7373 Hidden Knolls Ct
Springfield, VA 22153

We moved into this school this year and have a 2nd and kindergartener. So far, I haven’t been impressed. First, the school is huge, over 750 students, so this is not a neighborhood community-feel elementary school. My youngest son had a concert at the school for Thanksgiving and as we were leaving he said goodbye to the music teacher. She responded, “bye.” I could tell that she had no idea what my son’s name was, and that does not make me feel good as a parent. Secondly, the speech teacher, special ed teacher and a few others tried to bully me into putting my son on a speech IEP. I have nothing against IEPs, when necessary. But they brought up a speech concern and immediately told me the only option was to put him on an IEP. It was very clear to me that they wanted their government funding for number of IEPs in the school. That was all they cared about. I stood strong and wouldn’t sign off on it, but what a shame that everything is about money even at an elementary school. Third, the principal— who even is this lady? I barely see her, and the one time I did see her, it was about 30 minutes before dismissal and she was standing in the hall by the front door with her purse in her hand like she was getting ready to leave. Before the students were even dismissed! The school communication is awful, we never really know what’s going on, and some teachers relay a lot more information than others. It’s disorganized. Finally, the school does not seem like a welcoming place. The kids are not allowed to bring in anything for their birthdays— no treats, no little goody bags… so to make my child feel special I have to throw a large, expensive birthday party. Whenever we have a meeting at the school (just a few times) we ring the doorbell and the office staff asks who we are and what we want. When we respond with “we have a conference with so-and-so” we get questioned again — “well what time is your meeting/conference?” It’s like they don’t really want parents there. Same goes for field trips or class parties, they allow 2-3 parents to sign up and then don’t allow anyone else to come. Because I didn’t sign up to volunteer for my son’s holiday party in the first 5 minutes of it being released, I am not allowed to be there. Difficult to explain to my 5-year-old. I will say that my each of my son’s teachers seem pretty good, but overall, the school and community has been a huge disappointment. I would not recommend to others.

Irving Middle School offers solid preparation in algebra and geometry but lacks in overall readiness for high school. While the student body is generally okay, instances of racism are concerning. It's a mixed experience with room for improvement. The staff at this school are the worst people I've ever seen at any school. The strict policies make it difficult for students to really enjoy attending and engage fully in their learning experience. Other than that, this school isn't the worst but I wouldn't recommend sending anyone here

West Springfield is a big school, and the majority of the students and teachers here are nice. As a student with a 504 plan, for the most part it has been respected and implemented properly. The school is safe, and we have regular drills and very clear procedures. I will point out a few problems: This is an achievement-oriented school and there is a lot of pressure on us to take Honors, AP, DE, and get straight A's, be in honor societies, and be on a sport's team. They are trying to support student mental health and wellness, but the time where we did that was when we can work on assignments and study for tests. The teachers care about our mental health, but the student mental health lessons aren't helpful. This led to more stress because we had less time for our assignments, and we get a lot of them and I have had up to three tests in one day. Incidents where students use offensive humor (racist, sexist, homophobic, ablest "jokes") should be taken more seriously. On multiple accounts, I have heard my peers use the r-slur, racial slurs, racist jokes or say "special ed" as a derogatory term.