9 Cherry Lane
Madbury, NH 03823

Regardless of how many times parents and students have complained to the school about bullying, no progress is ever made. It’s very disappointing that the school claims to stand against bullying but never lives up to the ideals they teach. The bullying in Oyster River has only been exacerbating, especially since the now-Assistant Superintendent came to the ORHS community as principal. Over these years, we’ve seen a multitude of grave repercussions due to the administration’s neglect of ensuring the safety and well-being of the students, including a student taking their own life and another incident in which a student got a serious concussion from being assaulted by a bully in the cafeteria. Even worse, the school often mishandles the situation and imposes heavier penalties to the victim than the provoker, giving way to bullies causing further harm, and destroys all evidence of the incident to hide their incompetence as authorities. The fact that Oyster River is still a highly ranked school in the state is absurd. It is necessary that the Assistant Superintendent of the school district be removed from her position, in the interest of the students' safety.

We're moving out of the Oyster River School District so that our 4th grader won't have to go to ORMS. Homework, when it is assigned, is ineffective, particularly in language classes. Even academically gifted students who go from ORMS to private schools have to take remedial language classes to catch up. There are some great teachers, but there are also teachers who should have retired a long time ago. One year, they removed desks from the foreign language classes because it was the only way to get the kids to listen to the teachers. Students openly talk about teachers who are pervs, but say that there's no point in going to the principal because he thinks it's a he-said-she-said thing and won't do anything about kids and teachers who are sexual harassers. Bullying is also a huge problem at ORMS, and on the buses, and they don't seem to have any policies to deal with it.

Two of our children went through Moharimet, and I can vouch for the absolute professionalism and nurturing environment present throughout the school. My children, who are very different students, both thrived there. The sense of community at this school is truly remarkable, and students develop as people through a well-rounded curriculum and other activities, including maple sugaring, growing food, learning about the forest and environment, learning how to independently research topics on computers, etc. My son's class even built a boat. All while earning some of the highest academic scores in the state. A great education without the crazy pressure and homework loads you find at other schools. And the best playground ever!