376 E RIDGE ST
UNIVERSAL, IN 47884

This is not a safe place. The halls are overcrowded. The classrooms are packed to the max. Students are stacked on top of each other. This isn’t a school. It’s more akin to herding cattle. The discipline is garbage. The students are hostile. The teachers are overwhelmed. Administration is unqualified, rude, dismissive, and awful. These are definitely roles being filled by way of nepotism and the fulfilling of favors. The previous superintendent served one year as a principal and then was immediately made superintendent. As principal he was unapologetically mean and overbearing. And then he sat with minimal positive influence for decades. It’s best that he’s gone, had all that time to make it better and didn’t. Definitely set his sights on higher things with no intent to do anything.

Terrible school. The amount of homework required for even kindergarten is ridiculous. This is not the way to solve your low test scores.

My kids enjoyed attending East Side Elementary. The principal finds ways to not only encourage good behavior, but celebrate the achievements of students whether they are big or small. They had teachers who cared about them and advocated for them. I knew that they would get remediation or enrichment based on their individual needs and that we would be able to work as a team for my child’s best interests. My kids were taught the state standards and adequately prepared for middle school. I would recommend East Side Elementary to anyone looking for a school that will not only teach their kids the skills they need, but who would also like to join a community that instills life skills, good values, and SOARs in all areas.

My daughter is a student here after coming out of head start preschool. I'm pleased that as a kindergartner she is bringing home papers from class showing they are learning nouns, pronouns and adjectives and adding and subtracting double digit numbers at such a young age.

The Best School In The Whole County ...

Great community involvement, did a project with a local business to improve some parts of the school (with painting), always looking to get the students and their families involved in the school.

Staunton is a such a great school in a small rural community. The teachers and principal care about the students greatly! I wouldn't want my children in any other school and the schools test scores show their hard work!

Our Van Buren experience has been a positive one. We transferred to VBE last school year. Both of our children still comment, randomly, how glad they are that they changed schools.The teachers are engaging and attentive to individual needs. Teachers are actively involved in family nights, STEM activities, and extra-curricular activities like Robotics, Mental Math and Student Council.The school is inviting and encourages parental involvement in the learning process and activities. The PTO is very active and is a great supporter of the teachers, staff, parents and students.VBE has demonstrated, to us, that they care about the student as a whole and not just the test scores that can be achieved. They build on character traits that every parent should hope their own children would possess and then recognize students weekly when they exemplify those assets in the classroom.VBE continues to be the school we would choose over and over again. Our only regret is that we did not start at VBE from the beginning.

Almost all teachers love the kids and always try their best to teach them. Also, the hate that it gets is from a couple of the actually bad teachers, but overall everything is nice and the education for everyone is awesome.