Portland

I know several families, mine included, who pulled our children out of this school.Pros: Most staff are incredibly kind. I believe the genuinely care for the students as individuals. The have some fun activities throughout the year to involve families. The small town feel and overall sense of connection is meaningful and what kept us there for as long as we were there. Cons: Not a lot of learning takes place here, especially for kids who are performing at or above grade level. Teachers in multiple grades admit to not teaching science or history because they don't have time and need to focus on bringing below grade level students up to grade level in math and reading. A lot of time is spent on electronics rather than classroom instruction. When our child's scores were going down year-over-year we were told it was not a concern because they were still above grade level. They allowed our child to just play computer games and read books for the majority of the day and even praised them for being so independent with these things. We met with the principal about how to help them improve and were told, "well, in order to do that, they would have to actually be exposed to new content" (yes, please) and then gave the suggestion of downloading a higher grade's computer games on to their computer so they could learn more rather than offering to find a way to have someone teach new material. Ultimately, we decided to look at other schools within driving distance where our child could learn new content and they are thriving. We are glad we made the switch.