2320 Capitol Way S
Olympia, WA 98501

Best middle school around! I’ve had multiple kids here and they’ve all had great experiences!

Lots of clubs, great school spirit, great education...they're really focusing on the mental health of the students (especially after COVID). As a parent I'm impressed.

Although Lincoln could be a bit more Structured in the learning as far as, making sure kids are learning how to spell with spelling quizzes or some kind of pressure on their performance to help the children want to be better and making sure children are setting goals to meet a personal goal or something to strive for. Just to set up for college. it has so many wonderful unique experiences for the children like the garden, the wetlands, the community within the children and teachers and because of the mixed aged classrooms. It would be awesome if they also added more life skills and unique things like crocheting, cursive, calligraphy. The teachers seem to like to work at Lincoln and I know Lincoln has been absolutely amazing for our son. The communication is excellent from the staff as well as parent to parent. It's a really beautiful community to be a part of.

My daughter has been attending ORLA for her sophomore year. She feels the environment is fun, engaged, positive and honoring of various learning styles and needs. While we wish it were more ethnically and culturally diverse, we do appreciate the neurodiversity, gender diversity (not just girl/boy), and socioeconomic diversity. This is an interesting blend of alternative school, home school and traditional public school. I love the mission, really addresses a need in the community where kids might otherwise “fall through the cracks”. The class offerings are a good mix of core classes and fun electives like yearbook/media production, pottery, and theater. We have seen our daughter thriving academically and the monthly progress accountability checks seem to help. She is a self-motivated learner and I do wonder how kids who are not self-starters are able to keep up with assignments as it does seem like there may be some wasted instructional time while the class “goofs off” (social time?) and there ends up being a lot of homework time needed at home as a result. But that might not be the case for all kids - mine tends to get caught up in having fun with friends. To be honest, this is tipping the scales for my kiddo in a direction she needed after missing out socially during the pandemic and following years. Overall we are quite happy with our experience here and wish we could have enrolled her earlier and lived closer so we could be more involved in the school community.