420 E Oak St
Louisville, KY 40203

I'm am the class of 2020, in my 4 years at Atherton I've seen many things that stand out from other high schools. An overall feeling of unity among students, a school spirit that is crazy contagious, and a committed student body. But also in my 4 years at Atherton Dr. Aberli (the principal) wasn't present for my underclassmen years (9th&10th), and those years seemed to run much more smoothly than when he came back. We had a complete overhaul of the administration in 1 year. With one of the new assistant principals coming from my former middle school where she taught english. 3 new counselors with one of them only being at the school for one year. This overhaul was due to the fact of Dr. Aberli's return back to Atherton. In the two years that he has been "my principal" he rarely develops relationships with students, compared to the principal during my underclassmen years. Dr. Aberli as well has decided to invest over 1.5 million dollars into the academies which will benefit a small amount of student body. That 1.5 million will be used for 3 classrooms, which will destroy the history of our building. Atherton is a school that has received more and more interest as its name has grown and grown and this has made Atherton incredibly overcapacity. With not enough bathrooms for students, not adequate technological resources available for students and faculty, increasing issues with facilities, and an outright obvious additude toward the issues throughout the school by the administration. This school used to be THE school to go to, but more and more it's going down the drain because they've gone away from their roots. I hope that the time that you and/or your student spends at Atherton is beneficial as it has been for me, but I pray that the administration gets their head on straight.

Extremely lacking in all educational aspects across the board.

I'm only in the first day 7th grade so this opinion might well change, but I'll say it anyway. My 6th grade teachers were absolutely phenomenal and I would definitely take it again (21-22 class, in the Explorers team) given the chance. I cannot stress enough how great the teachers were. I wish Meyzeek did the same looping style as Highland Middle I don't really know what to feel about my 7th grade teachers, but thus far, they seem good enough - certainly very energetic and welcoming of the students, which brings me to my primary concern about the school. The teachers and staff are fine, given a few biased exceptions. What isn't so great is the students. You will encounter name-calling, fighting, and horseplay around every corner you turn. The staff are trying to proactively resolve this problem and do have security cameras in place to identify students involved in potentially more dangerous tussles. Not just this, but the restrooms. The restrooms appear pretty good in 6th grade, but once you move to 7th, the doors become very, very short. It's not that big of a deal, considering it's the case with a good number of other JCPS schools, but the difference is pretty shocking when you've become used to the "better" ones (a very broad term - it depends on what kind of bathroom shenanigans students decide to pull, leaving the poor janitor to clean it up. He deserves a raise.) The lunch food is the same as everywhere else, but if you've been eating school lunch for multiple years, you won't get the extreme bouts of food poisoning mentioned in other reviews (to my experience, at least). One newly introduced rule is the ban of hoodies and I feel that this is a step in the wrong direction, but certainly a good way to prevent people from wearing hoods so often - another problem in the school, albeit it doesn't mean much to students. The arrival and dismissal is generally pretty smooth. I don't think I have anything else to say, but one thing you should watch out for is lines. They're generally pretty chaotic, given there's not a teacher watching over them at all times.