Wow!! This is not the University I attended in the 80s. This is a major institution that spans 4…read moremore city clocks than it did when I walked those hallowed halls. I love it so much I might take a few classes just to experience the new vibes. The canmpus is beautiful and the new cultural offerings are mind-blowing. President Koch was busy. He took a great local university and turned it into a modern global campus. The student is so overwhelming, food everywhere, beautiful seating and meeting areas for the students to study and unwind. It was too much to take in. The walkways have all been widened and redone. Buidlings have new facades and have been expanded. I attended the part in the middle of campus and thought I was at a big campus, now it reminds me how it feels to stand in Richmond trying to find your way around Richmond University or VCU/MCV. Amazing. I am proud to be a Monarch.

This review is for the L.R. Hill Sports Complex. Built in 2008 it serves both ODU Field Hockey and…read moreLacrosse. The facility is amazing and many consider it one of the premier field hockey facilities in the country. The address is 4251 Powhatan Ave. Norfolk. Parking is on site and free some events. The area was debris free on my last visit. The bottom level houses 6,000 square feet of strength and conditioning, 3000 of athletic training a players lounge and locker rooms. The second level is used for conference rooms and coaches offices. Highlights of the complex. * 6,000 square feet of strength & training * 3,000 square feet of athletic training * 1500 permanent spectator seating * Astro turf 90 * Scoreboard, press boxes, lighting * Water cannon system for watering * Concession & restrooms * Parking close to the facility * Outdoor second level balcony for entertaining I've had the pleasure of touring the building and facilities several times its phenomenal. The only reason for a 4 star is due to no renovations have taken place since the original install 11 years ago. Everything is maintained by ODU and looks great!

I love visiting the Portsmouth Master Gardener volunteeers at the Virginia Cooperative Extension…read moreOffice. I bring my soil samples here for analysis. My lawn always seem to need a boost of something. Last year I spread lime and reseeded my spring/summer grass. This is the place to come for lawn and garden tips. I have learned how to plant in my flower beds so that I have color all yead. Love their container gardening tips and information on using raised gardening beds to grow my veggies. I dislike bending down to tend to my plants. I also enjoy the programs like the growing gardeners program for young children; rainbarrel making class and the helpline that you can call to get tips about moles and voles. They sell plants at their annual fall festival and have a booth at thr Portsmouth Farmers Market every Saturday. Come and check it out.

This preschool is incredible. The staff members are very warm, inviting, and professional. The…read moreteachers genuinely love these kids. I am so glad my son goes here. I truly cannot say enough good things about it. As a mom with prior daycare and preschool exposure before we moved here, this school takes the win by a landslide. We LOVE Bayside Presbyterian Preschool!

do not enroll your kids here!!! you do not want to waste your time with this child care facility!…read morethe staff are wonderful. wonderful environment, safe for the most part aside from their own past issues regarding relationships in the church. (google the church) the problem is dependability! this daycare closes to often and routinely based off the public school system!!! if thier closed the daycare school is closed. mind you if its a slight weather condition. (closed) the slightest instance boom, closed! multiple other prominent daycare facilities are open. check for yourself! for the average business professional, every day family, your inconvenienced regularly! absurd is a understatement! if you need dependability, reliability so you can manage your professional life this is not the daycare you want to enroll your children in!!! they will close and delay opening routinely!!! do not take my word for it ask other parents. the sentiment is across the board!!! choose another school you'll be doing yourself a huge favor!!! majority of parents bring their kids to the school themselves!! so why the constant closures?!?! what liability?" is there? the church doesn't seem to recognize the concerns of its clients (parents/children)! #seepic

