41 E Macarthur Dr
Cottage Hills, IL 62018

A friend, who is a teacher at a different district, recommended we moved to this school district. My son had a speech impediment and fine motor skill delays. His original IEP, they could not figure out how intelligent he was, because he had a hard time getting one complete reply out. He has been at Bethalto East for 1-1/2 yrs of 1/2 day pre-k, Kindergarten, and now 1st grade. I recently came across his old IEP and was reminded of his struggles early on. He is a totally different child now. He no longer has an IEP and is blowing us and the teachers away with his grades. Last year I received a call from the school, my son was displaying disfluency issues and they started working to reinforce the techniques they had taught him. I was so impressed that they were monitoring him and being proactive. I cannot say enough about this school and district!!!! We loves the teachers and the Principal too.

As a whole they are unorganized. Students above freshman year do not even get their class schedules until the first day of school. They will not receive their laptops until the next week after school has started. These things need to be ready BEFORE the first day of school. How much instructional time is lost taking care of these "housekeeping" details? The school district also has several half days called "school improvement days". These are a waste of high schoolers' time! The students go to each class for 20 minutes! Really? Why bother even having school? NOTHING gets done on those half days. Sometimes they have an assembly and the students only attend each class for 10 minutes. All students have a small laptop which has all of their textbooks and class work on them, which is great for them but not so much for parents if you need to help your student. If the administration would get more organized this school would be better. The teachers are so awesome here and most of the students are very respectful! It's a shame that the people running the school and district seem to be unorganized and the decision-making isn't parent friendly. I say this because it's frustrating and costly for parents to have their Jr high and high school kids roaming the town eating lunch out on all those half days! Parents do not get any information on how to access their child's grades or lunch. You have to call them if you want any info and that's if you even know to call. It could be a top notch school but unfortunately it falls very short.

I like this school for my kids because they always find something new my daughter is going to Springfield for student council. I think this might be a big opportunity for her. Also my son is in art club and helps creat the school dance back drops.