1908 Highwinds
San Antonio, TX 78258

Great school in a fantastic school district. Feeds Johnson High School.

I attened Johnson High School in the 2023-2024 school year, during my freshman year.I do not have any positive things to say about my experience.I am allergic to chemical fragrance, and to some cleaning products, which I unfortunately only learned after attending Johnson. To sum up the days I attended there, to call myself a warped version of myself would be an understatement. I had every allergy symptom in the book whilst attending, brain fog, fever, swelling, eczema, fatigue, post nasal drip, rashes, itching, full-body inflammation.And yet nobody cared. I would go to the nurses office almost daily, clocking in with a fever of 99°, and despite telling the nurse a normal temperature for me was 96°, she would send me back to class. Even when I was seriously ill, I would be sent back to class due to a district policy, like all kids. At one point I had such an eczema flare up behind my ear, the spot where the ear connects to your head, that the nurse described it as an "open wound". It was as painful as you'd think. She simply bandaged it and sent me back to my class. The same class where kids ridiculed me, asking me if I was "turning into an elf". and would empty out bottles of cologne onto eachother, at one point cracking an entire glass bottle of cologne onto the floor. We had to stay in the classroom. I am not academically challenged, and yet I had grades no higher that 30's in all my classes. Perhaps if the counselors cared they would have done something, anything, when they saw my grades from 8th grade, A's and B's. Seen that something was wrong, but nobody cares at a school with 3500 kids. The kids at this school, from my memory, were either shut down and silent, or loud, mean kids, who spoke like they were raised on tiktok. The bathrooms, boys and girls, were hazy with vape smoke. Even after instilling a policy that any kid caught with a vape would be sent to alternative school, this problem continued.When the electricity went out, the sinks wouldn't work. During passing period, kids would be packed together like sardines. A girl on my school bus would empty out aersol cans of perfume onto herself daily, yet nothing was done, even after reporting it. I do not believe any middle schoolers were prepared for the reality of Johnson, Tejeda wasn't.I beg all parents, do not send your kids to Johnson. They can't manage their student population, and because of that, nobody will care about your child's education. Nobody will care.

I am not sure if the issue is the school or the required NEISD curriculum, but focus seems to be solely on STAAR-test preparation and computer assessments. Math and reading assignments seem to be a mixture of packet and tablet and seems incredibly disjointed and hard to follow. My child tells me that most instruction is watching a video. With the exception of weekly spelling/vocabulary tests, the majority of the assessment are on computer, so I have no idea what my child is actually learning or what he is missing. A large number appear to be computer-based District End of Unit Assessments, and I have been told it is frequently hard for even the teachers to understand what the questions are asking (and parents never see them). Content instruction appeared to end in March to review and take practice tests for the STAAR. After the STAAR tests, my student had project-based weeks on economics and Ancient Rome that appeared educational and finally discussed a book in class, so I think maybe the teachers are trying, but everything else since has just been review. Until this book study, my 3rd grader, to my knowledge, had discussed no books in class. Short passages as presented on the STAAR test have replaced any discussion of high-quality literature. I saw maybe three writing assignments of any substantial length, with everything else solely short responses.Equally concerning is that content in science and social studies seems almost non-existent. Time is scheduled for either, not both, and for the past two years my child has frequently said they ran out of time to get to it. It makes no sense to me as this content, with varied information and types of material, could be used to augment language abilities and introduce concrete math and analysis concepts and thereby innately improve test performance. Grade and assessment wise, my child is doing well and with 12 MAP tests and other countless practice tests, progress well-monitored (no wonder there is no time for anything else). I just believe he is not being provided with a well rounded education or love of learning and it is reflected by his comments that school is a waste of time. I believe the exposure to a diverse study body is equally important, so other options are not ideal, making it incredibly disappointing that what is supposed to be a top public school in the area is so lacking in a quality education.