1113 Arizona Ave
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33312

In my honest opinion the school has gone down quite a bit and the Principal needs to work on her people skills. My son started out at this school when he was 4-years-old ((7years) ago and they had a wonderful Principal. The Principal that they have now is more into her looks than being hands on with the students. My child has wonderful teachers this year and he's really enjoying school as opposed to last year. Some of the teachers that he had from Pre-K to 2nd grade are gone and the were wonderful teachers.There have been others in between that are still there but it's not the same since the other Principal and teachers left. I'm hearing about numerous students transferring out and I have never seen that happen at this rate. There's so much favoritism amongst some of the teachers and the bullying is also out of control. I'm glad that things seem to be different this year because my child loves his new teachers. The issues at this school are: Being more concerned about passing tests than actually working with the students to improve their grades, bullying amongst students and sometimes from the teachers that have no issues with embarrassing students in front of their peers, and the other staff members being so nasty towards the students ( especially the so-called cafeteria monitors or whatever they are called), and the serious issue with bullying needs to be taken care of asap. Once those things are done then you will see a serious turn around at that school.

We didn't even complete the first quarter so this account is from Fall 2022. CommunicationMy child was enrolled in Gifted Academy at Parkway Middle as a 3rd grader on campus. We attended orientation and walked away confident that they were ready for school. No one mentioned 40 employees of the staff including our assigned teacher from the previous academic year resigned. The Gifted Coordinator presented herself during our school tour as a parent liaison, but she was sent back to the Gifted office and no longer on campus.In the first 6 weeks, there were almost daily accounts of bullying, violence, and racial micro-aggressions. The teacher never completed an incident report for any matter. Children sustained injuries due to poor adult supervision by the Literacy teacher. Parents notified us when they found the classroom in disarray and no instruction was taking place after coming in for a classroom birthday party. All Children are Gifted A group of parents asked about a psychologist auditing the classroom to determine additional support needed. The principal responded that she believed that "all children were gifted." The principal reassigned an inexperienced teacher who was not gifted endorsed also teaching 4th grade. This increased the class size where we had kids with untreated diagnosis of ADHD, Anxiety, APD, SPD, etc.Spanish classes had a sad curriculum where my child watched the movies, Coco and Encanto, in Spanish in the first weeks of school. The only curricula with competent instructors were the Arts Education - Music and Dance.SafetyAfter drop off, we watched the "security" team wrap the gate with a chain each morning. We didn't realize that the concern was issues inside the school. The active shooter drills were unplanned and disorganized. The teacher informed the children that they would be dead if an intruder arrived because they made too much noise. The first school lockdown, we waited in our cars to enter the pick up with no communication from Security. Our kids informed us that there was a fight and the school was locked down. When a group of parents inquired about the lockdown and future communication plan the following day, we were told that no such thing occurred. This all occurred in the first 6 weeks. After multiple emails, submitting reports and , attending meetings with Compliance, ESE Advisory Council, Gifted Advisory Council, contacting School Board members, we withdrew.

It’s a great school they offer great ap classes