Marlin Hills

Well-intended staff members (some more than others), but overall chaos. Unfortunate result in a policy landscape where a public school draws primarily from immediate local demographics but school "choice" allows many to flee to higher-scoring schools in the area. The local community has also been resistant to boundary realignment. The remaining demographic would highly benefit from trauma-informed strengths-based staff members, but many instead are in survival mode. Standards are not high. Staff seem to be left looking for shortcuts and focusing on the negative, lacking attention to individualized (and special education) care, and otherwise not creating an environment for children to prosper. Not the worst school in the world, and I could say positives and negatives on both administration and frontline staff, plus they certainly could use more support, but this is not a school where many children would thrive, sadly.

My experience as a parent has been nothing but positive. The school has such a strong community vibe and whenever I pick up my child every day, it seems she has made a new friend of a different age. This place is very special, and we feel very fortunate to be a Marlin family.

I had my girl in this school for 3 months recently. I am glad that I took her out and would not recommend this place. Couple of things:The teacher/student ratio is variable on day-to-day basis. Some days I saw more students in a class. Also my girl would be with different teachers and friends on a regular basis. While this may seem a minor issue, I personally prefer having the same teachers and peers in her class and this is important for her to feel comfortable and learn from her peers.Many days I've noticed teachers on mobile phones during school hours. This is very annoying. As a parent, I'd want my kid to stay safe under an adult supervision and this was a big minus here. More specifically, in the classroom where my girl was, the teacher was juggling between the class and office, so there were times where these kids are unsupervised. This really freaked me out.Overall, I did not find my girl learning substantially in these 3 months while I saved few hundred bucks in tuition.