TBD Mcdonald Road
Pinehurst, NC 28374

I have a senior and a graduate from Pinecrest. They both had positive experiences. The graduate is now working on a master’s degree.

In an effort to provide an open and honest review, I'll start with the good... The school is safe and clean, the new building opening next school year is massive and state-of-the-art, the majority of the teachers are great, and Principal communication is good (robocalls daily). Now the not-so-good... Our children spent several years at this school, made many friends and great memories. As the years progressed, we noticed changes in regards to the education and discipline approaches. Discipline issues ruled the classrooms each year (with little/no consequences for bad behavior). Kids who are middle or high performing are left completely unchallenged. The teachers are overwhelmed with nonstop digital assessments and teaching just to meet the EOG testing requirements to pass the students at the end of the year. As we started to pay more attention to what our children were (not) learning, we realized they weren't being challenged at all and decided to move to a local charter school. Many of the teachers are amazing and loving, but they are not empowered with the ability to effectively discipline or provide any structured curriculum to help the students advance beyond the status quo, or even get to grade level in many cases. Additionally, the school focuses heavily on social-emotional learning in order to guide student emotions in a certain way psychologically. It's nonstop... What color of emotion are you feeling today? Take an emotion survey today that will go to a 3rd party for analysis. Tell the school counselor how you feel today. It started to seem like assessing and documenting student feelings was more important than student academics/learning.MCS needs an overhaul, because it's not just PES but other district schools too. Perhaps MCS should get back to focusing on academic excellence, or more children will leave the traditional public school system and go to charter or private.

I had 2 children attend this school all three years and it was fine for one and a nightmare for the other. We received no support from the school regarding the bullying that was taking place for my child. Regardless of multiple calls and emails nothing was done to help the situation. My husband and I had to try to diffuse the situation. Teachers seem to have their favorites as well and we have been on both ends of the spectrum with that. Needless to say it was such a relief when both kids were out of there and started highschool. This was over 10 years ago so hopefully it has gotten much better since then but from what I have heard it has not.