8179 TESSA Terrace E
Jacksonville, FL 32244

A very sweet school with a wonderful magnet program

It's really a heartbreak to send your kid to this place -- this is what we experienced in the one year we attended: numerous fights; bathrooms often closed; movement in the building so restricted during lunch that some kids couldn't really always get lunch; security guards made kids shake out their binders onto the floor in the hallway; an English teacher showed a highly inaccurate movie inspired by Beowulf instead of having kids read it (and the teacher oblivious that the film is way off); another teacher told kids that hurricanes in the Americas are created by the souls of enslaved people; my son would send me cell phone videos during class of multiple students just sleeping on their desks while the teacher was doing nothing. This place extinguished my son's interest in school. The name is being changed (which is great), but I hope the rest of the place can be improved for the general students. At the open house, all the principal talked about were the special tracks like early high school and the engineering program, which might not be so bad -- but what about the majority of the kids? We discovered that few of the more appealing course offerings were actually available.

To be completely honest, this school tried to keep me here (Ex-Student). The only reason im NOT there any more is because my FATHER HAD TO CALL THE SCHOOL TO GET THE PAPER WORK. They said it was done on May 26th, yet they never called nor e-mailed like they said that they did. I was bullied here, and got my money and items stolen, over 100$ worth. It is not safe for many people, considering there was also a threat that someone was going to shoot up the school. I would not recommend sending your child here. I only transferred recently to a different school. My experience here sucked. The school didn't do much to the issue i presented to them. I only trust a few people there. So please, either keep your child away or send them to a different school.