The Langley School

Hello. I am a Langley graduate who has been attending The Langley School since preschool. I have some very mixed feelings about this school but the only conclusion I can and will draw is that you should not send your child here. Do not get me wrong, you can make great friendships and hopefully learn something, but the toxicity that myself and many others were constantly being surrounded with would not stop. There were multiple instances where I was being bullied and this school did nothing to stop it. They say that we need to advocate for ourselves in situations of bullying but maybe we would not have to advocate for ourselves so much if someone in the administration put their foot down. No child should have to go home to their parents crying because some kid made fun of them and even when it was brought to the administrations attention, all that kid got was a "this is not apart of our core values do not do it again." Guess what? the kid does it again, and again, and again because that is what they taught us! They taught us that even if someone says something offensive or terrible, all that will happen is a talking to. If you would like for your child to know how to behave and learn in a healthy environment, consider sending your child elsewhere. That covers bullying and unfortunately that is not even the biggest issue. Academically, only two of my classes prepared me for high school. Teachers will only blame the student and not realize that there is a problem with the way they are teaching. However, at least the rude and undisciplined students prepared me for any toxicity I may encounter in the future. At times speaking from experience, a teacher will yell at you for something that you may have not even done. They have no right to do so if a child has proven they have done nothing wrong. We are their students, not their children and they need to do a better job with that. Back to bullying, I wanted to try a new sport in my 8th grade year which was supposed to be my best year, and all these students did was talk bad about me behind my back saying that I was terrible and all of these other horrible things. Sure this was not my main sport, and I never wanted it to be but who are these students to tell me that? A school should be a place where a student can grow and try new things and I got none of that. Coach did nothing about it, and it was a middle school team so it was mediocre at best. I hope this review is helpful.

Awful and appalling are the only words that come to mind when describing The Langley School. All good reviews you see are from the parents of younger children who still like Langley before the teachers become under qualified, bullying isn’t punished, and a horrible school community forms in later elementary and middle school. I am a recent alum, now attending a college preparatory high school, and I can say almost anything is better than Langley. Whether the academics were challenging varied from class to class, and over half of the teachers seemed SERIOUSLY under qualified for their positions. Parents, DO NOT fall for the claims that this school will prepare your child for high school. I am only prepared regarding work load, not content, so I suppose Langley did a good job overworking us! The absolutely appalling part about this school is the punitive system. When students are bullied or racial slurs are said, absolutely nothing is done by admin. If anything, you’ll be sat down in an office with the persons and both given a discussion about dropping the issue and getting along better with Langleys so called “core values”, values that they refuse to reinforce and are only a marketing tactic. All middle school students hate the school and cannot wait to get out for a good reason. The drama and toxic culture is beyond what anybody would be prepared for, and this is not just regular middle school drama. Admin is never aware of the Middle school issues, and they don’t care about anything going on with older students. The school sports are below average, average at best, and there is no school spirit or enthusiasm. The school enforces very specific political values on students and ideologies during “REACH” class and do not inform parents about what they are teaching their children. Lastly, the school only cares about money, and hounds you with emails about making donations the second you graduate. This school prepared me workload wise, and I become more socially intelligent due to the amounts of drama and bullying at this school. Overall, I would not recommend for the varying academics and horrible school community. DO. NOT. SEND. YOUR. CHILD. HERE!!!!!!!!!!!

I have three children at The Langley School and this is our 6th year at the school. It a wonderful community of parents, administrators and teachers that all care deeply about the children. The curriculum in engaging and challenging and the environment fosters a culture of curious children that care deeply about one another and the broader world around them. My oldest son is now in 5th grade and I've been so impressed by the way Langley has intentionally developed not only the curriculum since his start in Kindergarten, but his ability to work through conflict, manage competing priorities and deal with a stressful situation.

Our family has been at Langley for two years and we have been very impressed with the teachers and administration. They are attentive, caring, and experts in the classroom. My child jumps out of the car every morning and can’t wait to go to school. If the teaching teams continue to be this strong then I imagine we will be a part of the community for years to come.

We have been at Langley for a few years, and our experience from year to year has varied greatly depending on the teacher. JK was ok, Kindergarten was fantastic with Miss E, and first grade was slightly worse than JK - and we don't even have the "worst" teacher. I have wanted to love this school, but time and again they fall short of their own core values, especially as it relates to kindness and more specifically bullying. They say it is not accepted, but when it occurs little if anything is done, especially when the bully is the child of a teacher, or in more than one instance when the teacher is the one doing the bullying (name calling, including racial slurs have been overheard). We chose this school because of the Social Emotional Learning philosophy, but have been incredibly disappointed by how lacking it is in practice. The turnover at the admin level has no doubt allowed some of this behavior to occur, but it was happening under the prior admin too, and it isn't getting better under this one. We don't want our child to be in an environment where bullying is ok, or even tolerated. We had hoped better for this school and if things don't change next year, we will be leaving the school like many other families already have.