538 NE 11th Ave
Gainesville, FL 32601

1/10 it is the WORST school in Alachua County Point Blank Period!!!!!

I currently go to this school and I don’t like it. There are fights almost daily and a lot of people don’t care about other’s education and are loud and annoying (even in the magnet program) which teachers don’t do much about. However, MOST teachers are great at their jobs and understanding. The band program is amazing though, we went to FSU for Prisim and it was amazing! The current band director is also very nice. A lot of people are really mean though. I don’t recommend going here

This place is just not for me. Maybe it was amazing back then, but it has really lost its touch with the rest of the world.. The community of kids in IB for the years that I was at this school was terrible. There were segregated friend groups and most of the kids were very competitive and judge mental towards you. Outside of school, a large amount of students across all grade levels in IB attended parties where drinking, smoking, and running away from the cops was normalized. I just didn’t feel safe at all in this community of students and I also didn’t feel like trying to sympathize with any of their foul actions and behaviors. It’s hard to be academically focused and maintain integrity here, even though they say we do. Students literally do everything for themselves or their friend groups. They don’t care how it affects you. They’ll just ruin your life and make you feel like your having an existential crisis. I’ve had good and bad experiences with the teachers. A lot of them may have a phD and be extremely overqualified for their field, and require you to call them “Dr. this,” however at the end of the day, they do not have the compassion or mindset to teach growing children. It is impossible to hold a logical conversation with them, which makes many students fear approaching them about their situations. If you want healthy amounts of sleep, enjoy having hobbies, or are having a hard time they just don’t care. They are also extremely unorganized. (Bless the last IB counselors heart - the terrible atmosphere probably caused her to ditch this place) I have lost my passion for reading, writing, math, and now, science. They are not forgiving at all if you have extracurriculars - it feels like they despise them and only care about work work work. Did I mention that the workload is overkill?? If you think about leaving this school, they’ll discourage you from doing so. They’ll tell you to “take anxiety meds” because it’s normal, it’s “just anxiety” after all (even if you’re on the verge of ending it all). If you’ve ever struggled to talk to an adult about something, don’t think these teachers are beyond those expectations. If we are truly “ramily,” we have an abusive family relationship. I will wait for the day students stop telling themselves “it will get better next year” because it is so deceiving. I am finally leaving, but my mental capacity is literally so drained.