtain documentation, our trust in the administration had been completely eroded.
Ultimately, we withdrew all three of our children.
I delayed writing this review for several months because I hoped these concerns would be addressed privately and because we still have friends at Summit. My goal was never to attack the school. I simply wanted transparency, accountability, documentation, and meaningful communication.
Today, our son attends a different school. His most recent progress report states that he "takes great pride in his success" and is "thriving."
Children make mistakes. My concern has never been that discipline occurred. My concern is the lack of transparency, the inability to obtain requested documentation, the implementation of restrictions we discovered only by chance, and the use of a support plan that was repeatedly referenced before it was ever provided to parents.
The silver lining is that our son is thriving, loves school again, and is succeeding academically and socially.
