Laurel Plan in The Ponds by Kolter Homes
Summerville, SC 29483

I am a teacher at this school. I have been a teacher for decades, have taught at many different schools, and with many different administrators. I am very pleased with the administration team at this school and the leadership provided by Mrs. Kelley. It all begins there to establish the culture of a school. They are impressive and involved here as administrators. They know the students, are are responsive if there is a problem in the classroom with behavior. There is not a middle school in the world that does not have students in middle school who make mistakes and do dumb things. That is part of the age of our students. I love that if a student is not behaving they will remove that student from the classroom, so everyone else can learn and the lesson can proceed. I have never worked anywhere where that has happened, and it makes a huge difference. Our principal is down to earth and supportive, and she does not micromanage. She allows teachers to teach and to do what is best for students. She has a hands-on approach to building relationships with students and personally greets every busload of students to welcome them daily and remind them to put away phones and hats etc. She is walking the halls and engaging with them. They know her and want to please her because they have a connection with her. The Josten's Renaissance Program is a huge bonus to this school and has been blooming this past year. It has created a more positive environment for all who spend their days within the walls of this school. Students, staff, & faculty (called staffulty) are all recognized for doing what they are supposed to and for improvement. They plan events for the kids and have lots of incentives for doing the right thing. This positive approach is far better than a focus on discipline and negative consequences. Everyone who comes to GMS deserves to be recognized & celebrated for good choices, improvement, and overall achievement. Effort counts & striving students who struggle are also celebrated. This matters. Some students will never be the top students in school because of their learning challenges. This system still gives those students positive recognition & celebrates their efforts to do their best in school. I can only expect the school to improve each year as this Renaissance mindset continues to grow & spread through the entire school. GMS was recognized this year at the Josten's Renaissance International Conference as a Josten's School of Distinction!

This is my first year at Summerville high and I can say without a dought in my mind that this school is awful. There are so many problems when you start looking closer for example, in my pe class for the first 30 minutes of that class we just sit there and it is called our reflection time but the pe teachers just use it as a time so they can talk about random stuff I here them they are talking about food and other none important stuff that I did not sign up for. most of their equipment is either broken or just mangled, for example a week ago when I was grabbing a badminton racket mine was bent out of shape so bad it looked like a potato chip and the school says that they are going to borrow more from another school. and maybe they would not have to do that if they didn't spend so much on the football team. I mean every half year they get a new redone field and new jerseys and pads if even one of them breaks. and they just added the 600 building a couple years ago witch added a bunch of new classes thankfully but they cut anyway that they can for example the food it is just not good the food I scold sometimes or the pizza is just rubber and cheese and I don't even know if it is cheese. and some of the teachers don't even try or they treat us like kinder gardeners and I would love to learn as much as I can there is so much stuff I would like to learn but the school does not offer any of it and the school I always trying to take our money, everyday they have snacks you can buy for like 200% the price. and the prom that is coming up it cost 50$ to join that is so unreasonable and it is most likely going to the football team.