2 Emerson St
Richmond, VA 23223

I have been with this school for two years and have experienced nothing but problems. Lack of follow through with the leadership and the teachers. Skill set of the counselors and community advocates is a shame.

I am not sure what the school is now my last child graduated 3 yrs ago . But my daughter was prepared for college. She has graduated college and is in her masters program as are most of the friends she had while attending HSHS. She is 24. Whenever the school gets good staffing they magically get promoted or moved. As if the school has been set up as a proving ground and the children there be damned. If the school is failing it due to the failing of the school board the adults in charge of making sure they are prepared. The school was overcrowded when my son was there So it’s not beyond thought that it is still wildly overcrowded now. Are any schools on the west end this crowded ? They aren’t . I attended schools in the west when I was young I have first hand experiences of the vast differences in how the kids are treated from one side of the county to the other . It is the failing of the people in charge . Not the children they are children .

I am a past student at this school. Just for context, I am a girl but my hair is tight and curly so it appears short. I also wear a lot of baggy clothes so I look more masculine which is confusing to some people I guess. Literally my first day there people were already making issues and talking about me. assuming I was transgender or something. It was a luxury for people to ask before calling me 'he' but most people made jokes and stuff. Most people were just rude in general because I'm quiet. I had to move classes at one point because I was being made fun of for being the only 7th grader in an 8th grade class (I'm IB) which has never made a lot of sense to me. After barely a month of going there things got way worse. I tried to go to the bathroom after being in the gross cafeteria and a girl literally blocked me from entering and said I was a boy. She laughed at me when I told her I was a girl which eventually made me cry. The teacher just got me to calm down and did nothing else but later that day in gym everything went downhill. The girls and boys were separated (which was extra awkward because people were confused why I was with the girls) and the girls went to the cafeteria to watch a video about the rules or something. I was at a table with two other girls that weren't talking and being respectful (Like I was doing) and the rest of the girls there were the ones that had laughed at me earlier. They were all talking. The entire table got sent back to the loud and crowded gym of boys who were playing games which the girls watched the rule presentation. I got on my phone because it was the last class of the day and literally everyone else was. The teachers never paid attentions anyway. I sadly ended up next to the rude and talkative girls who immediately started talking bad about me right in front of me as if I wasn't there. They were whispering and stuff while glaring at me. The leader of their group kept having to stand to whisper to them because she was one row ahead of her friends. Eventually, she got up again to say some more rude things about me behind my back and one of the girls next to me accused me of touching her. She immediately started going off on me despite me not even brushing her and I eventually broke down again and grabbed my stuff to leave. I was crying pretty bad and the whole girl group followed me. I got away but eventually got too scared to go back and switched schools. She wasn't punished because nothing worked on her I guess.