2201 W Ruffner St, Seattle, WA 98199

I echo almost everything someone wrote in a previous review (date Feb 2025). This school is not a healthy or functional place for elementary students to learn and grow - neither educationally or socially/emotionally. My child was attacked multiple times (several times in 1st grade and several times in 3rd grade), and the teachers/principal neglected to tell me about. The only reason I found out about what was happening in 1st grade was because the principal called me out of nowhere and told me they decided to move my child to a different class because they felt they could "handle moving classrooms better emotionally" than the other student. The other child stayed in the class. Basically, staff/teachers did whatever was easiest for them--not what was "right" under the circumstances. The physical attacks continued in 3rd grade, and, again, teachers and staff were aware of the problem and actively decided to ignore it. This time it was three students against my child, over a span of several months. My child's friends basically pulled me aside while they were over for a play-date one time and told me--without any prompting whatsoever--about what was happening during recess. I ended up having to contact the other kids' parents to talk to them (my suspicion was correct that the parents had no idea what their kids were doing). On top of physical safety issues, the learning environment is pure chaos. Every time I visited my child's class--from 1st through 4th grades--the room was loud, kids didn't listen, and the teachers appeared to just accept it. Teachers had to use microphones to demand attention from the students. The environment was so chaotic, I asked my child how anyone could focus on the schoolwork and the response was "it's almost impossible." Four years of seeing teachers unable to control their classroom suggested to me that this was unlikely a teacher-specific issue and was likely a product of the culture that the school administration fostered. Academics at MES are subpar, which is a nice way of putting it. The focus centers around the students with special needs--to the detriment of other students in the class. Instead of bringing the special needs students up to grade-level, the entire class/curriculum is tailored to the student with the most needs. I am not against having special needs students alongside students who do not fall into that category, but children's learning should not be stifled in order to cater to 1-2 students in the class.