802 CRESCENT DR
Raleigh, NC

Most of the teachers and school counselors are great. Unfortunately, the members of the administration possess poor leadership and communication skills . The leadership style of the Principal could most easily be described as someone who is more focused on "clearing the inbox" than providing a collaborative environment for children, parents and staff. Our personal observation from the actions exhibited by the Principal were that of someone who's methodology was to use her current position as a stepping stone on a path to achieve a long term goal to be promoted to the central office as an Assistant Superintendent or similar role. It was clear her focus was not on educating but instead rising through the ranks as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the school administration as a whole seems to be a poorly matched team. We only had multiple personal dealings with one of the Assistant Principals however we quickly observed that both that Assistant Principal and the Principal had aversions to the truth in several instances. The administration pays a large amount of lip-service to the importance of being a "partner" with parents however we only observed contradictory behavior from them. Unfortunately for both the students and their families the current administrative team suffers from a lack of adequate leadership, the inability to accept responsibilities for mistakes made and poor judgement in decision making. The school itself has great facilities, a dedicated group of teachers who are clearly devoted to the success of their students and tremendous potential to become a credit to the Wake County system. However, a restructuring of leadership is the only way for this to successfully occur.

It breaks my heart to write this review. Our time at Joyner has stretched over many years. Joyner used to be a great school, very community oriented, warm, welcoming, and fun. My older child had a fantastic time there. But this isn’t the case anymore. A few years ago some redistricting occurred which brought in a large group of new kids. These kids have needs which clearly cannot/are not being met at Joyner. There are almost daily fights, angry and violent outbursts directed at staff and students, scary behavioral meltdowns - sometimes leading to EMS being called, horrible curse words are screamed during these events, fire alarms being pulled by students, etc. Most of the staff’s time and energy is spent dealing with this. At this point my child is mostly bored, working at a much lower level than her ability. She is doing a large amount of busy work which she believes is meant to keep kids occupied while the teachers deal with other situations. She is irritated, anxious, and sometimes afraid of the outbursts. The teachers are trying their best to deal with it. The resources are limited and the entire situation is sad. We are glad we got to be a part of Joyner at its best, but if we had to start now we would look for something different.

My daughter attended this school for four years and had good teachers. However, the counselor was not very helpful, so she had to seek assistance from a different counselor. The art teacher is wonderful. The school infrastructure needs updates, and there should be better communication with parents.