1303 Frederick Rd
Garner, NC 27529

If you are in IB, GMHS might be worthwhile. If not, good luck. The principal was largely unknown to the students and has not created a positive climate at all. The morale was terrible among the teachers. The administration repeatedly set policies, just to ignore them and then create another one. Understandably, no one took them seriously. Graded work was supposed to be returned within two weeks, but it rarely was. The response? Give them THREE weeks! And the teachers still didn't make that deadline. The teachers seem totally defeated because of all the behavior problems and disrespect. In turn, there was little respect shown to well-behaved kids - all my kids listened to day in and day out was criticism. It's a battle everyday just to get kids to pay attention, but when administration won't take quick and consistent action, it will never get better. If the kids just want to play on their phones and be disruptive, find another place for them and let the rest of the students actually learn something in peace. GMHS staff acts hopeless and dispirited.In attempting to get kids to pass, much of the work is dumbed down. Tests are almost always multiple choice and can be re-taken. Honors teachers assigned lots of projects and papers, most of which contributed zero to learning and mastery of content. It seemed almost like the teachers competed to out-project each other with something they found on the internet. Then, most of the teachers didn't even read the lengthy reports they required. They would be handed back eventually with no notes - just a grade. How does that help? Because the teachers didn't want to have to make new tests, often the kids would just be told their grades. There was no "going over the test" to make sure the students understood. We were told that anyone could sign up for honors classes - that the school could not control this - which is why they were such a circus. Even with IB, we were told, wcpss didn't want to exclude anyone, so kids who weren't strong enough academically to do the work plagued the program. Maybe 5 of 25 would read an assigned novel. There was no rigor in any of the classes other than IB and AP classes. The IB teachers were much better teachers but even they were hypercritical of students. It was completely counterproductive. Beautiful new building but halls and stairwells are SO undersized, they are DANGEROUS. God forbid there's an emergency! We couldn't wait for our kids to graduate. So disappointing.

I'm a student writing this review and to my experience I hated this encounter with different teaching lessons, they tried to be better, switching up everything but there's so many fights in a week, also with dispersion everyday with the same teachers. Most of the teachers don't care about a student's well being and there's roaches EVERYWHERE. It's insane. This school is collectively bad, and I'm extremely disappointed I barely learned anything in this school with little to no help. The only thing that would be good about this school is that they have police officers everywhere, concluding everyone's safety.

Our teachers and principal are second to none! They go above and beyond every day and make my son feel very comfortable at school so much so that he actually loves school! The school was rebuilt several years ago and is state of the art and beautiful. They implement new techniques and technology as it is introduced and host fantastic PTA events to raise school funds. I highly recommend this school.