803 Balsamtree Dr
Capitol Heights, MD 20743

This school itself used to be great, until the principal hired staff that are like them. The staff either over talks your child, uses their power to a higher standard than it already is, they quiet your child into submission rather than hearing them out. They most importantly are passive aggressive or passive when it comes to students in general who don't cause that many problems. One of the staff stated to a girl, "If you didn't wear your shirt too tight, they wouldn't have done what they did to you." And some of the staff do be passive whenever a student is doing something disgusting to another student. They'd "Talk" to the wrong doer, and let them Scott free over and over. Want a suggestion? Dont bring your child to this school. The food is partially cooked, the school dress code only applies to students who have curvier body types. And their bias, so please, listen to the 1 reviews who are recent or close to the year your in. Do not send your kid here.

Robert Gray is an amazing school. The teachers are attentive and professional, and the staff do a great job of keeping the parents informed about events, and the Principal (Dr. Franklin) is an absolute All-Star in education! Both of my kids have thrived there and both math and reading.

This school is horrible. I pulled my child out after 3 months. I would ask my child on a daily basis, what did you do, what did you learn and I was always told nothing, the teachers don’t teach. They might give 5 minutes of instruction and the rest of the class was just free time. They expect the kids to teach themselves. During an open house tour they showed us slides of the school’s performance and they had a near 0% proficiency score in math. That’s a total failure of the school. They had fights on a daily basis. Kids fight for fun and target innocent students so they can record it on social media. The children also don’t know how to express themselves appropriately and deal with anger. They had a major teacher shortage for multiple subjects and the ones they did have don’t care about doing their jobs or about students. Teachers have little respect for the children and curse at them frequently. The administration either doesn’t care or is in denial. When I mentioned my concerns I was told that this is normal, we’re not that bad, we don’t have that many fights. Don’t expect anything to improve if the administrators can’t even acknowledge they have a serious problem and get defensive when you bring it up. They actually had the nerve to get mad at and blame parents who don’t volunteer their time to the PTA and help in the classrooms. Instead of hearing about real solutions and changes in their newsletters, families were constantly attacked for saying bad things about the school which they were in denial about, and for not volunteering their time to help with their “non problem”. Many parents work and have their own jobs which includes raising their children right (we hope) and are not getting paid to do the school’s job. I also didn’t like that fact that they punish the whole school every time a fight broke out or someone did something stupid, which was frequently. How does that make those that try to do good and follow the rules feel. My child said to me what’s the point of trying so hard to be good and do your best if we are just punished with all the rest. The students are never rewarded. You can’t miss what you never have and all they know is punishment which is not the same as discipline. It’s not effective. The main ones causing problems seek joy in hurting others. They could care less if you take something away from a whole group. The school is simply reinforcing the negative behavior while not supporting those with good behavior.