Stillwell Dr #X5HCFG, West Des Moines, IA 50266

This school has been a big disappointment for our family. I have 3 children at this school. Our family moves frequently, and this is the third elementary school our family has attended. This school is different from the other schools in several unfavorable ways. The most alarming for me, is the total refusal of the school to allow parent volunteers during the school day. Other schools have happily allowed parent volunteers during the day to assist with small group projects and helping the teacher with miscellaneous tasks. Not at this school. The only times parents are invited to the school during the school day is to attend 3 carefully curated class room “parties” a year. These parties pretty much consist of kids playing games and eating. They do not in any way depict what is actually going on in the classroom and what kids are learning. As a parent, I find it vital to be involved with my child’s classroom. Just volunteering in their classes once a month at their previous schools gave me valuable insight into what they were learning and helped me reinforce learning at home. By denying parents the opportunity to be present in classrooms, it makes me wonder what exactly they don’t want us to see. Parents are also not invited on field trips making me question if supervision is being adequately provided. Although Great Schools gives this school a population of 599 students, it is actually closer to 750+. Boundary lines were recently redrawn for this school, and there is a large amount of high density housing within it’s boundaries. I question if these schools were built to accommodate such large enrollments. The cafeteria is only big enough for one grade level at a time with kids in grades k to 5 needing a lunch period. This results in kids needing to eat at very inconvenient times ranging from 10:50 am to 12:45 pm. I do question if the school refuses to allow parent volunteers because they do not want the overcrowding to be seen. My kids do complain that they feel the school is crowded, but classroom size has been below 25 kids for all of them. The schools has 5-6 sections of each grade. Finally, I am very disappointed by the lack of after school enrichment programs at this school. I feel like elementary schools on the northern edge of the school district, such as Grant Ragan and Schuler, get the bulk of the after school enrichment programs.