4481 Elder Rd
Villa Ridge, MO 63089

The administrators, teachers, and staff of Coleman Elementary have a genuine interest in each student's well-being. There is a focus on building character as well as academics.

If your student is a regular kid and does not require any special education services, the school is o.k. Be prepared either way for little to no communication from anyone in the building. If your child has an IEP or a 504, this is the worst possible school/district for your child. IEPs are purposefully written very vaguely so that the staff can get away with providing some services one year and then not providing anything the following year. The special education staff is not well trained. My child eloped out of the building 9 times in 3 months. At one point, he had left the building an no one noticed he was gone for a full ten minutes. I was able to get someone from Easter Seals to voluntarily work with the school and provide free training on how to work with autistic children and they refused any type of training. My child was deliberatly set up to fail and denied his full service minutes for 7 weeks at least. He was failing multiple classes and the only reason why he didn't fail was because his father and I worked with him constantly each day. The administrative team did their best to try to remove my child from the building to a virtual setting without following due process. They implied that we as parents had no other choices and that the best solution was to remove the child from the building when in reality there were several options available that they didn't want to do. I know that my child was deliberately set up to fail because I was approached by a staff member in early June who began talking to me about how my child was not returning to school in the fall. I had thought at the time that the staff member had confused my child for another. However, school had not even been in session a week before there was a big push from admin and the staff to kick my child out of the school. The overall attitude from the district is that they will not do what is best for the child but what is cheapest for them. To put this into perspective so that readers don't think that my child is awful and needed to be isolated, I removed him to another public school entirely. Within 3 weeks, he no longer needed a para, requires fewer sped minutes, and is working independently on his school work. He has not eloped out of the building at all. All of the external therapists he works with have noticed that the behaviors they saw the last few years have disappeared. It makes a huge difference when the staff care and implement an IEP appropriately.

My daughter is a senior- she has attended the MVR-III district since 1st grade. She has ALWAYS been treated with respect, received assistance when needed and felt her education was a top priority! She is a currently dual enrolled student- has. 4.0 GPA and will receive her high school diploma and her associate degree in May- thanks to her hard work and the support of Pacific High School and the MVR- III District!

Riverbend is a wonder school with an experienced staff. The building is beautiful and inviting. A hidden gem in near St. Louis.