21150 N Tatum Blvd #2082
Phoenix, AZ 85050

We have had 3 kids go through and each has had a wonderful experience. Teachers & Staff work hard to get to know students.The school runs smoothly and the Admin couldn't be easier to work with. I would highly recommend Explorer Middle School.

As a recent graduate from Pinnacle I feel like this school has a lot to improve on. Most importantly, Pinnacle has one of the worst athletics programs. I say this as a student athlete. I played basketball all four years and faced discrimination from the head coach. During my time as a player many girls quit the team and the athletic administration never once checked in to see if the coach was being fair to players. The coach accepted multiple transfers and gave them the most playing time, prioritizing them over pre-exisitng players. My friends who used to play tennis also quit senior year because the new tennis coach was also biased and incompetent. There was also an incident with the baseball team this year where many of the seniors quit due to their coach's behavior. This leads me to say that Pinnacle has terrible oversight over its athletic programs. When I reached out regarding my situation to the head of athletics he simply said there was nothing he could do and that the matter had to be resolved by my parents, myself, and the coaches. Secondly, some teachers at Pinnacle are just terrible, there are many great teachers, but there are certain teachers who are on their phones the whole time and could care less about what they are teaching to their students. I had such an experience with the AP Bio teacher where my friends and I had to basically teach ourselves the whole course to prepare for the AP exam. The administration needs to do a way better job on supervising how teachers run their classes and checking if they are actually teaching or not. Thirdly, the bathrooms at school WERE NEVER open and it was so irritating because it was the administration's choice to keep only one bathroom open per building instead of two which they could easily have done. This took away from class time because you'd have to walk over to the other building to use the bathrooms sometimes. All in all, if it were up to me I would not attend this high school until they make some improvements regarding athletic and classroom supervision.

As a teacher myself in a different school district, I am so grateful for our Fireside Community. The school, families, and students all care for one another and they are a tight-knit group. Fireside provides my son the opportunity to be successful but also pushes him further into learning so he can one day decide what he wants to do with his future. Proud to be apart of Fireside Elementary School!