219 Willow St
Shenandoah, TX 77384

We have had several kids attend Lamar and they have all had exceptional teachers each year, made solid friendships and have all done well academically moving forward.

The individual teachers range from excellent to fairly lackluster, but the reason for my poor rating is the absolute lack of perspective in the administration. During my Eighth (8) grade year, I was one of the ~10 victims of a very serious offense committed by another student. When I brought the incidents to the administration, they did punish the perpetrator, however; it was a punishment far below the minimum stated in the CISD Student Handbook. The perpetrator then later attempted to reframe a separate incident to look like I and another 2 students were “bullying” him, when, in fact; me and one of the other students were merely in the same room when the incident occurred, and the reason for the punishment they attempted to give me [2 days of In School Suspension (ISS)] was that I, “did not discourage [student who actually was responsible] from [doing what he did].”.In the end, we had to take the issue up with the superintendent, as the district’s disciplinary secretary said, and this is a direct quote, “I personally know [AP in charge of the incident], and I do not believe that he would punish anyone unfairly.”.Due to this whole fiasco, I was forced to serve a 1 hour after school detention, which was later struck from my record due to it being unfairly assigned.After the entire incident was resolved, my mother called my AP to inquire about the steps being taken to prevent a similar incident from occurring again. The only action taken was a stay-away agreement between me and the perpetrator. Nothing other action was taken.In conclusion, the school and teacher, for the most part, provide an excellent learning environment, but the administration’s failure to effectively address the misconduct that occurs on a regular basis certainly sours the experience of most students.This same AP who managed my case is also known throughout the student body for generally assigning harsher punishments to students of color.

Candy but no recess, bullying with physical violence with little to no reprisal, crazy disorganization with incorrect school supplies lists, a longer school day but with little to no extracurriculars, no study hall, overworked and underpaid teaching staff, no field trips, insane militant rules.... who could learn in an environment like this?? The only saving grace is orchestra. We are transferring out ASAP.

The counselor and most of the teachers completely disregarded my son’s 504 accommodations. My son failed English mostly due to the lack of his accommodations. I tried to call to sign him up for summer school, it went to voicemail. I left a voicemail asking the counselor to call me back so that I could set it up and my call was never returned. Because of this I switched him to another school.