8 Easterly Ave, Auburn, NY 13021

The teaching staff is professionally unmotivated except for its focus on test results. We have returned to rote memory at the expense of student creativity and initiative. Timed testing pressurizes children, raising the level of anxiety for slower functioning students. Accuracy and enjoyment are sacrificed in some cases, notably in primary classes, for speed Too much instructional time is used for PTA fundraising. Teachers become hucksters for the PTA. Some families are not able to keep up, and children may be embarrassed because they cannot afford book fairs or plastic jump ropes etc...Private enterprises are exploiting students using school facilities. Academic tracking, and subsequent social tracking is loosely disguised as an "inclusion" structure(s). The principal's primary concern is security. Keeping parents away from the school, standing in the snow and rain waiting for their children, and, prohibiting attendance (e.g.at Christmas concerts) under the guise of making it easier on parents, and highlighting the concept that adults cannot be trusted. This is an unwanted but real side effect of a policy that focuses on security at the expense of building trust.