40544 Emerald Ln
Clinton, MI 48038

I am a parent to a Chippewa Valley highschooler in the 9th grade center. We have been at Chippewa our entire school career. I find the principal at the 9th grade center condescending. His voicemails and correspondences exemplify he is used to interacting with 14 and 15 year old's all day. He has the tone of a disappointed teen but the attitude of a math teacher with a ruler. This location is set up for admin success not student. The students are not allowed to carry backpacks unless they are going from one building to another, and then they are required to be clear but they are still not allowed to carry them in the 9th grade center. They state this is due to "class room size" and there being not enough space, but what it means is students need to carry more things, or go to their lockers more and the tardy policies at this school are very strict and unrealistic. Working adults in the "real world" start meetings at whole times. 8:00 am, 1:00 pm, 2:30 pm. For some strange money driven reasons, the educational system has decided to have classes start at 7:12 or 1:13 pm?! As working professionals we don't even expect people to be on time to the minute. Doctors regularly run late, the government didn't even submit their budget for 2024 until three months into the year.. What "life skills" are we reinforcing by heightening stress and unreasonable expectations? A friend of my student recently said "non of our teachers care about us" and the others agreed. This school including the administrators has a very strange tone towards their students, like the students OWE them something. Meanwhile, students in this district were pulled out of their educational environments in 2020 and to ALL of our surprise when classes finally were back in session, students were NOT caught up, they were shuffled along! We sent the entire world home, told them to figure it out and teach themselves things w/working parents over Zooms and then you plucked them back in years later and have been guilting parents and students about our "performance" and "scores" and how "parents are the problem" I've been advocating for my student (and others) in this district since the come back from Covid, and it's not only fallen on deaf ears, but also on deaf hearts. Not even enough characters to mention the shooter drills, how we train students if they are in a hall during a lock down they are LOCKED out of the classroom and tell them to "stand on toilet seats" to hide. No wonder, no wonder.

It’s been a very negative experience from the office staff and principle telling my child they don’t care what he has to say to the social worker trying to talk us out of an IEP for 30 minutes saying it’s a disservice and how my child wouldn’t graduate like the average student. To my young nest somehow getting out of the school 3 times to them threatening to call the police because we refused for them to call a crisis unit due to their lack of supervision. They constantly get suspended or sent home when they don’t want to deal with them. The principle kept encouraging me to pull my son because he wasn’t ready for school and how it wasn’t legally required until he was 6. It truly has been a very negative and traumatic experience for my whole family. Both of my children have medically diagnosed issues & they did not care or take those into account.

It was amazing; the staff were so helpful, and I learned so much here. The counselors are amazing, and the school does so much to keep us safe.