My daughter has now been attending Strelitz for over a year. She started at around 8 months old…read more(as a little bub) and is now 20 months old in an early years/toddler program. She is thriving. They are teaching her so much! She is loving playing, singing, reading, and running around. She has learned to sit at a table, clean up after herself, say words and sign "more" and "eat". I'm so impressed. They send us weekly newsletters with tons and tons of photos and there is an app for parent updates and so we can interact with teachers throughout the day. They are very responsive. There is also a nurse on staff at all times and the administration (Elyssa and Natalie) are also very responsive and attentive, knowing every single child's name in the halls (I am impressed). The staff for the babies and toddlers are wonderful, loving and caring people. Bianca, Janae, Raven and Marisol as well as now Jaime and Sydnee are all stellar and I am happy to have my baby girl in a location with such attentive and caring people. They are always coming up with creative crafts and fun, letting the children explore with their senses, and teaching them to be kind and caring individuals. My daughter is happy about coming here every day and that is all I need to know. My parents and her other grandparent attended their grandparents day together around the Thanksgiving holiday and were super impressed with the school as well as the teachers. There was a welcome reception and then activity in the rooms where the grandparents got to see their spaces and do crafts with them. They had made each grandparent a thoughtful, personalize gift with photos to keep and my daughter's grandparents are obsessed. The facility, as mentioned before, is wonderful. It's a large building with secured entry and security who take their jobs very seriously - they have everyone scan in (and a photo shows up) and if you don't have your fob you must show ID and be on a list. I know this bc once my husband used my fob and they hunted him down bc his picture wasn't mine. LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS. The school is K-5th grade and they take babies as old as weeks to care for. A wonderful, wonderful establishment. Well-run and the best I've seen throughout the area. I could not be happier that my baby girl is here.

Babies to 5th grade. I'm pretty sure it's the only international baccalaureate grade school in the…read morearea. They learn Hebrew at an early age which will help with language skills when they're older. Violin is taught starting at kinder. Kids of all faiths and backgrounds go to school here. Small class size. Very caring teachers and councilors that care about the kids. Playground, pool, fun gym time and after school activities. I could go on and on but... All I'm going to say is I'm zoned for one of the best public elementary schools in the area and continue to keep my kid in this school. They actually TEACH my kid. Not just plop them in front of a computer. Worth every cent!

Frank W Cox is an excellent high school on N Great Neck Road in Virginia Beach. My son is a…read moregraduate of the school, which excels in academics & sports. My connection to the school goes beyond my son's education. During the time period my stepdaughter attended, I served as PTA President. The Falcons were a perennial State Field Hockey Champion during that time period. Golf was also a sport in which Cox excelled. During recent years the football team has done quite well. The Cox Falcons can claim over 50 State Championships. Some of my close friends were teachers at the school. Most have now retired. I first met one of my lineage society friends during an Open House when my son was taking one of her classes. We've been delighted in the years since that our friendship began with her having taught my son at Cox. I'll never forget the time our family was dining at a Shore Drive restaurant. I didn't know that the bar was the Cox teachers after school hangout. My stepdaughter was shocked. I remember her horrified statement "Teachers!!" I guess she expected teachers to disappear into the sunset when school ended for the day. :) The administration has always been excellent. I had a wonderful relationship with the principal Emily Tilley during the time I was PTA President. The Assistant Principals were promoted to their own Principal positions. I love the building and its layout. I'm hoping that it doesn't fall prey to the School Boards current "tear down & replace with a Taj Mahal" practice. Traditions & memories are important. My son attended Cox in the morning for academics & the Governors School for the Arts in the afternoon. One story tells everything about their academic excellence. Governor's School students were still expected to complete the same homework as full day students even though they had classes & rehearsals at Governors School well into the evening. My son particularly would complain about the difficulty of homework required in Advanced Placement English Comp. When we attended orientation at University of Cincinnati they conducted testing for all incoming freshman to see if they tested out of Freshman English. Because of my son's extensive classwork at Cox he told me "Please, please don't let me test into a higher level course." Of course he did test out of freshman English. Later in the semester I remembered to ask him about the higher level English class. He said it was easy. So Cox's college prep courses were phenomenal for college success. I love to tell this story to my Cox teacher friends. They should be praised for academic excellence. In recent years I was saddened when the School Board rezoned Thoroughgood from Cox to Princess Ann High School. Although I no longer had a student in school it was sad to see the history of neighborhood connection lost. It was an easier drive to Cox. The neighborhood behind us still goes to Cox. In fact, since my house backs up to that neighborhood, my GPS from the back side of my house thinks I am in Church Point. I'm certain the current generation of young parents are happy with their school, having not experienced Cox. I can't help feeling sad since I have no connection to the new neighborhood school. Even worse, the main proponent of the zoning change was a School Board Member who was a member of my Thoroughgood Elementary PTA Board when her oldest child was in kindergarten. Her children were zoned for Bayside High School. Was it a jealousy rezoning? I'll never be convinced of anything else. Go Falcons! You will always hold a special place in my heart.

