3605 E Elm St
Van Buren, AR 72956

This school has been closed for over 16 years, it is now a parking lot for the football field.

I wish I could say my child had a better experience than she did but unfortunately that wasn’t the case, I feel the good teachers are very few and far between, my daughter was jumped by another student/group of girls more than once, her only defense was to run or a teacher help the situation or she would be in trouble and she was worried about her record and didn’t want to get in trouble so she unfortunately just tried to get away the best she could. I feel the learning for the most part would be considered lazy and they did everything on their own watching videos or going through steps alone on their computers. I have never left a review on any school in the past but I feel better steps should be taken by the school district to ensure the safety of students and the teachers are better trained to handle the type of situations that go on at Butterfield. Overall I would not recommend this school, we taught my daughter how to handle these situations but it wasn’t easy and sadly we had many sleepless nights over this school. Thankfully school choice is an option in Arkansas and I would highly recommend looking at other schools in the area!

If you happen to be a foster parent, your child already has a target on his back by school officials. One of my teenage boys was immediately placed in a special education class at Thicksten Education Center which is equivalent to a detention center without cells. He was placed there to get caught up on only One Subject. Yet he was there the entire school day. He was suspended for 3 days for disruptive behavior. When children aren’t given medication for ADHD it should be obvious that they won’t be focused. Administration should be more tolerant. Due to his suspension, he had to go to summer school where within 2 weeks, he passed. He didn’t have the distractions that he was exposed to, in the regular classroom. His teacher wrote me this which said in part… I am so proud of how hard he has worked! …the sheer quality of work that he has accomplished is impressive, but the quality of work is even more astounding. I asked her if she could give him a letter grade (School Policy is to submit Only PASS/FAIL) it would be a low A or a high B. After he was suspended, I told him to write a letter of apology. What he wrote was more than incredible. Yet the principle showed no emotion while reading it. He never apologized for his role that escalated the problem. When the principal told me what was said by my foster son, rather than to talk about in his office he chose to share the profanity in front of a female associate. Other teenaged foster sons also were suspended while attending the high school. Again, due to lack of proper medication or a misunderstanding of which I was told about it a meeting with a principal and a group of decision makers, who chose to upheld the suspension for the boys safety as well as the students. I have supported documentation of all that I shared here. So far, the Freshman Academy has shown no bias and I would rate them with 4 stars. When I had my adopted son had to forego soccer practice so he could get help in a class that he wasn’t doing well in, the soccer coach marked him absent for the week he didn’t attend. Presumably, I thought he would had been told by a school official. My son has reported the use of vapes at school. I brought it to the attention of a school official. I was told that nothing can be done. Bullying is also against school policy yet it happens in class rooms. I’m sure that their aren’t any perfect schools. That doesn’t bother me. Fairness Does.

My daughter has had several bad experience. She was so looking forward to ninth grade. She was totally disappointed. You can look me up to talk about a few incidents we have had their. I would place your child somewhere else for the year