56 Overlook Dr
Golf, IL 60029

I was in some of the special education (SPED) classes. The school was supposed to support SPED, but the program was a joke and didn’t teach me much. It felt like the school didn’t care about SPED at all. Because I had dyslexia, they put me in very low-level classes that didn’t match my actual abilities. If you weren’t in SPED, your education was perfectly adequate—but for students like me, it wasn’t.

Great school with access to a lot of resources for your child. Top-notch staff.

The academic program is very strong, and the school is well-organized. I would have given it a MUCH better rating if it were not for the teacher we had in the fifth grade. This is clearly a teacher who is in this for an easy paycheck with no sense of commitment to the children. The classroom was left with a sub once a week on a regular basis, and sometimes more, while the teacher habitually tended to personal matters, going so far at times to complain of fatigue to the children in her class because she had to get up "early" with her child. Even with the switch to e-learning, Zoom time was repeatedly rescheduled to accommodate the teacher’s various personal priorities, meaning even from her own kitchen table, she couldn’t manage to work during work hours. It comes down to her personal life constantly trumping her professional responsibilities, at the expense of the children assigned to her class. In the classroom, she lacked control, and many kids would work on their homework while she was reading aloud. Busy work seemed to take up half the day, along with endless screen time. Our child’s grades slipped for the first time in her academic record. This teacher also showed no interest or effort in helping the children socially—going so far as to not even encourage the children to welcome a student or help that child feel comfortable during the school day. She also regularly posted photos of the children in her classroom on a public Twitter account without parental consent. During the holidays, we were provided with a list of her favorite stores (Nordstrom) and her initials, should we wish to monogram anything for her, it would seem. At curriculum night, where working parents gave up their time to gather information for the year ahead, she used the time to give us a slideshow of her siblings and her parents. Had this not been our final year at Pleasant Ridge, we would have put our child in private school immediately, however, in fairness, this teacher is not a reflection of the quality of the school, but rather a shocking departure from it. Bare minimum seems to be her motto, and she doesn’t even try to fake anything more. It is unfortunate that the school board retains a teacher with this overwhelming lack of investment in her job and that our tax payer money supports her.

My son has been feeling suicidal due to his teachers putting so much stress on him, he is also being faced with racism. Teacher’s don’t care for the wellbeing of students. There’s no safety either, there’s gangs in that school that bully kids