485 Gardner Ave
Clawson, MI 48017

It seems like most teachers hate their job. Not one stand out teacher that seemed to excite or impress my kid. Very different than our last district. The classes are so behind other schools academically. No options for kids who need to be challenged, they have to get shipped out to CASA or dual enroll. My kid was so bored & not challenged at all. He was an A student in a harder, larger school district & then started getting B's & C's when he moved here because he was so disengaged & hated going to school all of a sudden. So many kids are behind & are super disruptive in class that little effort is put into daily lessons or getting control over the students. They have a punish all & not the individual mentality. They obsess over i-ready & don't spend near as much energy into teaching kids on a daily basis as they do over how important this stupid test is. Bullying is a HUGE issue here & the staff doesn't deal with it AT ALL. My son has witnessed a kid get punched nearly every day in the back in one of his classes (HARD) & the teacher doesn't do anything. Another child of mine witnessed an African American girl get called the n word repeatedly by another student & again, the administration did NOTHING. When the kids finally got sick of it & confronted the offender, THEY got into trouble, and the girl being called this name was just told to stay away from the offender. When things are reported to the administrators, nothing is ever resolved. You'll mostly just get attitude back. The athletics are ran by a "good 'ole boys club" & if you're not part of it, you'll be negatively impacted. The football coach is the worst. My kid LOVED football at our last district & flourished, but here, he felt torn down, unseen & defeated. I had to talk him out of quitting so many teams due to how bad the coach was. I am so ready to be done with this school district. I would NEVER have transferred here had I known it would be like this.

This school is great! Only if you are somewhat special to the staff or other kids and are somewhat special to them. The staff constantly picks favorites in all situations and jumps to unfair conclusions constantly. This is a great school to come to if you want to be harassed! Most of the kids here are rude, disrespectful, and unfiltered. The way they "investigate" situations is just sad. The teachers pick favorites and sides and are extremely rude. They don't care how much it is bothering the other student, they will still side with their favorites. No matter what situation it is they don't care at all. The staff also lies about situations to make them sound/ feel better about themselves. This school is unfair and needs to pay more attention to all the things that happen around the school. They will constantly preach about being against bullying, but they clearly can't resolve anything.

The sense of caring and community at Schalm is evident from the first time you meet with staff and parents there. Each child receives individual attention, and I feel like all of the staff - even the secretaries and janitors - know my child and genuinely care about him. My son improved a lot academically and in social-emotional skills during his DK year. I feel good about sending him to Schalm everyday!