4534 SE Bakken Court
Pt Orchard, WA 98366

The teachers at Marcus Whitman Middle School mostly are very difficult to deal with. I say deal with because trying to work with them to help your student is a HUGE challenge. My boys have been attending this school now for two years and we're seriously considering pulling both boys out of school to do home schooling. I get that it's the pandemic and all and we're trying to learn via remote learning, but some of these teachers have ridiculous standards!! A 6th grade teacher that only allows SEVEN days to fix homework issues (unless it's turned in blank, in which case you get a big fat zero). As a parent, we aren't getting updates on our students for 2 weeks. At this point, the assignments can't be fixed regardless, so what's the point of the update?? These teachers are treating 6th graders (that are new to having multiple teachers mind you!!) like they are in college. Some teachers do care and are willing to help the 6th graders learn and work with the parent. These other teachers are ruining it for students though when they have such harsh rules and don't actually want to help the student or work with the parent. I actually had a teacher refuse to meet with me via zoom after my son's class and then gave me some longwinded answer that wasn't even addressing my question that I sent via email (because this teacher refused to meet via zoom with both my son and myself). I'll be taking a complaint to the school on Monday to show them how much communication I've had with just this one teacher (let alone the rest) and how much time I've had to spend communicating with her. I see now why many are doing homeschooling. It's just too frustrating trying to "work with" these teachers.

This school is a dropout factory. The district changes standards for graduation every other year making nearly impossible to graduate. Kids are harassed by the schools security guards who are heavy handed cornering kids in bathrooms and doing inappropriate searches even against district policy. My son was threatened by another student and the district did an investigation than damaged the police’s investigation which caused then perp to go in punished. If I had it to do over again I would have moved elsewhere.

We moved to hidden creek when my oldest son was in 4th grade. It was a very positive experience for all of us. My son has adhd and the teacher was very willing to work with us and let us know if she noticed him struggling. There has been great communication between teachers and parents. His fifth grade teachers went above and beyond to teach their students with experiences and not just text in a book. My oldest is now in middle school and our youngest is at hidden creek. The teachers have been amazing and all the staff I have interacted with have been nothing but amazing and seem to genuinely love and care for the students. My children have gained self confidence and the school staff encourage them to be self sufficient and also hold themselves accountable for their actions good or bad. We are military and getting ready to move again and I will very much miss this school.