Cox High School has a reputation for academics and athletics, The student body excels at both. Many…read moreconsider it as one of the top H.S in Virginia Beach. The school is home to the Falcons and they are only one of two city schools that do not have an academy. My daughter now attends as a Freshman. Located just off Great Neck Rd. its one of the more accessible schools to get in and out. The building looks pretty blah industrial and boring brick. I think it was built in the early 80's. The campus out front is pretty with hundreds of tall trees. The interior is noticeably dated in the auditorium seating. Everything appeared well maintained. I attended a recent orientation at the school and found the faculty to be overall caring. However, it's the administration with Dr. Kelly's leadership as principal that impressed me the most. On the academic side they are always considered a top school. In the last few years their ranking has slipped a bit. Do your own research. Dr. Kelly did tout they had the highest math scores in the city which is huge! On the sports side Cox holds over 50 state championships. In the past they dominated football and swim. Overall they are good at everything and strike on championships at every sport. They recently were moved down to 5A which will help them better compete. Although Cox is my home zone school my daughter had a choice through the academy system. I'm delighted she chose to attend Cox is already plugged in several activities.

My adult son went to Independence Middle School when VBPS was transitioning from the Junior High to…read moreMiddle School model. He only went to 7th & 8th grades at IMS. Sixth grade was still elementary school. The school is conveniently located in my neighborhood. So it was an easy bike ride to school. My step daughter played on the then Junior High softball team. The ballpark is located adjacent to the school. During my son's time at Independence I served on the PTA Board & as volunteer pianist for the Chorus Teacher, making it easier for her to direct. The school is one that hasn't been replaced in the School Board's continuing project of replacing schools with glitzy new buildings. This makes me happy since replacement takes away the history one experienced in the former building. The sense of place is destroyed. Today my IMS Voting Precinct looks just as it did when my children attended. That makes me happy. The students that attend the school are from a mix of elementary schools. The children from Thoroughgood Elementary are split between Independence & Great Neck Middle. During my children's era those classmates were reunited at Cox High School. Since redistricting the children attend Princess Ann High School, as do most of their IMS classmates. Voting at the school brings back many memories. Those of us who are neighborhood old timers always run into someone we know at the polls. So I enjoyed my voting experience today for many reasons.

The best teachers. My daughter studied here, it's the best school. I am very grateful to the…read moreteachers of this school.

I cannot say enough good things about BBMS. The staff care so much about the kiddos and create a…read moresafe space where learning is fun! My daughter recently had a birthday, and her teachers went all out. Set up special decorations, sent me tons of photos and videos, etc. She felt all the love. It's nice going off to work knowing your child is in the best hands possible. Thank you broad bay, for being the best!

Our children have both gone here for years. Great teachers and great curriculum, especially for…read morekindergarten.

A wonderful school and great educational experience from my youth, I miss it every day as well as…read moremy classmates!!

Site of high school 5A girls volleyball playoffs. Plenty of parking, good indoor/outdoor signage…read moreand some friendly volunteers. Entry price of $10 per person (kids included) is robbery but not set by the site. Boys restroom was a tad untidy and smelled like stale urine, typical high school bathroom. Glad they had working faucets bc our home high school doesn't have this. Gymnasium was a good size; well lit and fairly clean. 2 working scoreboards help keep athletes and spectators informed. Plastic bleachers for seating aren't the most comfortable but certainly better than standing. A good facility for girls volleyball, just wished it wasn't over 30 minutes from home.